How Do You Improve Your Work Performance?

By Mariah Flores

In Brief: (1) Know what good work performance looks like for your role. (2) Gain clarity on what’s expected of you, to better tackle tasks and ask for specific feedback. (3) Be upfront and communicate your needs, struggles and successes — don’t aim for perfection.

You may enter your workday with a grand plan to get multiple things done, but find yourself quickly hitting a wall, due to procrastination or unclear expectations. Improving your work performance doesn’t just correlate with your output, but ultimately with how you interact within your team or company. If you’re a high-performer or newcomer to an organization, here’s how you can better manage your workload expectations, improving your work performance overall.

Understanding what work performance means, in relation to your role and career

Work performance is often conflated with our output (or product of work), like a marketing campaign or an expense report. Broadly speaking, you can think of work performance as your ability to do your job well, leading to potential pay raises or job promotions. And this concept goes beyond workload output, relying also on how you adapt to company culture using crucial soft skills.

“Work performance is really how an individual engages with their work and with their organization. So obviously, it has a tremendous amount to do with what their outputs are, so what product they're actually producing … that is a huge piece of their performance depending on what it is their job calls for. The other thing that goes into performance is how they interact with coworkers and how they are able to really fit in and take advantage of the culture of their organization. There are really two dimensions to [work performance]: both their actual outputs, as well as how they are viewed within the organization.”

— Christy Pruitt-Haynes is the head of talent and performance practice at business consulting company NeuroLeadership Institute. She has over 25 years of expertise in executive-level human resources, diversity, and leadership development.

Gain Clarity On What’s Expected Of You

The 80-20 rule: Work performance can be affected by several factors, including unclear expectations. If you don’t know what is expected of you, how can you do your job well? As you work to improve your performance, you must gain clarity about which tasks to prioritize — even if it seems straightforward.?

“Oftentimes we will see organizations or individual people say one thing is the priority, but then their actions would indicate something different.” — Christy Pruitt-Haynes.?

Reach out to your manager or HR to determine what your work priorities should be. Now, with that clear and specific job description, you can realign any tasks that’ll better help you improve (and hopefully, propel) your work performance.

“Typically, 20% of your efforts are responsible for driving 80% of your results. When you are struggling in your position, it's often the case that this is out of alignment. If so, take a moment to identify the repetitive, mundane or time-consuming tasks that are consuming your day. From there, see if you can automate these items or create mechanisms to streamline them in the future. This often requires additional work up front, but it will make your life so much easier in the long haul. Additionally, it will allow you to focus your time on tasks that actually move the needle.”

— Will Rippetoe, known as “The Interview Beast”, is a career coach and expert in all things job searching. He’s helped clients receive job offers at companies including Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Disney, Twitch, Adobe, Deloitte and Salesforce.

Ask for feedback and be self-aware: To improve your work performance, you need to know what’s going well and what areas need improvement. Most companies implement annual performance reviews, but have you considered asking for one in advance??

Your work performance doesn’t just affect you; it affects your entire organization. Connect with your manager and coworkers, asking for specific feedback for the area you want to focus on. It’s also a good way to be accountable for your actions, performance and overall output, while also allowing others to provide helpful feedback.?

“[A]sking for that feedback really helps you to get the targeted information that you need so you can then improve your performance.” — Christy Pruitt-Haynes?

And don’t be afraid to reach out to those within your organization that are thriving. Many professionals like to present themselves as “experts” or “know-it-alls” when they're far from it. Be self-aware, ask questions, shadow a mentor or high-performing colleague for a day and learn from others.?

“You don't have to reinvent the wheel in your role. If someone else is absolutely crushing a role while you find yourself struggling to stay afloat...talk to them! Ask if you can shadow them for a day. Tell them what you're struggling with and ask how they combat those issues in their position.” — Will Rippetoe

Communicate and Be Vulnerable?

Sometimes, the role we’re hired for may not be a fit for us a few weeks, months or years down the road, leading to weakened work performance. We work as hard as possible, yet every workday is draining, every task takes you forever to address and your overall work performance is suffering. Pruit-Haynes says this could be a sign that the role isn’t right for you at this time and to be open to exploring other opportunities, both internally and externally (career pivot, anyone?).

Maybe your role isn’t the issue and you just need support. Vulnerability is a major aspect of work performance improvement because no one is perfect. We all can’t expect to be high-performing all of the time, that’s unrealistic, unhealthy and quite frankly, a burnout risk. If you’re struggling with any aspect of your job, beyond work performance, communication is key.?

“There's such a pressure to perform and be high-performers that we think we have to be perfect all of the time. If you are struggling from a bandwidth, skills, resources or emotional standpoint...communicate this to your manager. Let them know what's going on. Part of their job is literally to support you and help remove roadblocks. Don't feel like you need to be a superhero and be self-sufficient 24/7.” — Will Rippetoe

“It would save so much time and energy if [you] would just reach out to ask for clarification or direction. But again, so many people don't like to appear that they don't have the answer.” — Christy Pruitt-Haynes

Explore more

• How To Make The Most Of Your Workday by Phyllis Korkki for The New York Times
• Develop a High-Performance Mindset by Arit Eminue for LinkedIn Learning
• 13 Ways to Improve Your Work Performance by Elizabeth Perry for BetterUp

Meet the experts

Christy Pruitt-Haynes is the head of talent and performance practice at business consulting company NeuroLeadership Institute. She has over 25 years of expertise in executive-level human resources, diversity, and leadership development.

Will Rippetoe, known as “The Interview Beast”, is a career coach and expert in all things job searching. He’s helped clients receive job offers at companies including Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Disney, Twitch, Adobe, Deloitte and Salesforce.

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