Archive for September, 2009
Motivating Employees
Posted by: | CommentsYou need to know how to motivate employees–Unmotivated employees cost you a lot of money! 
Their production is lower than motivated employees, so you’re paying them the same money to do less work. Turnover is higher, costing you more to hire and train replacements. Unmotivated employees call in sick more and they also have more workplace injuries, they are also more likely to steal from you or be careless handling merchandise causing more damages. Not the mention the sheer drain they are on the motivated employees both in morale and workload.
Keeping your employees motivated will be one of your larger, constant issues as a manager.
It’s not enough to think, “They should be happy enough that they even have a job.” Sure, getting a paycheck should be motivation to come to work, but is it enough to motivate them to do good work, to strive to learn more, to go the extra mile in their customer service, to stay with your company longer, even if there are comparable jobs out there that would pay more than you pay? I can tell you for a fact the answer is “NO”, research consistently points to the fact people leave supervisors, they don’t leave companies.
Just because a paycheck should be enough motivation doesn’t mean it is enough motivation.
Employee productivity statistics can be very enlightening when you’re deciding whether or not to put the time, effort, and money into an employee motivation program. You can hire a company to do the statistics for you, but that’s probably only going to be cost-effective if you’re working for a large company.
Or, you can do a quick and dirty calculation by estimating how much time employees spend not working while they’re at work. Even if they spend an hour a day chatting with coworkers, checking personal email, updating Facebook or MySpace, or just general web surfing, that works out to about 250 hours per year. If they only make $10 per hour, during a 50-week you’re losing $2500 a year – and that’s just one employee!
There’s more to pay than just the dollars…..
There are hundreds of ways to implement an employee incentive program, but one major key before you do that is to be sure you’re paying adequate wages. If your people feel underpaid, an incentive program won’t bridge that gap. Maybe you need a “career day” so everyone can understand all their benefits and training programs, most companies offer competitive wages, the employees are often not aware of all the benefits and what those benefits add up to.
It’s important to ensure you have consistent pay for equivalent work and experience. Sometimes there are discrepancies here due to one employee being an excellent negotiator. For the most part most employees should be in a range that matches their position. I did take over a building once that did not have proper pay and the previous manager had indeed paid certain managers more and certain managers less…… It was so alarming I immediately called my boss and told him what I needed to do and he agreed.
Performance Reviews
An employee performance review is another place to motivate employees. People like to know how they’re doing, especially if a raise is tied to the employee evaluations. Have a program that is consistent (monthly, quarterly, annually, etc) and has achievable, structured goals for improvements.
Performance reviews can be counterproductive if they don’t have clear goals for the individuals. Everyone needs to know what they need to do to be “great”. People know when they aren’t getting honest feedback and it’s very de-motivating. People really do want to know when they have been less than adequate, you need to be honest and always approach your feedback from the perspective of helping the person. It has to be genuine!!! If you can’t care about people you need to find a different career.
Fear of Confrontation
Fear of confrontation is often a reason supervisors and managers avoid the difficult conversations. I can recall being a rookie at giving bad feedback to others and feeling terrified and tongue tied. Ask a mentor for help, practice in the mirror, ask a supervisor to sit in with you until you feel confident. It is critical that you master this. You will never amount to anything as a manager if you spend your time avoiding honest conversations. If you do it with a genuinely caring attitude you will be appreciated and well regarded for years, you will earn a name for yourself!
Often the best way to avoid a difficult conversation is be honest up front. Why wait for a review to tell someone they need to do better? That is really short changing that person and setting them up to feel frustrated. Maybe 6 months from a person’s performance review say, “Jane, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about your mid-year performance….”
- Start with them…… Let them ask you questions, vent, whatever they need.
- Ask them what you can do for them. How can you be a better manager for them? What do they wish you did more? Less?
- Talk about successes. When did they take the position and what have they done? What has changed? Improved?
- When the dust settles then you tell them you have a few concerns…. Talk about them. Depending on what it is make sure you take the responsibility if it was something that wasn’t addressed with them before.
- Set goals, discuss resources, additional training, whatever it is. Take notes. This conversation needs to include SMART goals.
