Many experts on motivating and engaging staff have concluded that it is impossible to motivate an employee to be more productive. Yes, a salary increase will bring a productivity increase but only for a short time; maybe ten days or less. Dan Pink on his now famous video on Tad.com says that jobs which require even a minimal amount of cognitive ability, financial bonuses or other external goodies may even decrease productivity. The best we can do as managers is to make sure that the work environment allows employees to give birth to their own motivation. When we fail to do this however, we do become responsible for our employees de-motivation, for their disengagement and lack of productivity. We know the consequences of disengagement attack the bottom line directly; de-motivated workers have productivity measures some 60% below their motivated counterparts. The workplace can be a place of inspiration or a place of despair.
My assumption is that I am writing to an audience that would love to see their workplaces be more inspirational. Even if for self-serving reasons, it's the way to go. Productivity will be higher and costs will decrease, including costs related to sick time, turnover, theft and other avoidable loss. If we can develop our own recipe it will lead to success. What are the ingredients in your recipe for inspiration?
Much has been written about how to prevent staff turnover and other indicators of disengaged employees. But allow me the opportunity to suggest ten low cost, concrete action steps you can take, beginning tomorrow, which will increase the inspirational quality of your work environment.
1. Give employees a reason to smile and laugh. Younger employees are looking for work environments that compliment their personal life styles.
2. Hire for "fit" with less emphasis on skill. Skill is teachable.
3. Welcome newcomers enthusiastically; if they feel comfortable they stand a good chance of making it through those difficult first six months.
4. Try new approaches to old problems; it may not work but you'll get credit for trying; keep trying; it will reinforce an exciting spirit of innovation and problem-solving.
5. Encourage everyone and make it easy for people to encourage one another. No doubt your work is hard and the job challenging. Mistakes will be made; some mistakes will lead to real process breakthroughs so you want people to keep trying.
6. Focus on mission and core values. Over-communicate. Make sure everyone knows why certain things are done in a certain way and what they can do to help.
7. When there are important decisions to be made, get input from everyone but especially those most directly effected. All decisions impact the client, staff and donors or investors; keep the interests of each in balance.
8. Say "thank you". I've never heard an employee complain that the boss says "thank you" too much.
9. Listen. It's a reliable way to figure out what is of concern to your employees and unless you take the time to do it, you'll just be guessing. Pat Lencioni says that people don't need to have their own way but they need the opportunity to "weigh in."
10. Train, train, train. It's a way of expressing your commitment to your employee's success and it always encourages employee retention.
By implementing these ten suggestions you will be well on your way to having an inspiring work environment that will lift your organization to a higher level of performance and profitability. You probably can't do them all at once but start a new one every month and then pick an assistant to be in charge that each one "sticks." An article could be written about each one but the really important thing is that all of them can be implemented with zero cost except the staff time for start up and maintenance. Those costs will be easily overcome by a higher level of staff productivity.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Larry_Wenger
My assumption is that I am writing to an audience that would love to see their workplaces be more inspirational. Even if for self-serving reasons, it's the way to go. Productivity will be higher and costs will decrease, including costs related to sick time, turnover, theft and other avoidable loss. If we can develop our own recipe it will lead to success. What are the ingredients in your recipe for inspiration?
Much has been written about how to prevent staff turnover and other indicators of disengaged employees. But allow me the opportunity to suggest ten low cost, concrete action steps you can take, beginning tomorrow, which will increase the inspirational quality of your work environment.
1. Give employees a reason to smile and laugh. Younger employees are looking for work environments that compliment their personal life styles.
2. Hire for "fit" with less emphasis on skill. Skill is teachable.
3. Welcome newcomers enthusiastically; if they feel comfortable they stand a good chance of making it through those difficult first six months.
4. Try new approaches to old problems; it may not work but you'll get credit for trying; keep trying; it will reinforce an exciting spirit of innovation and problem-solving.
5. Encourage everyone and make it easy for people to encourage one another. No doubt your work is hard and the job challenging. Mistakes will be made; some mistakes will lead to real process breakthroughs so you want people to keep trying.
6. Focus on mission and core values. Over-communicate. Make sure everyone knows why certain things are done in a certain way and what they can do to help.
7. When there are important decisions to be made, get input from everyone but especially those most directly effected. All decisions impact the client, staff and donors or investors; keep the interests of each in balance.
8. Say "thank you". I've never heard an employee complain that the boss says "thank you" too much.
9. Listen. It's a reliable way to figure out what is of concern to your employees and unless you take the time to do it, you'll just be guessing. Pat Lencioni says that people don't need to have their own way but they need the opportunity to "weigh in."
10. Train, train, train. It's a way of expressing your commitment to your employee's success and it always encourages employee retention.
By implementing these ten suggestions you will be well on your way to having an inspiring work environment that will lift your organization to a higher level of performance and profitability. You probably can't do them all at once but start a new one every month and then pick an assistant to be in charge that each one "sticks." An article could be written about each one but the really important thing is that all of them can be implemented with zero cost except the staff time for start up and maintenance. Those costs will be easily overcome by a higher level of staff productivity.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Larry_Wenger
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