Many executives and managers are wondering about the recovery. How can they do this even though the results on objectives have been impacted?
Put your company's core mission, vision and values back at the heart of the conversation. This is the time to remind yourself of your OKR objectives. Lean on innovative digital tools to give more impact to your messages (Klaxoon, Trello, Teams, Slack, etc.). Organize brainstorming sessions and distribute positive messages and content.
Review current results against initial goals and against N-1. Try to anticipate future results with your teams in the short/medium/long term. Take the time to debrief individually and measure the extent of the situation for each employee (does this crisis have a strong, moderate or weak impact on their activity and on what scale: is it a priority?)
Annual objectives should be redefined in a general and/or individual way depending on the impact. Use the S.M.A.R.T. method to keep objectives achievable, otherwise you risk demotivating your employees. You can also use the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) method used by Google, which consists in defining quarterly objectives shared throughout the organization. More difficult to achieve but with a completion rate of 60 or 70% considered as very good work. These objectives must be limited in number to ensure a certain concentration of effort on them and must be tracked and measured (key results).
Whatever method you choose, we advise you to involve your employees in the definition of these objectives, which will increase their involvement and communicate about these objectives in a regular and relevant manner
Launch a new action plan always in co-construction with your managers or your employees. How are we going to do it? What tasks must we implement in order to achieve our Key Results and therefore our quarterly and annual objectives? How will we monitor and evaluate their achievement? Peter Drucker, nicknamed by some the "Pope of Management" said: "Management by objectives is effective if you know the objectives. But 90% of the time you don't know them. So think about the tools you will use to make these objectives known and to evaluate their progress in real time in order to prevent potential problems and agree on future actions.
More than ever, you need to mobilize your team. Think about organizing a kick-off on the day of the total restart of the activity in order to generate positive energy and clarify the roles of each person in the realization of the "mission". This moment is essential to reinforce the feeling of belonging of your employees and to create a collective dynamic.
"You can't manage effectively what you don't measure," says Peter Drucker. Depending on the type of objectives, it is necessary to monitor, evaluate and communicate as regularly as possible on the progress of each indicator, whether collective or individual. This must be prepared in advance and must allow for a review of successes/failures, strengths/weaknesses, and lead to the definition of areas for improvement if necessary.
Providing a compensation when the objectives are reached is an effective motivation lever. This can take the form of a bonus, gifts, travel, team events, but also by making a donation to an association. The interest is of course to boost the involvement of your teams but also to show them that you are aware of the efforts that have been made by thanking them.
Although there is no shortage of opportunities to celebrate a team's success, too few managers take the time to do so. Yet, celebrating builds self-esteem and well-being in the team by activating the areas of the brain responsible for the feeling of pleasure. The feeling of pride after a job well done is an essential factor of motivation. Employees whose efforts are recognized are more invested, more efficient and more creative.