- Set a date for follow up. Make sure the employee knows they can come to you if they have a concern, question, etc.
- End on the positives. Thank them for their time and honesty. Touch lightly again on the short term follow up issues you agreed on.
- Express your confidence in the person, in their career, performance, whatever.
- Smile, shake hands, walk with them to the office door is always a nice gesture.
Then be sure to follow up, they will remember every word you say! Guess what? If you follow these steps you will almost never have an uncomfortable meeting, your employees will improve and have a stronger sense of accomplishment and commitment to YOU. Will they improve 100% of the time to exactly the level you wanted? No. I wish it was that easy. I can tell from the questions I get I will be covering this topic a LOT more because there is a lot to it.
How are you doing?
This same method works for yourself. How are you doing? Are you getting good feedback from your boss? What do you need to improve?
Often a bad mark on a performance review isn’t necessarily a reflection of your complete performance, maybe you didn’t have your priorities aligned with your boss. Maybe your boss judges your productivity by how clean your desk is, or some other thing you weren’t aware of. Do you want to wait for your review to be told? No. So ask your boss for a time you can go over your performance. Be prompt. Take notes. Don’t get upset. It’s not personal.
After a few months touch base with your boss again. Have an outline for what was discussed along with notes of actions or things you did to improve, etc. Give them a copy. Ask how you are doing. What can you do better? Your boss has some other things they notice this time? Don’t be surprised. Priorities change. Also, in order for you to develop there will always be things you need to work on.
Training improves performance
Another way to increase motivation, morale, and productivity is through employee training development. You might think training is an unnecessary expense to the company, but the better trained an employee is, the better they will be at their jobs. And the more job functions they’re cross-trained in means they’re more valuable to you – they can fill in when someone calls in sick or if a heavy load hits a certain department all of a sudden.
It also breaks down walls in departments to have employees comfortable going to other areas. It may seem odd but people are creatures of habit, they will stay in an area they are comfortable in and that is all they will do. Is it because they are lazy or don’t care about customers? Rarely is that the case, it’s usually fear or discomfort of the unknown, or fear of feeling inadequate.
Typically people will stay where they are comfortable for comfort’s sake often to the detriment of other people and things. The best thing to do is build some sort of incentive for people to learn other departments. Have a party with various departments present, but ensure they all walk into each other’s areas. Have one group demonstrate things to the other and vice versa. It’s best to do something that is hands on and interactive since many people learn best that way.
Whether you use a monetary reward system or a different type of reward system for your employee motivation, be sure it’s implemented properly (so that everyone knows the requirements up front) and that it’s consistent. If you’re inconsistent with the incentive program, you’ll lose all the time, effort and money put into it.
Managing Change
Posted by: | CommentsManaging change in the workplace is a constant job function for a supervisor. The change might be as simple as a new customer service
policy, or it might be as impactful as merging with another company where job layoffs are inevitable.
What makes change easy or difficult to deal with is how your team adapts to it. And how your team adapts to it has a lot to do with how you as a supervisor manages the change.
Some people are exhilarated by change, and even need regular changes in their job duties to be happy, but many others hate change, and are even terrified by it. Rolling out a big change might even turn your best team member in to a difficult employee due to their fears. You’re not just managing the change itself, but helping everyone adjust to it and, ideally, even embrace it.
There are a couple things that you absolutely need to do in order for it all to work…….
- Be consistent….. Sounds simple but often overlooked. Keep your message and behavior consistent.
- Keep is simple…. The more complicated you make something the more your people will resist it.
- Communicate….. Often and clearly!
- Be optimistic….. Look at the positives for anything, it’s you JOB and responsibility to sell the program, that’s what your company pays you for! The trick is to listen to your team, be sincere, and keep it positive.
- Lead by Example! Do NOT let yourself breath a word of negativity about the change, not even to your support staff!
Communicate Frequently
The biggest key to effectively managing change in the workplace is communication. Just as you want to know what changes are coming and what they mean for you, so does your team.
With changes come rumors. One way to stop, or at least reduce rumors, is to keep information flowing both ways. As soon as it’s feasible to start communicating the changes, do so, even if you don’t have all the information yet. Give information to your team and take viable team concerns to your supervisors.
