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AI is reshaping how we work—and honestly, it’s happening fast. You’ve probably heard the saying, “You won’t be replaced by AI, but by someone using AI.” It’s already becoming true in many workplaces.
In this new world of constant change, one thing hasn’t changed: your company still needs high-performing employees to grow and thrive. When people are engaged, motivated, and aligned, performance takes care of itself. But if your team is struggling or disconnected, it won’t be long before it shows—in missed goals, low morale, and stalled growth.
That’s why improving employee performance isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a business essential.
In this article, we'll go over 9 functional strategies to improving employee performance.
Employee performance is a critical metric used to gauge an employee's ability to meet objectives and complete tasks within a specified timeframe. The quality and punctuality of their work determine whether employees are considered high or low performers.
Every organization has a vision, mission, and set of objectives it wishes to achieve.
If employee performance is not at par with the expectations of the organization, it can lead to missing important deadlines and the inability to complete projects on time. This in turn could affect profits, and possibly have an adverse effect on the brand's image, that may bring down the morale of the entire workforce.
Here are a few other reasons why employee performance is essential:
- Creates a Productive and Positive Work Environment: High performance fosters a positive atmosphere that can increase job satisfaction and motivation among team members.
- Excellent Way to Measure the Growth of Employees: Regular assessments of employee performance help track progress and identify opportunities for professional development.
- Makes Achieving Company Goals Easier: A workforce performing at its best is instrumental in pushing the company towards its strategic objectives efficiently and effectively.
Measuring employee performance should begin by first identifying a few key performance metrics that will help you evaluate and measure how effectively your employees are working to achieve their goals.
Here are a few metrics you can take note of, to more or less have a fair assumption of how well your employees are performing, as there is no such right way to measure performance.
- Levels of Engagement - The more engaged an employee is, the more likely are they to perform better.
- Work Efficiency - The amount of work an employee can do in a given amount of time.
- Absenteeism - A high absenteeism rate could signal a number of problems like low motivation or poor engagement. A low absenteeism rate however, says more about an employee - they're more happy at work and are motivated. All these are underlying factors that contribute to an employees' performance.
- Time Management - Employees with good time management skills can get things done quickly and meet their goals on time.
- Teamwork - An effective team player communicates well, collaborated effectively, and commits to achieving team goals. These are all signs of a high-performer.
- Quality of Work - The quality of work can be measures by its correctness, usefulness, and by accurate it is. Some of the key attributes of quality work are attention to detail, adherence to regulations, and customer satisfaction.
Once you've determined what you want to set as performance metrics, you can proceed to a few performance evaluation methods of your choice.
Performance Evaluation Methods
Performance evaluation isn’t just about checking boxes or running an annual review. It’s about using the right methods to understand how your employees are performing, what’s working, and where there’s room to grow.
Here are some of the most effective evaluation methods you can use:
1. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
OKRs aren’t just goal-setting tools—they’re powerful performance evaluation frameworks. You define clear objectives and measurable key results, then track progress regularly. This method helps evaluate performance based on outcomes, not just effort. It also brings clarity to roles, improves accountability, and keeps teams aligned with business goals.
2. Skill Gap Analysis
This method evaluates how well your employees' current skills match the ones needed for their roles. You assess each team member’s strengths and gaps using skill assessments, performance data, or manager input. It helps you spot underperformance caused by capability mismatches—and guides training efforts to fix them.
3. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
While often used to measure engagement, eNPS is also a valuable performance indicator.
When eNPS drops, it’s often tied to team dynamics, leadership quality, or workload issues. Use it to evaluate the overall employee experience—and to uncover performance blockers hiding beneath the surface.
4. Feedback from Customers and Co-Workers
Sometimes, the best insights come from the people employees work with every day. Collecting anonymous feedback from peers and customers gives you a fuller view of how an employee is perceived—across communication, collaboration, and customer impact. It’s a helpful way to balance out manager-only reviews.
5. 9-Box Grid
This is a structured method for evaluating both performance and potential. You place employees on a 3x3 grid based on how well they’re performing today and how ready they are for future growth. It’s great for identifying high-potential talent, building succession plans, and spotting who needs more support or development.
