How to become or Inspire a Highly Efficient Teacher in Brief
How to become or inspire a highly efficient teacher recommends ages-long approach to boosting employee work performance.
Every Employee Wants to Do a Good Job
Newsweek magazine once quoted the President of Hyatt Hotels in the following words: “If there is anything, I have learned in my 27 years in the service industry, it is this: 99 percent of all employees want to do a good job”. And this is true. Starting from ourselves, there is hardly any time when you and I deliberately decided to do a shabby job. Or can you remember any time that you said to yourself, “today, I will do this work so bad that my supervisor (employer) will be angry at it”? I believe there isn’t any of such time. Or if there is, it will be far too less often to be significant.
And this is same for the majority of employees. Most employees want to be among the favourite. They want to be commended for jobs well done. They want bonuses, salary increment, and promotion. Every leader can attest to the trueness of this because they have experienced it first-hand. Therefore, with 99 percent of employees falling within this category; it is rather illogical to think that any employee will deliberately choose to do a bad job.
Yet, Many Employees Perform Badly
Yet, we see them. Workers with very low turnover. Those that fall short of standard in the discharge of their duties. They have not too good attitude to work. Still, they desire commendations, bonuses, salary increment and promotion.
Are you a leader in any organization? Can you think of any member(s) of your staff that falls within this category? How many are there, 1, 2, 3 or more? Note their names, I will tell you what to do.
Also, if you are an employee; do you always feel unappreciated even though you always try your best at work? You never get a commendation, no bonuses, no salary increments and no promotion. Then, this piece is yours too, keep reading.
To the leader, did it ever occur to you that those (annoying) members of your staff desiring commendations and reward while they perform below standard are actually unaware of their score? Let me tell you.
As a school administrator, I have had to interview a lot of applicants in the last 7 years. And there is one particular question that naturally pops up in my mind during interviews. After perusing the CV of someone that has worked in “too” many organizations within a short period of time, my curiosity always asks why such applicant keep leaving the different organizations.
Who’s To Blame?
The answer I got as reply to this question in January of 2022, is the same as I have received on many occasions over the years. The applicants faulted their employer’s lack of appreciation for their service although they always do their best. No doubt, this says a lot about the applicant.
But the frequency of that same answer also tells me something unique about all workers; an insight that is invariably helpful to all leaders. And it is that most of the under-performers in your team, do not know they are not performing up to expectation. As far as they are concern, they believe that they are doing their best. This is no speculation but a well-known fact. And to help you put a figure to your organization’s unique situation; have your staff take the Employee Self-Evaluation test. The result of such exercise will lead you to your individual staff’s inner perception of their performance. In addition, it will also help you infer more accurately, what they expect of you to keep the organisation growing.
Misrepresentation Performance Index
However, the misrepresentation of an employee work performance goes in two ways. It is not only that the employer may wrongly assume that every of his or her employees can accurately place their individual work performance index corresponding to theirs. But the employees can as well develop inaccurate perception of their delivery – like feeling they are doing their best when in truth, they have not hit the boundaries. For this purpose, every employee that feels he or she is underappreciated at work should head for individual Employee Self-Evaluation test. Do this, and be as sincere during the test to yourself as possible. Then, discuss the result with your trusted colleague(s) and your superior. This should clear the cloud of insatiable expectations cast by unreal perception of one’s performance.
Whether an employer/a leader conducts this test, or an employee individually takes the evaluation test; the result may reflect one or more common factors. One of such common factors you will find out, is that one or more member of your staff is underperforming. This may not be deliberate. But that does not stop it from negatively affecting your organization. As result, it is important that you tackle underperformance headlong.
Tackling underperformance is a matter of urgency. And any organization that wants to attain sustainable growth, must approach it as such. The underperformance of one member of staff left unchecked, can influence the delivery of other staff. In addition, it automatically adds to the daily stress of the employer/leader. You must understand that evil more influential than good, wrong than right. So, the underperformance of one member of staff is enough to neutralize the hard work of the rest of the team.