Communicate Honestly
People appreciate honesty, even if it’s bad news they’re receiving. For instance, if jobs will be lost during the change, let them know some jobs will be eliminated and why. Let them know when this will happen so every day they’re not wondering “is today the day.”
One thing that can hurt your credibility is if you give them a “sales job” and they can tell. You need to focus on the positives. If there are some negatives it’s okay to acknowledge them, a good way to move the conversation forward is to have a brainstorming session as a group some effective ways to overcome whatever negatives.
This doesn’t mean there will be no hard feelings. But it will go smoother.
Engage Others
Some on your team may embrace the changes coming. Use them to help allay fears with the others on your team.
Empower those on your team to help with the changes if possible. Even better, engage them in the decision making process if at all possible – even if it’s a small part of it. When people have a say in the change, they will embrace it quicker.
If you have group meetings use a dry erase board or maybe a giant piece of paper. Brainstorm benefits and difficulties, everything anyone can think of. Then systematically go through each item and ask the group which things they control. Most things on the list are usually controllable and as a group it helps eliminate mental road blocks.
Plan, plan, then plan some more.
Good planning before the change is essential to a smooth change transition. Make sure your plan includes in-depth communication to the employees, has contingencies for issues that might arise during the change, and is clear on who is responsible for which parts of a change.
Even the smoothest change may still ruffle feathers. A change that is undeniably for the best is likely to meet with resistance, as odd as it may sound. Some people just hate change. You’re more likely to see this among the older generations and among employees who have been around a long time, doing the same thing year after year. They tend to like the predictability. They do what they do, how they do it, because “that’s what we’ve always done”.
The key with that group is make sure you don’t minimize them, if you do you risk alienating them. Some of the most tenured employees can be your strongest allies, you can’t afford undermining your leadership by mishandling them. I always had to be aware of this tendancy in myself because I love change and new things, but I learned to always be aware of political capital and use it. Use it or lose it.
If you have a group meeting you can also use it as a productive way to do some planning. Involve the group, get some ideas, you will usually be happy you did and it will make your job easier.
But you, armed with a plan and strong communication, can win them over.
Management Topics
Posted by: | CommentsAhhhh…………. Being a manager………….. 
I can’t count how many times over the years I’ve had managers tell me they are “tired of baby-sitting”, “why should I have to tell them over and over”, and add your own……..
But managing is essential and doing well can be a more rewarding experience than you can imagine, from “thank you” cards, seeing subordinates get promoted and be successful, to getting your own promotions.
I can remember a couple years ago telling an Assistant Manager how impressed I was with him and I bet he would go far. He said, “You know, you are to thank for where I am.” I looked at him, not knowing what he meant, so I asked him what he meant. “You interviewed me a couple years ago, you were leaving that building the next day because you were promoted and you told me I could go as far as I wanted with this company”, he said, “Don’t you remember that?”
Sadly, no I didn’t….. Why? Because I did hundreds of interviews and in almost every one I could see potential in those people.
The same thing happened with another manager, I had worked with her when she was a department supervisor, she was promoted and in passing one day I congratulated her for her promotion. She said, “It’s all thanks to you because you always told me I could be anything I wanted.” Of course I didn’t remember because I said that to many people over the years, but I smiled to myself, glad I had taken the time back when I did to encourage her.
The power of words….. The power to help people move up and move on…..
How will you use your power?
I can tell you there is NOTHING more rewarding than helping others be successful.
Management Topics is such a large clump of topics that don’t really fit in my other categories, but I want you to know, they are all related.
What kind of influence are you going to be? You have complete power over the answer to that question.
Time Management
Posted by: | CommentsNew managers and experienced managers all face at least one common challenge – time management in the workplace.
A meeting here, an employee crisis there, another meeting, terminating an employee, answering questions from the team, chatting with co-workers who stop by… before you know it, your work day is gone and you feel like you’ve accomplished nothing substantial or tangible.
You can feel like you are in a maze with no way out and no idea where you are going.
Before being able to effectively manage your day, you need to be aware of time-suckers. These can come to you as legitimate aspects of your job or extraneous, non work-related time leeches.
