Tag: How to motivate employees (Page 2 of 3)

Controversial Presentation On A New Employment Model – Microworking

February 1, 2013 / HRwisdom

In today’s HRwisdom Blog, we are sharing a controversial video presentation which deals with a proposed new employment model – microworking.

Plenty of people need jobs with very flexible hours — but it’s difficult for those people to connect with the employers who need them. Wingham Rowan is working on that. He explains how the same technology that powers modern financial markets can help employers book workers for slivers of time.

Wingham Rowan is the founder of social business Slivers-of-Time, which runs online markets for microworking and micro-volunteering.

There has been heated discussion around this presentation.

New Employment Model – Microworking

Here is the original presentation.

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Building A Resilient Workforce

January 30, 2013 / HRwisdom

In today’s HRwisdom post we are delving into building a resilient workforce.

It is important to do this because many business managers and human resources professionals focus on finding the right type of people to bring in to the organisation but then run out of time to find ways and keeping these great people.

We are bringing this issue to your attention by sourcing an excellent article on team building which we feel will be of great use to you . . .

Building a Resilient Workforce

By David Athony Lee

The more resilient your workforce, the greater your ability to:

Adapt nimbly to marketplace changes.
Provide friendly, alert, loyalty-generating customer service.
Implement change rapidly, with minimal resistance.
Get maximum productivity from your employees without burning them out.
Enjoy organizational effectiveness because teams and departments work well together, rather than have an “us” versus “them” mentality that festers in a stressed out environment.
Foster a “can do” spirit or what Southwest Airlines calls a “Warrior Spirit.”

So How Do You Do Create A Stress Resistant, Resilient Workforce?

1. Remove Unnecessary Sources of Stress – Smart employers ask employees “What do we do that drives you crazy?” “What do we do that gets in the way of your doing your job?” Employee energy squandered dealing with bureaucratic hassles and other obstacles to performance is employee energy not available for innovation and productivity. It’s also energy that could make the difference between employees facing challenge with a “Bring it on!” attitude rather than an “I can’t handle another thing on my plate!” attitude. Find out which rules, red tape, need to go. Ferret out and remove any and all unnecessary obstacles. Doing so will recover a massive amount of employee energy that can be channeled to productive use.

2. Remove as Much Ambiguity As Possible – While everyone knows it is important to keep employees in the loop, few employers do a good job at this. If you’re serious about keeping employee morale high and building organizational resilience, you need to shift this idea from “know it” to “act on it.” The more employees know what’s going on, the less time and energy they spend wondering-and worrying-about what they don’t know. Research on stress and control shows that when we know what is going to happen-even if it’s bad-we feel less stressed than when we are faced with the unknown. Find out from employees where they feel left in the dark and how best to keep them in the know.

3. Keep the Dream Alive – Having employees who are inspired and engaged is even more important-and difficult to accomplish-during challenging times. When employees are animated by a compelling vision of a better future or how they can make a difference in the world, they bring their Higher Selves to work, rather than their Lower, It’s-All-About-Me Selves.

Keep the dream alive by sharing stories of the great things you’re doing, stories of employees making a difference, and customer letters of appreciation. Make this a regular part of meetings, company newsletters, and any communication.

4. Make Sure You Set Your People Up For the Thrill of Victory and Not the Agony of Defeat – If employees’ daily experience is one of frustration and failure, they will bring that mindset and emotional state to everything they do-including their response to major changes you ask them to make. By making sure employees have the tools, training, and resources to excel at their jobs, you not only get greater productivity and work quality, you also get employees who feel like-and act like-“Can do” winners.

5. Celebrate Wins – Celebrating both company and individual victories doesn’t just create a positive “vibe”. It also helps workers see themselves as part of a winning team and themselves as effective. This mindset obviously fosters a more “Can do” attitude and courageous response to challenges than if employees see themselves as “losers” and part of a hapless, beleaguered team.

Furthermore, when difficult times brings a steady stream of negative news, it’s easy to see oneself as a victim of circumstances. By consciously calling attention to accomplishments and successes, you offset the doom and gloom with genuine positivity. By sharing stories of employees doing great things, you also strengthen the belief that you are a team of winners who can accomplish great things. Because emotions affect perception, shifting the ambient emotional state of your workforce to a more upbeat, hopeful state, means employees are more apt to look at challenges as something they can overcome, rather than insurmountable obstacles.

