Factors to Improve upon Performance

In real life and in business environment, every individual is required to work optimally and it is in the interest of all - the person him/herself, the employer and the society as a whole. It means getting the best from the human resource. One very effective way of achieving this is to keep on providing regular feedback on the performances of individuals. In a business organization, this feed may be provided by the managers while in our homes, elders may provide feedback to youngsters.

Every individual has a heartily desire to do his/her best always to derive maximum results from his performances. But he/she fails to do that for the following four contributing factors listed below.

1.      Resources :  Every performer needs resources such as knowledge and experience of the work, and tools and tackles needed for working. For knowledge of the work, the person must get training in the field of his/her work, while for experience, the performer must get it through on the job practice. In this, role of a supervisor is underlined in finding what type of training a person needs and then guide him/her during on the job practice. This demands the supervisor to be an expert – experienced on the job. Tools and tackles for working are as important as hands of the performer for working. These not only strengthen hands of the performer, but also provide convenience, speed and precision to the performance.

2.      Incentive : When there is no clear-cut incentive for the person for doing his/her best, he/she may hurry up the thing to avoid hardness of work and to get rid of the job to enjoy free moments. Although, a good performer does his/her job faster than others and finds time to relax in between his/her working. Secondly, every good performance has its built-in rewards for the performer in the form of his/her own contentment but this is not recognized by all the persons. Therefore, need of some tangible and visible incentives become necessary.   

3.      Work Culture : A place where quality of work is not appreciated, performances go on deteriorating making a bad work-culture of the place. In such an environment, even a good performer becomes a bad performer in due course of time. Conversely, a healthy work culture of a place makes all performers to do their best through learning and getting inspirations from each other. Discipline is the essence for developing a healthy work culture.

4.      Feedback : Often a performer fails to find deficiency in his/her own performance and that is where role of a supervisor comes into play, to keep watch on the performance and providing feedback to the performer – positive to boost the latter’s morale and negative to make the performance free from deficiencies. In a negative feedback, public reprimanding of the performer must be avoided not to hurt his/her honor and self-esteem. 

Out of the four factors enumerated above, feedback plays the most important role in improving performance of a person. For a performer, faster the feedback he/she gets, more the improvement in his/her performances he/she achieves.

These performance factors are not only applicable to business places but also to all other places where performances matter, such as schools and even homes. At schools, the students are the performers while the teachers play supervisory roles. At homes, children’s performances need be supervised by their respective parents.