Five ways to get the most out of your staff in 2016

With only a few weeks away until 2016 begins it's natural to start thinking about the New Year and, in the HR world, the challenges that employers will face when it comes to maximising the performance of their people in the year ahead.

Based on conversations with clients and reflection on the wider trends in HR, here are the five common areas where I think organisations will need to focus on in the year ahead.

1) Employee experience – get digital

Today it is only a minority of people who don’t bank, shop and manage their lives online.

That experience is marked out by easy-to-use apps and portals which work effectively on any device. When it comes to managing reward, benefits, recognition and employee incentives, many employers offer an antiquated patchwork of clunky technology and paper-based benefits.

Organisations who fail to put digital at the heart of this important part of employee experience aren’t just failing to maximise investment in benefits and reward but also risk falling behind in retaining and attracting younger talent who expect this as a default.

2) Internal communication & recognition – let’s get social

Speed and effectiveness of communication is important to building performance, unity of purpose and engagement. But with so much noise internally and a mix of formal and informal communication channels in place, discussing and exchanging with employees on the subjects that matter is more challenging than ever.

It’s time to get social. Whether it’s the enterprise social network Yammer or another social platform, let employees exchange and discuss freely and engage them with important subjects through these channels and build discussion. Building a more open, trusting culture will empower better performance.

And with great performance, in turn recognise employees and teams through social channels to increase the impact of the recognition process.

3) Getting the best people without increasing payroll costs

While the economy may continue to improve overall, it is clear that there are many sectors – notably the public sector – who cannot compete for talent on pay levels alone.

Our experience with organisations who find themselves in this position is that investing in your the benefits mix so it really helps your existing and prospective employees in their day-to-day lives is the most powerful way of attracting and keeping the best people.

4) Keeping your workforce fit and well

The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement may have averted another funding crisis for the NHS but it also hinted at a greater role for employers in looking after the health and wellbeing of their employees.

As the length of careers and the age of our workers starts is now firmly on an upward trend, employers need to start thinking now about what they can do to take to keep their workforce fit and well.

This isn’t just using benefits for the reactive stuff like Employee Assistance Programmes, but about proactive measures which help your employees make healthy choices from taking regular health checks, cycling to work, eating well and staying fit.

5) Improving productivity to drive business performance

Employee productivity remains one of the biggest problems for UK employers.

My view is the that the answer to this lies in giving managers the tools to manage more effectively to help their people achieve better results.

Part of this lies in learning, training and refreshing the skills of managers so they can manage an increasingly age diverse and flexible workforce. Improving the quality of leadership, and performance management skills, in our managers will be key to the performance agenda in the years ahead.

Part of it also lies in helping them do more to recognise and celebrate great employee performance which contributes to business success and in turn builds confidence in individuals and teams to perform and succeed.

There are few organisations who wouldn’t benefit from looking at how they can use reward and recognition to drive people performance, targeted at specific behaviours and business outcomes.

The need for HR to assume a pivotal role in driving business performance has never been greater, ensuring our businesses have the right leadership skills, high performance individuals and teams, and supporting culture and processes. But as with the other areas planning for these challenges today is the best way of succeeding in the year ahead.

This article was provided by Edenred.