6. Balance “We need to move on” with “I feel your pain.” – When people don’t feel their distress is heard or respected, they stay stuck in “broadcast mode.” They can’t hear-nor do they care about-what you have to say. Make sure you verbally acknowledge your employees’ distress over major changes and difficulties. Don’t just launch into an “It is what it is. Get over it” speech and expect that to work. Great leaders acknowledge the emotions and perceptions of their followers during difficult times, and then shift into their vision of the future and how each person has a role in making that vision a reality. Doing so not only inspires your employees-because they know what they can do to make a difference-it also builds stronger relationships between employees and management.

David Lee is the founder of HumanNatureAtWork.com and the author of over 60 articles and book chapters on optimizing employee performance. To download more of his articles, along with “61 Questions That Can Transform Your Workforce”, go to: http://www.HumanNatureAtWork.com]HumanNatureAtWork.com.

Article Source: Building a Resilient Workforce

We hope you have enjoyed this thought-provoking article from David Lee.

As mentioned earlier, at HRwisdom we feel this discussion on team building is an important part of our overall focus on employee attraction and retention. This is because one of our guiding principals in staff management is: “Nothing operates in isolation.”

There is no point in inventing weird or wonderful ways of finding more job candidates and bringing them on board only to destroy shareholder value by pushing staff through a broken system.

As always in managing your workforce, there is a balanced approach. Efficient and effective team development goes a long way to maintaining the right balance.

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Light-Hearted HR Policy Development

January 22, 2013 / HRwisdom

Today’s HRwisdom blog post is a light-hearted one on HR policy development although it does come with a language warning.

We have made very rare exception and included a timeless post which does include some rude words (“timeless” meaning this HR tale has been around for many years and we could not find the original source although we are happy to give proper attribution if you know this).

The following is one possible description of how HR Policies are developed in large organisations.

Enjoy (and remember to share this with your colleagues and friends) . . .

HR Policy Development

In the beginning was the plan.

And then came the assumptions.

And the assumptions were without form.

And the plan was without substance.

And darkness was upon the face of the workers.

And they spoke among themselves saying,

“It is a crock of shit and it stinketh.”

And the workers went unto their supervisors and said,

“It is a pale of dung and none may abide the odor thereof.”

And the supervisor went unto their managers and said,

“It is a container of excrement and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it.”

And the managers went unto their directors, saying,

“It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength.”

And the directors spoke among themselves, saying to one another,

“It contains that which aids plant growth and it is very strong.”

And the directors went unto the vice presidents, saying unto them,

“It promotes growth and is very powerful.”

And the vice presidents went unto the president, saying unto him,

“The new plan will promote the growth and vigor of the company, with powerful effects.”

And the president looked upon the plan and saw that it was good.

And the plan became policy.

This is how shit happens.

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How To Really Freak Out Your Workforce

January 22, 2013 / HRwisdom

Employers everywhere are facing many different challenges and this makes staff motivation very difficult.

Some companies are struggling with the decline of the manufacturing sector and related job losses.

Organisations in the resources-rich states are facing rising labour costs and skills shortage issues.

Businesses in the retail sector are trying to protect tight profit margins and decreasing sales volumes against the flight to online shopping.

No matter what the economic environment or challenges, all organisations need to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of their workforce.

Maximising this efficiency and effectiveness can be done in all sorts of ways such as:

Employee Value Propositions (EVP)
Process improvement programmes
Training and development
Employee engagement initiatives
Employee retention systems
Performance improvement plans

There are all sorts of ways to successfully manage your workforce and many of these good ideas are discussed in the free HRwisdom Employee Attraction & Retention Guide.

Not Our Recommended Approach To Staff Motivation

One method of staff motivation that is NOT RECOMMENDED is to give employees $10 if they can successfully guess which of their colleagues is the next to be fired.

In a post a couple of years ago on the US ABC News website, details were reported of a court case in the United States in which an employer found himself in hot water for trying to motivate his staff by running a “firing contest.”

Apparently the employer sent a company-wide memo telling staff they could win if they successfully guessed which of their colleagues would be fired next.

Once the winner had been chosen, the contest started all over again.

Unfortunately for the business, a number of staff resigned after they realised the whole thing was not actually a joke as they first thought.

Some might call this an “interesting” approach to employee engagement and employee retention.

The judge called it “egregious and deplorable.”

Either way, this employer won’t be winning any Employer of Choice awards anytime soon.

