Leading a team takes more than bringing a group of people together and giving them tasks. It takes management skills, vision, motivation, coordination, and communication skills. What works for some teams doesn’t work for other teams. You need to gauge what’s working for your team and what isn’t. It might not be intuitive, but in order to get the best out of your team, you need to dig deep. Here are five ways you can gauge whether your team is really as high functioning as you think.

1. Employee Attendance

This is a clear indicator of successful teams, attendance rates. If your employees are not turning up to work for no good reason, then that’s a problem. Attendance (or absences more specifically) will take a dramatic toll on the effectiveness of your team. Goals won’t be met quickly, budgets and timelines will be pushed. And those workers who are actually working, will inevitably be overloaded. Rather than blaming this issue on the individuals (which can be addressed directly), unexplained or unnecessary employee absence should be taken as a sign of something far more problematic. This could be a sign of employees not feeling engaged, committed or satisfied in the job, or as part of the team.

2. Client Satisfaction

If your team isn’t working well together, that negativity inevitably trickles down to your clients, which is a red flag for managers and businesses across the board. Chances are that your business is already tracking client satisfaction, so if you’re worried about the impact of your team on your clients you likely have good data to cite. Measuring your client’s satisfaction through surveys, testimonials, and direct feedback is a powerful way to evaluate your team’s effectiveness, because at the end of the day – no matter the tasks – your team goal should be to provide good service to valued customers.

3. Employee Turnover

Similar to employee absentee rates, your employee turnover rates are a great way to measure your team effectiveness. Some external factors may drive turnover rates higher (such as widescale change, reorganizations, or changes to the business or industry), but voluntary turnover rates, when employees leave on their own, can very clearly indicate that employees are unsatisfied with the company or with their team. Sometimes there are actions you can take to address these issues and sometimes there are not. But the data is important to take into account and be mindful of as you seek to backfill some positions. If increasing numbers of employees are so dissatisfied that they leave, that is an issue that needs to be addressed.

4. Measure Productivity

Efficiency of teams is based in large part on productivity. Measure the productivity of a team dependent on the work, their output. If a team is productive (making profit, meeting goals and working together) then they will be effective. When measuring productivity, it is important to first define what it means to you and your team. Asking what the true goal should be matters. Define what success means. How are you measuring productivity and efficiency? What has your team accomplished on their best days? How do your current teams measure up in comparison? Whatever your KPIs are, the best way to measure productivity is consistently and constantly.

Building your team?

For more advice on how to gauge whether your teams are performing as well as they can be, connect with the recruiting experts at Ag 1 Source today.