How Team Accountability Helps the Bottom Line for Your Business

As a leader in your organization, you’re always looking for ways to improve. You know that providing high quality products and services in a timely and consistent manner will benefit your bottom line, but which processes have the highest impact?

The profitability of your company is largely determined by the efficiency and productivity of your employees.

One way to heighten the efficiency and productivity of your workers is to focus some of your attention on team accountability. You’ll be amazed at how this adjustment can improve your ability to reach goals and progress the mission of your organization.

The best starting point for improving team accountability is with the individuals that make up the organization’s team.

Building up a Team

Each employee must buy in to your company’s mission. That means the employee believes in the work they are doing. When an employee believes in the work they are doing, they’re more likely to have a desire to grow and develop with your company.

A personal accountability plan is beneficial for the employee to get to that point. This plan is an agreement between the employer and the individual. Within this plan are the measurable goals that will encourage growth and keep roles, responsibilities, and tasks aligned with the company’s mission and goals. That focus on alignment also makes the personal accountability plan beneficial for you, the employer.

Holding the Team Accountable

When we talk about accountability, we’re talking about the measurements in place to ensure everyone is reaching goals. When an employee knows they will be held accountable, they will be willing to take responsibility for their role. Accountability and responsibility are closely related. Mark Zwilling says it best in his Business Insider article 10 Ways Startups Build Highly Responsible Teams, “Taking responsibility is the core element behind accountability.” Businesses of all sizes and age can heed those words.

Members of the team are accountable to both the organization and each other. Each employee has a role within the team. Every role needs to be filled and every task needs to be accomplished for the team to be successful. Because they’re so dependent on each other’s accountability and responsibility, they understand that when one fails, they all fail.

Putting methods of measuring productivity and working together to accomplish organizational goals help guide the behaviors and decisions of the team so the project is completed to the satisfaction of the organization and to that of the customer.

Encouraging Team Accountability

The key to encouraging accountability is to lay out how the team’s performance will be measured at the beginning. This agreed upon measurement will be the guideline for future decisions and actions, allowing team members to move forward with confidence.

Accountability is only as effective as the communication that guides it. Leadership is responsible for periodically checking in. This is an opportunity for leadership to manage team members so they can stay on track to provide quality work within the timeframe given to them. When each team member knows exactly what’s expected of them, they can take responsibility for their work. By following through with regularly measuring the work and holding the team accountable, the leader can adjust expectations or provide resources when needed, ensuring the team stays on track. This will increase the efficiency of the team.

Making adjustments and providing resources helps to empower the team. The team will provide a high-quality product or service if they are set up for success. What’s important for the leader to remember, though, is that there is a difference between making support and resources available and allowing team members to depend on them. Creating a dependence on support and resources is inefficient, and it deters the professional growth necessary for members of the team to improve their work.

How it Benefits Your Bottom Line

Teams exist because we all know we go farther together than alone. Developing teams and holding them accountable for the work they do can only benefit your company. When the team truly buys in to your organization’s mission, they will have a strong desire to demonstrate their unique abilities and present fresh ideas, helping your organization innovate and grow.

Empowering the team to be responsible for the project and then holding them accountable for their work will help create a high-quality product or service. It reflects well on your company when your teams consistently produce such work. You will have a chance to demonstrate to your customers or end-users that your organization has a track record for producing high-quality work in a timely fashion.

Customers and end-users who see this consistency and teamwork will be more likely to return to you for more business. Building up that reputation puts you in a better position to secure endorsements, advertise your company, and gain new clientele, helping to ensure the sustainability and profitability of your organization.