Developing high-performing teams whitepaper

This whitepaper has been created to help employers better understand high-performing teams and how they drive business performance and engagement. 

Read the full report here.

Specifically this whitepaper explores:

• Recruitment and attraction strategies to build cohesive teams
• How roles and rewards can impact on team performance
• Leadership style and how it plays a part in high-performing teams
• The key to employee engagement

From the research, we know that the process of building high-performing teams starts with recruitment. The most effective teams have a good team dynamic in terms of culture, skills and personality fit, are led with shared accountability, have clearly defined goals and objectives, and receive recognition for their good work. Conversely, poor leadership, team conflict, undefined goals and objectives and zero recognition for good work are key drivers of disengagement, dissatisfaction and underperforming teams.

You can see some of the survey’s key findings illustrated in the infographic below. It shows that effective leadership is one of the most crucial aspects of high-performing teams and includes the following findings from the survey:

• When it came to what professionals believed negatively impacted on their performance most, 32% of survey respondents said poor leadership. Hiring managers agreed, with the majority (39%), stating that poor leadership is what impacts negatively on individual performance the most.
• When asked about the top three problems that poor leadership causes in their teams, 80% of professionals said poor leadership decreases trust and openness. This was followed by 66% of professionals who said poor leadership blocks performance, and 51% who said poor leadership prevents team alignment with organisational goals.

Professionals rated “supports team members” as the most important quality in their leaders (78%) and hiring managers thought that being a “genuine and open communicator” was the most important personal quality of a team leader (83%).

• The majority of survey respondents (61%) chose varied and interesting work as the factor that keeps them most engaged in their roles. This was followed by salary and bonuses (54%), a good work/life balance (53%) and opportunities for career progression (43%). Interestingly, 45% of professionals believe that their organisation does not do enough to keep them engaged, and 44% believe that the turnover rates in their organisation are too high.
• Most hiring managers said they kept employees engaged with a good work/life balance (48%), followed by varied and interesting work (45%), followed by opportunities for career progression (40%). Half of hiring managers (51%) said that their organisation does not do enough to keep employees engaged, while 32% of hiring managers think that staff turnover and retention rates are too high.

As you can see, the key to creating high-performing teams that drive business performance and engagement is a combination of factors that extend from the recruitment process at the very beginning, to effective leadership, to rewarding high performers and adequately addressing poor performers. The risks of disengagement in poor performing teams is certainly reason enough to address the issue and make positive changes to team structures that will ensure high performance and growth in the long term.

Read the full report here.