Learning how to identify and manage time suckers will add productivity to your day and make your manager wonder how you get so much done.
Track Your Day
Spend a week tracking everything you do in a day. If you have an informal hallway meeting with your boss for 15 minutes, log it. If you take a quick smoke break, log it. If you answer four phone calls from your family, log them.
This will open your eyes to just how much time is spent on non-productive tasks and identify to you those which are the worst offenders. And you might be surprised to know which really take the most time.
The higher level of manager you are and the more employees you manage, the more your time needs to flow, so tracking down every thing won’t work. You may need to take notes at the end of the day and look at time robbers then.
The other thing you need to do is analyze what has to be done vs. what doesn’t. As a manager one of your primary duties is to protect time.
As I always told my team, “Time is my only non-renewable resource.”
You must be considerate of your team’s time if you have any hope of being successful. There are other factors for time as well. I said this on the another page and I will recommend it again, David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done has many great tips. He talks about removing yourself from distractions, or more importantly getting them out of your way for real productivity.
Mental “clutter” can get in the way of every other kind of productivity. It causes you, as a manager, to miss opportunities and not fully connect with what is going on now. I’ll say it again, you need to know what things aren’t essential to really move the needle on productivity.
Meetings
The larger the company you work for, the more your day may be managed by meetings you’re invited to and expected to attend. Accept only those you really need to attend.
And when it’s your turn to lead meetings, invite only those who are truly necessary (out of respect for their time management) and learn to run an expeditious meeting. It’s not a bad thing to have a reputation for holding short meetings!
Have an agenda and handouts so people can take notes, this will keep the meeting going and help keep everyone focused.
There are exceptions to everything I said above…. IF you are in a dynamic change situation, “turning things around”, building your team or any other number of those types of scenarios, it’s important to have meeting with all personnel that may impact, help, or whatever. I am going to need to information on specific steps for those scenarios because I get questions about those topics all the time.
Chatters
Every workplace has a chatter. Or several chatters. They want to talk about last night’s TV shows, the condition of the economy, and their inconsiderate spouse, children or neighbors. If six people stop you to chat during the day, even for only 10 minutes each, you’ve just lost an hour of work. Are the chatters stopping to talk to your team members? Are the chatters on your team?
While you don’t necessarily want to snub everyone who wants to chat with you, you should be armed with some effective conversation-enders so you can return to the job you’re being paid for.
The further up you move in management the more important it is for you to chat constructively. You have to chat some but you need to make sure you spread it around to everyone.
Another important key is to make sure your employees don’t think you are wasting time. Be aware what is going on. If everyone is under pressure to get things done, you better be right there in the thick of things and not out there “chatting”.
Don’t Do What You Don’t Need To Do
Two ways you can manage your time more effectively are to prioritize your day in a list and to delegate tasks.
Before you start your day, make a list of the tasks you need to accomplish that day. As much as possible, work on that number one task until it’s done, then proceed to the next task. You might want to put the most important task on the top of the list, or you might want to put the task you hate the most on top, just to get it done and off your mind.
Delegation has multiple benefits as well. First, you don’t spend time doing a task someone else can do.
And second, entrusting a task to someone on your team gives them more responsibility, increases their self esteem and lets them become more important to the company because they can do more.
Here are a few tips that will make delegating easier.
- Start small. You need to start with small tasks to get used to it.
- Make sure any task you give to someone matches their experience level.
- Ask the person to repeat back to you what you said. Don’t make it sound like you want to make sure “they” are right, tell them you are making sure you spoke correctly.
- Make sure you tell them where to reach you if they have a question.
- Give a specific timeline.
- Don’t get angry if it turns out wrong, ask what you said to help yourself understand how it went wrong.
There are many ways to help you improve your time management in the workplace. Try several and see which work best for you. You (and your boss) will be glad you did!
How to Improve EQ
Posted by: | CommentsNow that you better understand the theory of emotional intelligence, are you wondering how to improve emotional 
intelligence?
You can, you know.
Because emotional intelligence is your ability to identify and manage your emotions and the emotions of others, this is where you begin to improve – with your emotions.
