Firstly it is important to review your strategic and long-term business plans to assess the types of roles that are required within your business and also the competencies of high-performing employees.

Secondly, look in detail at what your people spend their time doing and ask the following questions:

• Does everyone know exactly what is expected from them? Do jobs overlap? In order to avoid confusion, review your job descriptions .
• Are reporting lines clearly defined? Do the objectives set reflect your business requirements? If not, ensure that you discuss and agree these important areas.
• Are tasks appropriately allocated? The reason why one person does a particular job is often historic. You may wish to re-allocate duties according to people's strengths or to provide development opportunities.

Effective time management is also critical to any business. Spending more time on added value tasks which build the business will be beneficial. To help with this, review your processes. Involve your employees in this exercise: this may seem a little time consuming in itself, but can save far more time in the end.

Look at your key processes eg developing a new product, paying an invoice, processing payroll, finding a new customer:

1. Break each process down into the individual steps that make it up, eg passing a payment request for authorisation.
2. Against each step, list the people who are currently involved.
3. Stand back and review your current process, asking:
   • could this process be improved?
   • could we improve efficiency by reducing the number of steps?
   • how could we speed up the process?
   • why is each person involved? Do they add value to the process?
4. Agree and implement changes.
5. Decide how you are going to best utilise the time and resource saved by the process review.

Any team is made up of a number of individuals, each with their own set of strengths and areas for improvement. As a manager, you need to assess each individual and provide the right level of direction, support and development to get the best from them. The appraisal meeting can be a good vehicle for gathering and discussing some of this information.

Look at your current managers and supervisors. They are your ambassadors, externally to clients, suppliers and competitors but also, and possibly more importantly, to the staff they manage and come into contact with. If they have an inappropriate management style, emit negative behaviours and generally work against the business's vision and objectives, the performance of the business will be affected.

Often managers are let loose to manage their people, which can take up a lot of their time (when often they would rather be getting on with the technical side of their role). If the manager is not people-focused and unaware of the impact of non-adherence to HR policies, difficult situations arise such as grievances, de-motivated staff and high turnover.

The following will help to prevent this and to assist managers:

• a robust selection process to recruit them initially, coaching if new to line management and a review process to ensure they do not flounder once appointed
• a mentor who has an appropriate management style and the time to coach
• 360-degree feedback linked to the performance appraisal process
• training for managers on how to implement people policies and some basic employment law awareness
• objectives that are linked to the business's overall vision and which follow through into the team's targets
• a system which, at the annual appraisal, asks the manager to present information about his/her team, what their objectives are, how they are performing and how he/she is developing and motivating them to achieve their best.

High performers are motivated by a need to achieve. Therefore you need to:

• set them realistic but achievable goals/objectives with a degree of 'stretch'
• ensure that you allow them a degree of autonomy - don't 'micro-manage'
• allow them situations in which they can largely influence the outcome and the means of getting there
• ensure that they know when they have done a good job: accomplishment itself is a big reward for high performers
• allow them to get ahead by their own efforts
• involve them in new things - stretch the parameters of their roles
• allow them to take some risks. This can be difficult and requires a high level of trust, but excellence is usually obtained only with a mistake or two along the way.

Equally important is the way in which you manage the members of your team who perform less well. First you need to establish the reasons for poor performance.

• Is what you are asking your people to do realistic?
• Do they receive feedback on their performance?
• Are they demotivated? If so, why? Perhaps they feel unappreciated, uninvolved, under-utilised?
• Are there circumstances outside the job which are affecting their performance?
• Is the job changing?
• Do they know what to do? Have they been shown? Do they require support? Have they ever been trained?
• Do they have a full appreciation of the job role and content?

The key to improving poor performance is often communication. Ensure that you:

• provide timely, specific and constructive feedback to these employees
• establish why the shortfalls in performance exist
• discuss and agree what support, development and assistance is required to help the employees improve their performance
• encourage the employees by providing positive feedback on their performance when it is due.

Frequent and effective communication and coaching will usually ensure that performance does not become an issue. However persistent shortfalls in performance may require formal disciplinary action . Read our legal overview to managing poor performers .

All too often these employees are forgotten. They are not high-achievers and they carry out their role effectively. However, it is just as important to ensure that, if desired, they have access to development opportunities and can see that there is a clear career path they can follow or other opportunities within your business that they could consider if they were developed in that direction. These employees are the bread and butter of any organisation but if there is no possibility of being able to move upwards or sidewards and undertake other roles, it is likely that some of them will move elsewhere resulting in the loss of good employees and the need to recruit replacements. A performance management system will allow you to identify suitable development paths for these employees and will provide them with the motivation to succeed.

One of the most important, yet often underestimated, parts of a manager's job is building a strong team, committed to achieving what the business needs. You should aim to create a team of people with different skills, experience and personalities to complement and support each other. Ensure that the team:

• is clear about its goals and objectives
• is the right size for what needs to be done
• has the right combination of skills and experience
• has clearly defined roles
• has the resources it needs
• has agreed how it will work together
• produces a collective output
• measures progress
• recognises success
• handles conflict openly and constructively
• supports each other.

A performance management system that is aligned to strategic direction and is implemented throughout the organisation will provide you with the basis for the development of all staff, whether they be high achievers, middle of the road performers or poor performers. It will identify talent as well as the abilities and aspirations of staff which can then be utilised and developed in line with the long-term goals and aims of the organisation.