Every company strives to create a culture where high performance is the norm. The best way to get an edge in today's market is to have your company give 110% when everyone else gives 100%. The tricky part of achieving this production level is motivating workers to go above and beyond. There is a monstrous amount of research that’s been done on productivity and the ways to improve it; our system of benefits has blossomed as a result of companies wanting to increase productivity by retaining top talent. When looking to create a productive work environment, companies often overlook their culture in favor of direct methods like payment incentives. The culture that people work in, however, can often be just as important as their pay. 

Clear Vision & Shared Purpose

Attracting and retaining top talent is no mean feat. A primary method to accomplish this goal is to make the work feel meaningful. You can do this by creating a shared vision. A big-picture goal for your team will help them work with greater intention, no matter the goal. When the team knows what they’re aiming at, they can do a lot of legwork around connecting their current task to that big-picture goal. For example, imagine that a team is doing a cost analysis of the company’s benefits program. They’re trying to see which benefits are being utilized and should continue to be offered, and which have seen less use and may need to be re-evaluated. A team that knows the end goal and the purpose of the operation will find much more success and motivation than a team that’s clicking through statistics on who goes to the dentist and who doesn’t. Simply knowing the end goal is all it can take some time to get a team aligned and motivated.

Purpose-Driven Culture

This purpose that your team aligns with doesn’t necessarily have to be the goal they’re working towards. Oftentimes, the company’s purpose can work exceedingly well for this function. A non-profit might have a mission so profound that the entirety of its employee base is motivated just to accomplish that one goal. Likewise, teams can find motivation in a company’s values or the social impact they’re having. In these cases, it’s important for a team member or manager to step up and draw a connection between the daily work being done by the team and the value that drives them.

Continuous Learning & Growth Opportunities

Another facet of attracting high-performing teams is to continuously push for improvement. One aspect of top-performing teams that is often overlooked is their tendency to stagnate. If the work being done by your team doesn’t change, high performing team members may eventually grow bored and in some cases leave the company. To prevent this, it’s important to offer opportunities for continuous growth.

Foster Development

Growth is a challenge to foster and maintain in most scenarios. Oftentimes, there are repetitive tasks that need to be done over and over again as part of a job. When someone has been doing those tasks for five or ten years, it’s easy to understand why they might feel stagnant. The primary way that companies prevent this stagnation is by offering promotions to senior employees. This works both as recognition for all they’ve done and adds a few extra things for them to work on. Other options include additional training as a way to help employees continue to learn, or opportunities to teach new employees the tasks they’ve mastered.

Encourage Feedback

An important part of creating a culture of continuous development is feedback. It’s hard for an employee to know how well they’re doing in most cases if they aren’t given feedback on their work. Feedback is another way to provide avenues for improvement. It’s also a great way to provide recognition for a job well done, especially if that positive feedback is given publicly. Like a company’s purpose might motivate a team, individual feedback might motivate a worker. If everyone on the team receives a piece of motivating feedback, you’ll find yourself with a motivated and high-performing team.

Collaborative Environment

When creating a culture to improve team performance, it’s important to recognize the distinction between collaboration and competition. Competition in a team, while arguably good in small doses, does not work in the long run. Pitting team members against each other is practically the opposite of teamwork. Rather than trying to motivate results through competition, foster a culture of collaboration. 

The Flavors Of Collaboration

Collaboration takes many shapes and forms, but most commonly people think of it as having multiple people working towards the same objective. A shared goal will likely help people work together, but it isn’t the most effective way to create an aligned team. Collaboration is at its most effective when people are working in their niche, rather than having everyone on a team trying to do everything. Let people do the task that they excel at, the task that speaks to them, and allow the collaboration to come in the culmination of those parts rather than the assimilation of them.

Leadership & Management Styles

An often overlooked part of any team is the management around that team. It’s easy to see a team struggling and not even think about the manager, simply because they’re in their own office on the other side of the building. In some cases, the manager doesn’t feel like part of the team, and it’s in these cases where teams often struggle the most.

Aligning The Team As A Leader

The team manager or team leader is the most important part of the team. While alignment can happen naturally, it’s a lot more effective to let someone be responsible for that alignment. The team lead knows what the team is working towards, so it is often up to them to share that information with the team. A good leader will be able to use that information to not only motivate the team but also inform them of how their work should be done in that particular scenario.

Adaptable Leadership

Another crucial part of leading a team is adaptability. Everyone works differently and everyone learns differently. There’s no one-size-fits-all leadership style. Thus, a good leader is adaptable and able to tailor their leadership style to the individual or team that they’re working with. Whether it’s providing more direct support or leaving the team alone to do their thing, every team needs a different leader. It’s a mark of a good leader that they can be a different leader for each team based on their needs.

Attracting High-Performers

All of this work on creating a high-performing team will go to waste if you aren’t able to attract top talent. A team is built of its composite parts, so it’s important to ensure that every person on your team is someone you trust to be a high-performer. At Premier, we’ve done a lot of the legwork for you already. Our handpicked and vetted talent pool has a wide selection of high-performing individuals across industries. Learn more about how Premier can be a part of your culture by handling the talent sourcing for your company.