Solving the Problem
The question is not whether or not to tackle underperformance. Instead, it is about how to tackle it. Knowing that “99 percent of all employee want to do a good job” but majority often fail, how do we help those that fall short of standard smash their goals?
The answer begins with knowing why people do not perform up to expectation. Thankfully, a lot of researchers, life coaches and authors have done great justice to this question. Ferdinand F. Fournies gave the best answer to this question in his bestseller, “Coaching for Improved Work Performance”. According to Fournies, there are four common reasons why people do not perform the way they should. The four major reasons people do not perform the way they should is because they do not know:
- what they are supposed to do
- how to do it
- why they should; and if
- there are obstacles beyond their control
Making Your Staff 100% Efficient: Teachers’ Induction Training
Since we have identified the reasons for underperformance among staff, solving the problem becomes easier. However, before we discuss the solutions to the problem of inefficiency among staff, let us consider a few realities that relates to the causes. This will help you to diagnose your organization first-hand.
Fact 1: Majority of Teachers do not read to understand their job description in detail
The first solution to the problem of staff inefficiency is giving a concise job description at engagement. Sadly, some organization with rather casual approach to business do not have any form of contract with their staff say less a job description. We will address this later.
But assuming that your organization does have contract agreement with detailed job description; one will expect that new employees will read to understand such document. Let’s not put a figure to this because we know the reality: majority of employees do not read their job descriptions to understand it. Instead, they browse through and toss it around. Afterall, they have done this before.
It does not stop there. Among the few that read and understand their job description, some soon forgets.
For these reasons, it is not enough for you to give job descriptions. It is equally important for you to work them through it thoroughly.
Are you an employee, this is where you deliberately create a checklist against each item on your job description. Beyond that, create a system for rating your capability in handling each task in your assignment.
Fact 2: Papers and length of years does not always translate to efficiency
If you have being an administrator long enough, you will agree to this fact. Some people are just too good at crafting killer résumé and performing at interviews. But that is it.
I am talking about people that have the necessary qualifications (papers) and years of experience. Yet, after you employ them; their performance does not reflect their qualifications. This is a sad reality of our country today. The fact that people have the qualification does mean they know how to do the job. As a result, we have to amplify the second reason for staff inefficiency according to F.F Fournies.
As an employer, you have to make it part of your corporate culture to always give employees hands-on training on how to do their job.
As a staff, you should understand the concept of doing your job within context. You do this by enrolling and participating in quality training that uniquely adapts to your workplace.
Fact 3: Majority of Teachers Have Lost Touch of the Reason for Doing Their Jobs
This fact does not need elaboration. But I will explain it from another context. More and more teachers have to understand the business dimension of education. As such, majority demands commensurate financial rewards.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for schools to offer such rewards if the teachers are not efficient. And since the teachers seek the reward to be efficient, it is deadlock! The result is that teachers continue to not have reasons for them to be efficient.
The Solution: How to Become or Inspire a Highly Efficient Teacher
So, schools must always lead the initiative. To attain sustainable growth like I discussed previously, schools must always give their teachers reasons to do their job efficiently. This does not necessarily mean financial rewards. In fact, before any financial reward, schools should first provide proper guidance. And the best way is through training.
Similarly, independent teachers that want to excel regardless of the school they work must continually seek reasons to do their job efficiently. They can do this by enrolling for relevant training.
All-in-One Teachers’ Induction Training
The LeadinGuides Teachers’ Induction Training is an all-in-one efficiency masterclass for teachers. Though, primarily targeted at new teachers, it is also a generic Continuous Professional Development programme for experienced teachers.
This training helps teachers and schools to directly and effectively tackle the problems of inefficiency at workplace.
In addition, it helps schools to align the minds of their teachers to the organization’s aspirations, draw out their untapped potentials and motivate them towards helping the school attain her goals and unlock unexploited growth channels.
Participants will develop “teacherpreneurship” mindset and improve on their practical teaching skills. At the end of the training, they will become top contributors to their organizations. Most importantly, they will learn how to establish themselves, to earn more and live a fulfilling life.
This is one of the highly valuable training programs we are delivering to the international audience at Northford Center for Advanced Studies, Abuja.