“We become uncompetitive by not being tolerant of mistakes. The moment you let avoiding failure become your motivator, you’re down the path of inactivity. You can stumble only if you are moving.” Roberto Goizueta – former CEO of Coca-Cola.
Become Self-Aware and Other-Aware
One step in improving emotional intelligence is to develop your emotional self awareness. Can you identify your own emotions as anger, resentment, elation, etc., or do you stuff and ignore them because showing emotions isn’t what you do, especially at work?
Can you identify particular emotions in other people ? Do you understand group dynamics and crowd mentality?
“Lifelong earning demands lifelong learning,” says Jeffery Joseph, Vice President of domestic policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. “Managing in today’s workplace requires new smarts. All employees are handling more complex jobs which require entrepreneurial drive and the ability to solve problems, communicate ideas and make swift decisions.”
Take Responsibility
Learn to take responsibility for your actions and feelings. If you messed up on a job assignment or reacted inappropriately to a co-worker, take ownership of it rather than blame others or feel entitled to your emotional tirade.
Remember you will have setbacks. You will get discouraged when you are trying to change your behavior. It takes time. Think of some of these points:
- The problem is not just who is involved; the real problem is how I choose to respond.
- The real problem is not just how something happens; the real problem is how I choose to respond.
Exercise Empathy
An old Indian adage states, “Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins before you criticize him”. Learn to look at someone’s actions through their eyes. What colors their reactions at work? Might they have a terminally ill child at home? Are they facing foreclosure because their spouse was laid off? Are they in chronic pain they don’t let others see?
“Empathy is career currency. It allows us to create bonds of trust, it gives us insights into what others may be feeling or thinking; it helps us understand how or why others are reacting to situations, it sharpens our ‘people acumen’ and informs our decisions.” Cynthia Kivland – Career Performance Strategies.
To be empathetic does not mean you need to tear up or feel sorry for someone. Empathy is easily demonstrated (even if you don’t feel anything yourself) by using active listening skills. Is it possible to really be empathetic with every person? Probably not.
Someone may tell you something horrible that you don’t think of as a big deal or you are sitting on an intense deadline that you are going to get screamed at if you don’t get it done and you can’t think of anything else. Just tell them you’re sorry to hear about such-and-such, please let you know what you can do for them, etc. Just give them a few minutes of you focused on them. That is usually enough in a pinch.
Remember that studies have shown that words only account for 7% of the total message people receive, 93% of the message is contained in our tone of voice and body language.
You need to build empathy in the managers that report to you as well. I was never an empathetic person early in my career, it was something that took time to cultivate and practice. I also had to learn that lack of empathy usually means that a person is self critical, hard on oneself. Even then I was never perfect. Practice it. It matters. To your career and the people that work for you.
Exercise Humor
Instead of resorting to anger or rigidity in your dealings with others, use humor to diffuse a situation that would normally anger or frustrate you. For example, if someone bumps you and your coffee spills down your shirt, instead of yelling at that person, what if you chuckled and said, “Oh, man, and that was a good cup of coffee, too!” You’ve just exercised an emotionally intelligent response.
With humor it’s easy to turn it into sarcasm so be sure you use the humor and not the sarcasm. Sarcasm is often a defense mechanism, while it can be funny you are usually not building your credibility as a leader when you use it, no matter how hard it makes everyone laugh so just be wise about when you use it.
Look for the Silver Lining
Bad situations don’t have to be total doom and gloom. Emotionally intelligent people find a silver lining, even if they had to make it themselves.
Let’s say your company of 2000 employees has to lay off 300, where’s the silver lining in that, you ask? Well, first, there are still 1700 people with a job. But because you are emotionally intelligent and empathize for the 300, can you rally any of the 1700 to help the 300 in some way? If 1700 people donate $20 each, the 300 laid off can all buy a cart full of groceries or several tanks of gas while they look for another job.
Improving emotional intelligence has great rewards. You will be a better employee and manager. You will handle difficult employees and diffuse difficult, even dangerous, situations with skill. You will rise further in the company, you will be more satisfied in your job, and you will help those around you to rise to their higher potentials as well.