6. 360 Performance Reviews
This method gathers feedback from multiple sources—peers, direct reports, managers, and sometimes clients. It gives a complete view of an employee’s strengths, blind spots, and leadership traits. When done right, it helps you evaluate performance more fairly and support well-rounded development.
Improving employee performance is not just about identifying areas for improvement but also about actively engaging with your team to boost productivity and satisfaction.
Here’s a detailed step-by-step method to effectively enhance employee performance in your organization.
1. Set Clear Goals and Performance Expectations
Start by clearly defining what successful performance looks like for each role within your organization.
To do that, you'll need to set goals for each department. These goals can help you track your employees' progress regularly and measure their accountability.
Two popular goal management approaches can help you accomplish that.
- SMART Goals, and
- Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
For team managers: Consider planning and communicating a few performance goals to your employees.
Communicate these standards and goals to your employees clearly and effectively. Ensure each team member understands their individual objectives and how these contribute to the organization's overall goals.
This is one aspect that keeps your employees engaged, driven, and aligned to the company's objectives. It will also keep their performance in-par with your expectations.
2. Identify the Root Causes of Performance Issues and Work on Solving them
Is it lack of necessary tools and resources that are limiting them from performing their tasks efficiently? Or is it due to lack of motivation, and poor pay?
There could be several underlying factors that you may miss.
To identify them, you can start collecting feedback from your employees either through employee engagement surveys, pulse surveys, town hall meetings, and one-on-one discussions.
The insights that you get from this can help you look deeper into the issues your employees could possibly be facing, and you can then work on resolving them. When people feel heard, they tend to perform better.
If it is a skill gap, you can consider performing a skills gap assessment or conducting a 360-performance review for each employee to identify any gaps between their current capabilities and the skills required to achieve their goals. This assessment will guide your training and development plans.
Based on the skills gap analysis, develop targeted training programs to address deficiencies. These programs will help employees enhance their skills and competencies in a way that aligns with their roles.
With this, you can find a clear career path, and
3. Provide Training Opportunities
Training and development programs help employees build the skills they need to do their jobs well and grow in their careers.
These programs can include things like workshops, online courses, or learning by doing on the job. When companies invest in training, employees feel more motivated and supported. It also encourages learning, which helps people stay creative and flexible as work keeps changing.
Programs work best when they match both the company’s goals and the employee’s personal growth. Mentoring and learning from other departments also help teams work better together and share knowledge. In the long run, training programs don’t just improve individual skills—they make the whole company stronger.
4. Fix Communication Gaps
Poor communication can slow down even the best teams.
When people don’t talk to each other—or worse, work in silos—mistakes happen, projects stall, and frustration builds. That’s why clear, consistent communication is key to better performance.
Start by checking if your employees have the tools and channels they need to talk and work together.
Are they stuck switching between five platforms?
Are updates getting lost in email threads?
Fix that first. Whether it’s chat tools, project trackers, or regular team check-ins—make sure everyone’s on the same page.
Good communication helps teams move faster, avoid confusion, and stay aligned with the bigger goals.
5. Continuous Monitoring
One essential aspect of improving performance and maintaining it, is for managers to monitor their employees' performance continuously.
Check-ins and 9-box grid are good performance evaluation methods to assess employee performance.
The 9-box grid categorizes employees on their current performance and potential; and proves handy in identifying poor-performers and potential leaders.
6. Keep Realistic Deadlines
Every goal needs a deadline—but not every deadline needs to be a race. Setting realistic timeframes helps employees plan their work, stay focused, and avoid burnout. That’s why many teams follow the SMART goal framework, which includes setting time-bound objectives that feel achievable.
That said, some managers choose to raise the bar by setting moonshot goals—ambitious targets that push people to go beyond the usual. When done right, these stretch goals can spark energy, boost motivation, and unlock new levels of performance.
The key? Balance. Set deadlines that are realistic enough to keep things grounded, but bold enough to inspire people to do their best work.
