Motivating Today's Employees. Lin Grensing-Pophal

      2) Find out what your employees do in their spare time — both at work and at home. Observe them during break periods and lunch hours. Do they spend their time relaxing? Socializing? Reading? Working?

      3) Consider past experiences. To what has the employee responded favorably in the past? What type of projects or assignments really create a high level of productivity? What types of assignments create apathy?

      It seems so easy, yet far too many managers and small-business owners fail to take this very important step. Don’t make the mistake of transferring your own likes, dislikes, and desires to employees. The simplest way to find out what motivates your employees is to talk to them. Another way is to observe them. Knowing the interests of your employees when they are away from work is as helpful as knowing their interests on the job.

      Putting It All Together

      Once you’ve listened to your employees comments and observed their actions, how can you put this new information into motivational practice?

      First consider the maintainers: pay and benefits. You need to make sure that your pay and benefits package is equitable internally and competitive externally. These basics do matter. But today, companies also need to look beyond the basics at some less typical considerations, like non-traditional benefits. Do you have flextime? Do you have pto (paid time off) days, rather than the traditional vacation days? Is your technology up to date? Even things like whether employees’ office furniture is in good shape, or how clean the breakroom and restrooms are can make a difference.

      Next, consider how well you keep employees informed and involved. Today’s employees have a hunger to learn and to grow. They want to be involved — and they have a lot to offer.

      Front-line managers have a critical impact on employee relations in any organization. Managers are the first point of contact for employees and have a very strong influence on employees’ job satisfaction, morale, and motivation. Management can impact employees at many stages in the employee life cycle and in many ways. Managers are responsible for a great many tasks and topics, including hiring, conveying job requirements, communicating, training, and redirecting, or, in some cases, reprimanding employees. These issues will be discussed in detail in later chapters.

      Organizations can’t afford to ignore employee relations issues that can have a negative impact on recruitment, retention, and motivation. Have a look at Sample 2 to help you determine whether your company is in danger of losing unmotivated, yet important, staff.

       Sample 2: Retention Risk Assessment

      Make sure that your employees know what is expected of them; provide them with the tools and resources to do the job, and act quickly to correct behaviors or performances that don’t support the organization’s goals or philosophies. The best way to keep employees motivated is to keep them involved.

      Part II

      THE FIRST LINE OF INFLUENCE

      “True leadership skills are hard to come by,” says an employee who is frustrated with the promotion practices of the company she works for. “Many times, a promotion has killed working relationships because the person promoted has not been at least introduced to real leadership skills. Not very motivating to either party.”

      Managers have a supremely critical impact on the satisfaction of an organization’s workers but, as this employee points out, managers are often not provided with the education, training, coaching, and mentoring needed to succeed in these critical roles. The result? Disgruntled and unmotivated employees.

      Research conducted jointly by Hay/McBer and Harvard University in 2000 confirms that the team leader is central to team success. The findings confirmed that leaders of outstanding teams share the following traits and approaches. Effective team leaders —

      • Lead real teams. They know who the members of the team are, they have a plan, and they hold themselves jointly accountable for a collective task.

      • Are not necessarily charismatic leaders. Effective leaders leverage the talent of their people to drive success. What does this mean for organizations? It means that charismatic employees should not always be promoted to managerial roles based on the assumption that they will be strong leaders.

      • Have unique characteristics. They rely on leadership styles that promote dialogue and discussion. They are not authoritarian or coercive.

      • Focus on what really matters. According to the Hay Group, there are five key conditions that make the greatest difference to performance:

      i. Articulating a clear and compelling direction for the team.

      ii. Establishing a structure that helps the team do its work.

      iii. Selecting the best people for the team — and keeping them motivated.

      iv. Providing ongoing organizational support

      v. Providing expert coaching

      • Understand that only they can be responsible for establishing clear direction and ensuring that team norms are maintained. These tasks can not be delegated or shared.

      • Are more “emotionally intelligent.”Members of outstanding teams, according to the study’s authors, “show the qualities of interpersonal sensitivity and integrity.”

      It all starts at the top. As a supervisor or manager, you lay the foundation for motivation in your work group. Through your words, your actions, and your deeds, you have a marked impact on your work group.

      Laying the foundation means that you can effectively perform all of the key managerial functions: recruitment and selection, teambuilding, training, leading, motivating, controlling, coaching, counseling, evaluating, disciplining, and, sometimes, terminating.

      While the organization certainly has an impact on employee morale through its programs and policies, you as a manager or supervisor have direct responsibility for, and direct impact on, the employees you manage. You also have the ability to provide input to your superiors to help them design programs, practices, and policies that will have a positive impact on employee motivation.

      The third section of this book will focus on organizational initiatives that can impact motivation; this section focuses on the role of the front-line manager.

      You are a front-line manager whether you are the owner of the company, the CEO, a vice president, a manager, a director, or a supervisor. In each of these roles, you will have direct responsibility for at least one individual who reports to you. In each of these roles, you are the first line of influence.

      This is an critical role. To be successful you have to want to succeed. You have to understand that you have a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of your employees. And you have to believe that each of your employees is an important part of your overall work team, whether you’re directing a team of two or a team of two thousand.