Another Angle on Employee Motivation

April 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Soccer_Shootout

It's the end of regulation time in a soccer game and the score is tied. It's time for the shoot out to determine the victor. You are the coach. How should you advise your five shooters, each of whom will get one shot at close range? "I want you all to concentrate on our scoring at least three times", OR "I want you to concentrate on our not missing more than two times." You first reaction is probably like mine, the first option, of course! It's a positive message, a positive objective, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communicating, Employee Motivation Tagged With: , ,

Build Relationships with Your Staff, for the Brain’s Sake

November 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Brain-4

I can't stand it when a manager, hearing me broach the importance of building trusting relationships with their employees, blurts out the tired old term, touchy-feely. To dismiss the complex role of relationships in fostering sustained high performance is to just not get it as a leader in the 21st century. In a recent posting on the Harvard Business Review Blog, Naomi Eisenberter and George Kohlrieser raise three important points about this from their studies in neuroleadership. "…most … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Motivation, Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Ultimately, It’s Got to Be About Something Beyond You

July 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Bored businessman

How many of your employees are simply not engaged any more? Are there some who seem to just be going through the motions of their job? Yeah, they show up every day. They do the essential tasks. They don't miss deadlines or cause any major screw ups. But something is clearly missing. The spark has gone out of them and out of their work. They no longer speak up in meetings. They no longer volunteer to take on the additional project, to go the extra mile. Maybe they are just plum bored. The … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Motivation Tagged With: , ,

Every Job Matters (to Someone)

May 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
woman_at_desk

Recently I heard a presentation by Jim Gibbons, President & CEO of Goodwill Industries. In it he said that "every job matters." Every job has someone relying on the incumbent of the position to do their job well so that the other person can either: benefit or do their own job well. Your client/customer is either internal or external.You serve (or produce for) the external client or someone who delivers to the external client. This is true whether you operate in the private, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation, Talent Management Tagged With: , , ,

Do We Stop Growing after Schooling?

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Woman-Upset

I ran across a recent posting from the Gallup Management Journal that made a point have I never thought about before: "Raised through a childhood in which each new year brought novel opportunities, playing at ever more difficult levels of sports, growing physically, educated in a system of cleanly delineated grades -- freshman, sophomore, junior, senior -- many employees find themselves several years into their career wondering what happened to the momentum they used to enjoy. Being both … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation, Talent Management Tagged With: ,

Job Squeeze Is Real. Talk about it

December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Cornell ILR

My alma mater, the Industrial and Labor Relations School of Cornell University recently hosted a conference on "The Quality of Jobs." They looked at how trends in what they call the "intensification" of work, the restructuring of jobs, and classic downsizing have impacted the quality of jobs and the levels of satisfaction employees (who are left) are experiencing. While papers with their findings will be published in the new year, one clear finding is that these job and work disruptions are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation Tagged With: , , ,

One Employee at a Time

October 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Bank-Teller-Line

Back in the 90's the Royal Bank of Canada had a series of TV commercials touting the theme, "Building a Better Bank, One Customer at a Time." The message, as I recall, was that RBC treats each customer as a unique individual and strives to win them over, one-at-a-time. I frequently refer to this ad campaign in my management development workshops. The parallels are natural… RBC has customers, current and new. Managers have employees, current and newly hired. RBC seeks to understand … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Motivation, Talent Management Tagged With: , , ,

(Re)Frame their Job as Something that Matters

June 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Great Reset

Richard Florida is a provocative thinker around social and economic issues. He first became noticed from his book, The Rise of the Creative Class. In his latest book, The Great Reset, he shares data that the future growth of jobs will be in two areas: (1) knowledge, professional and creative jobs and (2) lower paying, more routine work in the service sector. Citing progressive companies like Wegman's, Whole Foods, REI, Zappos, Nordstrom, and The Container Store, his thesis is that work in the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation Tagged With: , , ,

Look Beyond the Money for their True Motivators

May 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
stockxpertcom_id883021_size1-218x300

In PwC Saratoga's latest Global CEO Survey, 65% of CEO's report that they intend to use more non-financial rewards to motivate their staff. This is an admission that the a motivation strategy full of mostly financial reward "carrots" is not enough, especially for their highly skilled and high potential employees. We so easily forget the fact that people are looking for at least some measure of fulfillment from the time they spend on the job. "Fulfillment," of course, can take many forms: … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Motivation, Talent Management Tagged With: , ,

Stressing Metrics Has a Downside

May 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment
stockxpertcom_id68106_size1-300x225

A client organization of mine has a culture that values measuring everything. This makes good business sense. It enables you to monitor, recalibrate and optimize your processes and results. The downside is that too great an emphasis on numbers at every level breeds compliance,especially at the front line. People complete the required audits and checklists to get management off their back. They push, without enthusiasm, to achieve the prescribed metrics around quality, production, safety, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation, Performance Coaching Tagged With: , ,