Discretionary Effort Improves Service, Quality, and Results - 4 Ways Your Can More From Your Team
Discretionary effort is the level of effort, above and beyond the minimum required, people could give if they wanted to.
The way to deliver consistent, outstanding results is to have a team of people that are giving discretionary effort. Every leader would love to have more discretionary effort. However, it is not something you can simply ask for, or require they provide. Instead, discretionary effort is earned as your team learns to trust and respect you. With discretionary effort, the quality of work will be higher, the service levels will better, the results will be consistent, and above expectations.
About 25% of an employees effort is described as ‘have to.’ The remaining 75% of effort is discretionary and will be entirely influenced by their leader and the culture of the workplace
So, how do you build an environment where discretionary effort is given? Here are four ways you can set the stage.
Listen To Your Team
Listening makes its way onto many lists of effective components of leadership. Make time to listen to your team and allow them to share their ideas regarding how they can impact outcomes. It is the best way to connect with your team, learn from them, and ensure they each have a voice. Listening creates engagement with your overall vision and each individual’s purpose. Higher employee engagement will lead to providing more discretionary effort.
Open The Door For Ideas
Encouraging ideas needs to be part of what you do all the time. That will ensure you have something to listen to. They do not need to be lengthy discussions. A casual, “so what are your thoughts on how we could solve this?” will be more than enough. Over time this will build a culture of idea sharing as well as creativity. If your team knows you will be looking for their ideas and thoughts, they will offer them freely - discretionary effort and thinking.
Recognize Effort
For discretionary effort to flourish, your team needs to know failure is an option. Trial runs are important, and learning from what you do is what will make you better for the long term. If you move forward with someone’s idea that does not pan out as planned, continue to recognize the idea and the effort that went with it. There really are no bad ideas. You are creating an environment where idea sharing is encouraged.Would you rather have team members that try new things to get better results or a team that always sits and waits for the next piece of direction to be given?
Communicate and share successes as well as credit
Finally, communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more. Share the ideas that are coming in. Let everyone know what is happening and who is contributing. Ensure that the team sees that their ideas are being put into action. Share the results that are coming from those ideas - good and bad.Most importantly, give credit to those that contributed to the idea. This is THE best way to get more new ideas for the future. As a leader, your role is to create an environment for great things to happen. When in doubt, give the positive credit to the team. Always accept the ownership of the ideas that don’t win the awards.Discretionary effort comes from a culture of doing these four things consistently. This takes time and repetition. You cannot ‘kick this off’ as an initiative and hope to see results a week later. Listening, creating an open environment, recognizing, and communicating will set you up for a productive and rewarding environment, where trust and respect are earned, and discretionary effort flows freely.How would more discretionary effort from your team improve your results?Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive FREE leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills all at no cost. JOIN NOW!No spam ever - just leadership goodness.