How to Develop an Effective Workforce

A workforce is a company's employees, or staff. No matter the size of the staff, a company's productivity depends on having competent employees and, on top of that, employees who work well together. Developing a workforce that maintains a company's success is a common challenge that many business owners, administrators, managers and team leaders must face. 

These are guidelines for how to develop an effective workforce.

1.      Identify your goals.

To develop a workforce that best meets your company's needs, it is first necessary to determine what you want to accomplish. For example, if your primary focus is to exceed last year's sales, then your workforce development goals may be to hire talented salespeople and to employ support staff that will work closely with the sales team to follow-up customer service issues.

2.      Consider the scope of projected tasks.

Your workforce must be qualified to navigate through every aspect of what needs to be accomplished successfully. Therefore, you must take the following into account when determining how proficient your workforce is in relation to your company's goals:

• Employee competence. Consider the amount of experience your current employees have and how competent they are. Identify areas of strength and weakness. You may need to offer more training, supplement your workforce with more support staff or hire new employees altogether.
• Time frame. Developing a workforce takes time. Taking your company's immediate and projected needs into account, determine if you have time to train new employees, or if you need to focus on promoting existing employees into revised roles.
• Company culture. A culture that promotes autonomy, personal growth and skill

3.      Organize the workforce in a way that promotes teamwork.

Departments and employees must be interdependent if they are to work together effectively.

• Question company policies and procedure that have been in use for long periods of time. If your workforce is not effective, those policies and procedures may need some updating. Identify roadblocks in productivity caused by faulty company practices.
• Take inventory of employees' strengths. Determine if you can revise occupational roles in a way that makes the best use of those strengths, and that encourages employees to make use of task management methods that are best suited to them.
• Involve employees on every level in the organization and policy-making process. Ask for input, and take that input into consideration.

4.       Provide additional training.

 Seminars, meetings, classes, weekend retreats, team building exercises, mentoring and web-based training programs are several ways you can help improve your employee's knowledge, skill set and cooperative efforts. Remember that retention requires repetition, so make sure to offer training consistently and often.

5.      Hold employees accountable for their productivity.

Once you've made the effort to develop an effective workforce by defining your goals, revising employee roles and responsibilities, rethinking the organizational structure of your company and providing the necessary training, it is up to your team to work toward maximum productivity. Make it clear to your employees that you expect their best work, and that you will be making regular assessments of the effectiveness of your new workforce model and making changes accordingly.

6.      Assess productivity regularly.

Establish a method of measuring employee performance so you can continuously make accommodating changes in staff, training, resources, or project scope. Keep in mind that developing a workforce is a process-not an event.

7.      Use reinforcement.

Encourage the repetition of productive behaviors and the avoidance of counterproductive behaviors by employing the principle of reinforcement in its 4 forms: positive, negative, punishment and extinction.

• Positive reinforcement involves offering recognition for accomplishments, attitudes and practices that contribute to an effective workplace.
• Negative reinforcement pertains to situations in which employees practice a desired behavior to avoid a negative consequence.
• Punishment requires that you instate a consequence in response to an employee's negative behavior.
• Extinction implies the threat of firing due to counterproductive behavior.