Its February, and our resident talent advisors are thinking about how and why you need to invest in employees right now for maximum results.

Investing in your employees is a business endeavor. Although we love to treat our workers like family members, its more than just about making your workforce love you. In fact, you may not want to treat them like family members after all.

In my family, we didnt get an allowance for doing chores. I learned how to wash dishes before I learned the multiplication tables, and nobody gave me five bucks for special projects like organizing the basement or cleaning out the garage.

Yes, the rumors are true. I walked uphill both ways in the snow.

My fairly normal upbringing complete with sensible Midwestern values and a general disdain for meaningless rewards and recognition programs comes into conflict with my role as an optimistic and forward-thinking talent advisor.

I work with clients who ask great questions about accomplishing big goals with limited resources, like:

• How do you invest in your workforce to help your employees achieve out-of-the-box results without blowing up your salary and training budget?
• How do you reward and recognize employees for outstanding results without diminishing the basic work thats required every day to run a business?

what are your companys goals?

Talent advisors need to align themselves with their colleagues and fully understand the companys goals as they relate to both short-term profits and long-term revenue goals. Everybody likes to win and win big; however, do you have sales and marketing strategies that support those goals?

If your business goals are clear, and other departments have aligned their strategies to achieve growth and greater productivity, its time to channel your inner Sherlock Holmes and do some investigating. Do you even know if you have the right employees in the right jobs to achieve out-of-the-box results? You cant incentivize employees to deliver great results if you dont have the right players in the mix.

Find and apply the Trends

You sit on a treasure trove of data, so I recommend that you look at your employee-related data in personnel files, Excel spreadsheets, abandoned performance management databases and begin to explore performance trends. Does your workforce have the right attitudes, behaviors and capabilities to achieve astonishing outcomes?

Finally, its time for talent advisors to create a performance philosophy that guides the way great work is recognized and rewarded across the entire enterprise. This exercise doesnt happen in a bubble. Sit down with your executives and ask questions about basic behaviors and values that are required to work for your company. Ask for examples of exemplary service that meets and exceeds expectations.

Define the baseline of greatness in your organization. Understand which behaviors dont cut the mustard. Then you can propose a compensation strategy, complete with fun fringe benefits and luxury employee accommodations, which encourages workers to achieve out-of-the-box results in a manner that is consistent with your organizations values.

One other piece of advice? When you ask your employees to achieve the impossible, you should also say please and thank you .

That helps!

Throughout the month of February, the Talent Advisor Portal is featuring HR leaders who will help you learn why and how and why to invest in talent in 2015 even on a shoestring budget. Join CareerBuilder and talent advisor Steve Browne for a cant-miss webinar, Wake Up! Its 2015 Time to Make Employee Investment a Reality, on Thurs. Feb. 19 at 2:00 Central time. Register now .