7. Allot Remote Work Options
Offering your employees flexibility in work arrangements, helps them balance their work and personal life effectively. This flexibility leads to improved productivity, happiness, and job satisfaction.
According to research by Owl Labs and Global Workspace Analytics, 74% of employees feel happier when employees work remotely.
This might seem counter-intuitive, but research shows that remote workers are 35-40% more productive than employees who work on-site. So if the roles allow it, consider offering a couple of 'work from home' options each month.
8. Avoid Micromanagement
Micromanagement does more harm than good. While it often comes from a place of wanting to help or maintain control, it usually ends up making employees feel distrusted, frustrated, and less confident in their work. And over time? It can kill performance, creativity, and morale.
Instead of hovering, focus on setting clear expectations, providing the right tools, and giving your team the space to do their jobs. Trust doesn’t mean hands-off—it means being available for support without constantly checking in or second-guessing their every move.
🚩 Common Signs of Micromanagement
- Constantly asking for updates or status reports
- Rechecking or redoing work that’s already been approved
- Not delegating meaningful tasks or decisions
- Giving overly detailed instructions for even simple jobs
- Correcting small, non-critical mistakes instead of coaching through them
- Employees seem disengaged, anxious, or afraid to take initiative
To improve employee performance, start by building trust. Let your team take ownership. Mistakes might happen—but so will growth, innovation, and better outcomes.
9. Recognize and Celebrate Achievements and Milestones
Create a recognition and rewards system that celebrates employees who meet—or exceed—their performance goals. This could include bonuses, public shoutouts, career growth opportunities, or even simple thank-you messages. The goal is to make people feel seen and valued.
When you take the time to celebrate wins—whether it’s hitting a sales target, completing a project ahead of schedule, or reaching a personal milestone—you boost morale and motivation across the board. Recognizing good work increases the chances of that good work happening again.
Celebrating milestones also strengthens team bonds and builds a culture of appreciation. It sends a clear message: “Your work matters.” And when employees feel valued, they’re more likely to stay loyal, engaged, and high-performing.
Before you try to fix performance issues, it helps to understand what’s causing them. Poor performance usually isn’t about laziness—it’s often tied to deeper problems in the environment, leadership, or expectations. Here are some of the most common reasons:
1. Lack of Clear Goals
When employees don’t know what’s expected of them, it’s hard for them to stay focused or motivated. Vague or shifting goals lead to confusion and wasted effort.
2. Poor Communication
Unclear instructions, missed updates, or lack of feedback can cause mistakes, delays, and frustration. Teams can’t perform well if they’re not on the same page.
3. Limited Resources or Tools
Even top performers struggle without the right tools, systems, or training. If the basics aren’t in place, performance will suffer.
4. Micromanagement
Too much control can make employees feel like they’re not trusted. This kills creativity and confidence, and often leads to disengagement.
5. Low Recognition or Motivation
If no one notices the effort, motivation drops. People need to feel that their work matters—and that great work is appreciated.
6. Personal or Workplace Stress
High pressure, burnout, or personal issues outside of work can all impact focus and performance. A healthy environment supports people, not just productivity.
7. Skill Gaps
Sometimes, the role has outgrown the employee—or the employee hasn’t been given the chance to upskill. Regular development and coaching can fix this.
How ThriveSparrow Can Be a Solution
In the quest to enhance organizational performance, having a robust tool that streamlines and strengthens various performance management strategies is crucial.
ThriveSparrow can serve as a solution to improving your employees' performance the data-driven way.
Individual Performance Review Reports: ThriveSparrow collates feedback from 360-reviews and organizes the responses into an easy-to-visualize reports. It generates reports on various performance metrics to analyze patterns and outcomes.
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GAP Analysis: Get a detailed analysis of employee skill gaps explained well on a radar chart.
AI-based PDPs: Create personal development plans for multiple employees with ease and instantly with the help of AI, saving you both time and effort.
Infer AI: ThriveSparrow’s AI-based engagement and performance analytics tool identifies trends, flags areas of concern, and turns survey results into clear, actionable insights—helping you act fast and make smarter decisions.
Experience all this live with a free demo. Book yours today.
