Silas Callahan’s Post

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Project Manager at DOWL

Maximizing Employee Performance and Efficiency Maximizing Employee performance and efficiency is fundamental for a companies performance, especially in the AEC space.  We do not create products, we create technical deliverables produced from people’s creativity, education, experience and technical skills.  As such, having people function at their peak is how a company competes and wins work.  But how do you optimize performance and efficiency?  I believe it comes down to the following five factors: • Moral and emotional support • Communication • Education • Training • Equipment Moral and emotional support is first in the list for a reason.  It is the foundation which performance and efficiency is built on.  It is as simple as happy employees being effective employees.  People are happy to work hard for managers that are supportive and lead by example. Communication is next.  If a manager is not communicating performance goals, staff may not know how they are performing.  This can be a difficult conversion but needed.  AEC is a business and the reality of business is performance.  If staff is experiencing a performance deficiency, the reason for it needs to be discussed directly with the team member and plan developed to improve performance. Education and training are critical to efficiency.  Education and training are frequently viewed as the same but are distinctly different with frequent overlaps.  Education is a general knowledge obtained from self study or formal education.  Training is focused to a specific task that relies on education, but is learned from practice and experience.  Without education, training may take much longer or may be wasted entirely.  Without training, the specific skills needed to succeed in this industry are spotty and inefficient.  Make sure your team gets both the needed education and training. Last on the list is equipment.  This is a perpetual weakness I’ve encountered with every company I’ve worked for.  Assuming all other factors of employee performance and efficiency are met, you will have a skilled, educated, hardworking team reliant on the equipment provided to them for their use.  More often than not, equipment, primarily workstation, are selected and purchased by staff that do not perform the technical work performed by engineers and designers.  They do not understand the frustrations of poorly functioning machines and demoralizing effect I’ve seen from unsatisfactory equipment that is destroying a team members performance.  This is an instance where spending an extra $3,000 on equipment will earn an additional $10,000 over a year.  There is also a clear connection to moral, as people provided with great equipment have a clear sense of the company caring about them.  Point being, part a bit extra to get your team the monitor and workstation setup so they can be top performers.

Kendall Gee PMP

Chief Risk Officer (CRO) at DOWL

9mo

Good stuff!

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