10 New Year's Resolutions Your Team Should Make

By David Javitch of Entrepreneur.com



As an entrepreneur, the responsibility for the success of your organization falls on your shoulders -- but the burden is not yours alone. You hired highly skilled employees. They are your most essential assets and are fundamental to the profitability and viability of your company. You need to enlist their help to succeed.

Accordingly, one of the crucial questions to ask yourself, especially during these times of significant economic distress: "How can I maximize employees' contributions to the achievement of our company goals?"

In addition to undertaking an annual -- or better yet, a semi-annual -- review of their progress and performance, meet with your employees and encourage them to discuss the following New Year's resolutions.

The goal of this process is to encourage employees to reflect upon their performance and find ways to integrate themselves more fully into the success of the business, which then generally evolves into their success, too.

So here they are: 10 New Year's Resolutions and discussion topics -- suggestions you can offer your staff to guide them toward a higher level of productivity:

1. I will work smarter. Can you identify three things you can do to be more efficient and effective in your current job? Is your staff spending too much time on email, for example? Too much time returning phone calls? Does it interrupt their work too frequently?

Sometimes, those job inefficiencies are not very obvious. However, if they can specifically identify them, then those inefficiencies can be eliminated and staff can become more productive. This can increase work satisfaction as well.