7 Sure Ways to Enhance Employee Performance for Online Businesses

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Online businesses tend to run on two key resources; workforce and money. Many online companies kick off smaller than large-scale physical businesses and rely on the human power of their number of staff to keep the business running effectively. 

But what happens when team members are failing to meet their deadlines, finding it difficult to meet their targets, or not even showing interest in their work at all? You find team members that were once enthusiastic about working lacking the drive to produce any results. 

The solution is not to lay them off or hire new staff; members of your team need to be watered so that you can revive them again. Perhaps they are suffering burnout, exhaustion, or facing challenges with their work tools.

Your goal should be to pinpoint the cause of their poor performance and work towards fixing the challenge to help enhance their performance. This article will show you how you can tackle these challenges to ensure employee performance is improved.

Causes of employee underperformance

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To understand how to improve employee performance, you must first know why your employees are performing poorly. Check through this list to match the causes of poor performance with patterns you have observed with your employees. 

  1. Feeling underpaid

Many workers perform poorly because they feel they are being underpaid or that their pay has been stagnant for a long time. Every worker likes to feel valued and that their contribution to the company should count for something. 

If your worker is starting to feel like they are not being paid their worth, they start to put in less effort at work which may lead to poor performance. With the stress of not meeting up with their bill payments and other realities of life, the zeal to put in their best is just not there. 

  1. Little to no career growth

Stagnancy in a job environment is bad for both employees and businesses. If none of your employees is due for a promotion after working with you for a period, there is something wrong. 

Similarly, when employees feel like they have been in a position for too long without any chance at growing or promotion to look forward to, they value the job less and start to look elsewhere for career growth. 

  1. Lack of resources

In business, money and other related resources are the lubricants of the company. It makes work processes and activities flow smoothly without the need for complaints. However, when your employees have to struggle hard to manage monetary resources and other tools needed to do their job efficiently, they lose their zeal. 

As an online business, many of your work processes, such as digital marketing, consume a good amount of money. Running campaigns and online advertisements require capital and the necessary tools to do a good job. 

Without these available, your employees will only do what they can with what’s available, leading to underperformance in carrying out their duties.

  1. Feeling unappreciated

When last did you tell your employee how much you appreciate them? How do you show that you appreciate your employees? Employers often forget that their employees are human too, and they deserve some form of appreciation. 

Gifts as little as free tickets to see a movie or a cup of coffee can mean a lot to an employee. If your employee feels like the company does not appreciate their services, then they may perform poorly. 

  1. No motivation

Employees sometimes need a pack leader to give them a little extra push. They just lack that drive to put in their best, and with nobody nudging them to work harder or be better, they are comfortable being mediocre. 

This mediocrity is what causes them to produce below-bar results.

  1. Little to no skill

Sometimes, poor performance can simply be because the employee is not well-trained enough to do a better job. If your employee lacks the skill they need to do better at a job, expecting a good performance from them is like expecting them to work magic. 

If they don’t have it, they simply cannot produce it. 

Scaling your online business via improved employee performance

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When employees put in the work and do their job to the best of their abilities, it causes an upward shift in the business output. Ready to scale your online business? Try out these employee performance improvement tactics. 

Keep your employees engaged

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When employees are engaged, they work towards the success of your company. Employees that are left to their own devices will often have little to no results to show for it. Engaged employees are happier, more productive, and eager to work. 

By presenting them with new challenges and exciting projects to work on, they stay on top of their game to produce excellent results. 

Employee engagement examples like team collaborations, personal projects, team-building exercises, and many more, keep employees passionate about what they do. 

This spurs work productivity and improved performance, which leads to customer satisfaction. 

Delegate responsibilities

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Employers tend to shift their focus and attention to an employee that is performing extraordinarily well, leaving the rest of the team feeling left out. They task this employee with responsibilities that two or three team members should typically be responsible for. 

In other cases, employees are at a loss as to what their specific roles and responsibilities in the office are, leading to a lack of productivity. A good way to enhance performance is to delegate clear roles and responsibilities to different team members. 

This way, members of the team feel useful and wanted in the organization. Splitting up responsibility also mean things get done faster and more effectively.

Introduce rewards and recognition schemes

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When an employee does something worthy of note, reward them. Some employees have shown up to work on time every workday over the past ten years. While this might seem like the right thing for all employees to do, not all of them have shown such consistency over the same period. 

Reward the ones that have shown consistency to spur other members of the team to do better. Encourage consistency as a value that is great for online business relations. When employees see that doing a great job comes with perks and benefits, they find the zeal to show up to work with their best attitude. 

Implement training sessions

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Underperformance can stem from the lack of skill to perform better in that position. What your team may need is a training session that will help to improve their skill. Perhaps you have recently changed some digital processes? Changed some digital tools they have always used for work?

Without proper training on how to use these tools, chances are that they would need a while to catch up to speed to bring their A-game on the job. With necessary training sessions to equip them with the knowledge they need to perform, you will boost employee performance greatly.

Encourage employee feedback

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Just like you urge your customers to send you feedback about your products or services for your online business, your employees should also get an outlet for feedback. You can do this through online feedback platforms like Google Forms, JotForm, SurveyMonkey, and other similar platforms. 

Encourage employees to air their opinions, concerns, or complaints about work processes and practices. This way, you can find their pain points and know how to improve and enhance their work experience. 

Something as simple as changing your employees’ broadband service can help improve their performance at work.

Prioritize employee wellbeing

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A healthy body and mind make a wholesome employee. Make out time for employee wellbeing to improve workplace productivity by setting aside wellness days. On these days, employees must destress, relax, and unwind to help them declutter their minds and prep them for work.

When they have their head in the game, they can crush deadlines, meet targets, attend to clients politely and promptly. 

Ensure payment satisfaction

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If your employees are starting to complain about their pay, it may be time for a salary review. A good way to pay your employees what they’re worth is to compare salaries for each position on salary review sites like Indeed or Glassdoor

This way, you can make a better, informed decision about how much your employees should earn and how you can review their pay to measure up. Well-paid employees are happier and more eager to work than when they feel underpaid. 

This helps to improve employee performance in the long run.  

Conclusion 

You can effectively grow your team’s performance without micromanaging them and constantly pushing them to work. Changing a few workplace practices can cause a drastic change in your employee performance, leading to a boost in your online business. 

Keep your employees engaged during work hours and delegate responsibilities as appropriate. Also, remember to appreciate them and encourage them to give feedback. With this, you can get accurate information about how you can improve their work experience. 

Enhancing your employees’ performance is beneficial for the company as well as your employees.