And in case you’re wondering, yes there were penalties involved.

The employer was required to pay large fines for issues relating to what we in Australia might refer to as constructive dismissal and harassment.

So, if you are thinking about implementing this novel method of employee motivation, perhaps you may be better serviced sticking with the good ol’ Employee Of The Month award until something better comes along . . .

You can download the HRwisdom Employee Attraction & Retention Guide now.

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10 Simple Ideas To Improve Employee Morale

January 18, 2013 / HRwisdom

Thanks to Vlasta Eriksson for these quick and easy ideas to improve employee morale.

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]our employees are the ones who help reach the collective goals of the organisation.

Hence it is very important to keep their morale up so they can work towards achieving better results.

Sometimes the plain and simple things in life are the most important ones.

It’s the same situation for the workplace.

Simple and well thought-out plans make all the difference to lightening-up staff morale.

Here are 10 steps that explain how any organisation can spend a few minutes and improve their staff morale at the workplace.

1. To reduce the stress level of employees, get rid of equipment that doesn’t work well such as computers, photocopier, fax machine etc and replace it. Make sure the supplies are always enough and the kitchen is stocked with provisions.

2. Allow them to work flexible hours. Employees also have personal commitments as well. Today, best practice workplaces are offering flexitime, part-time positions and work from home options more increasingly.

3. Give importance to the ideas and advice of your employees. Encourage them to speak up on different issues that relate to the organisation or themselves. Implement their ideas if practical and let people know of their contribution.

4. You can hold bake-offs and share morning tea or coffee because mornings are a great time to share ideas. Everybody can bring in some sort of baking confectionary. This can also raise some funds for charities that are widely supported by the employees.

5. A management expert believes that short messages should be delivered in person. Today, we live in an era where 40 percent of emails are not given any value. It means that rather than emailing the person who sits two floors down, just go and talk to him/her directly; it strengthens the relationship.

6. Offer your employees to sit with you for a day even if you are meeting someone. This will boost the morale of the employees up to a great extent and a give them lots of useful insight too.

7. Offer them advice on how they strive harder to make the best of their careers. Reimburse them for continuing education courses, professional seminars and lectures.

8. You can run contests and awards schemes. You can set a prize for something as simple as the best customer feedback received during the month.

9. Maintain a specific budget for entertainment. Arrange a team to decide the fair allocation of the budget for each quarter.

10. Celebrate the birthdays of your employees. It will not cost you to email your wishes. Every employee has a birthday so eventually no one is left out.

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How To Train Staff (with a funny HR video thrown in)

January 17, 2013 / HRwisdom

How To Train Staff (with a funny HR video thrown in)

The issue of how to train staff is one of the key issues addressed in the free HR guide available for instant download at HRwisdom now.

In the HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide, sixteen expert employee management practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offer their best employee attraction & retention advice.

How To Train Staff

Much of the information in the comprehensive free guide goes towards addressing staff development and motivation issues.

In the wider context, the free guide has been developed to help business owners and Human Resources professionals who want to fast-track their staff management success.

One such expert contributor is Anthony Sork.

Anthony Sork is the creator of the Employment Attachment Inventory. The world first, internationally patented business instrument used by leading organisations to increase employee attachment, reduce attrition and increase performance of new employees.

Anthony describes how it is easy to preach about the importance of induction in an employee’s level of attachment. However the challenges of managing that induction in a way that works for the employee, the business and the HR team can be confronting. He then shares excellent advice on effective inductions and how to train staff.

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click on Employee Attraction & Retention Guide or visit www.hrwisdom.com.au/HR-Advice now.

Funny HR Video On Teamwork

To balance out the high powered ideas you’ll gain from reading the employee attraction & retention guide, we thought you’d might enjoy this short but funny HR video . . .

Remember, for instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click on Employee Attraction & Retention Guide or visit www.hrwisdom.com.au/HR-Advice now.

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How To Calculate Employee Turnover

January 17, 2013 / HRwisdom

The impact of understanding how to calculate employee turnover is one of the key issues addressed in a free guide available for instant download at HRwisdom.com.au now.

In the new “The HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” sixteen expert employee management practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offer their best employee attraction & retention advice.

How to calculate employee turnover rate is a question sometimes asked by members of the HRwisdom community.

How to calculate employee turnover?

The employee turnover rate or staff turnover rate is simply a percentage of employee leavers versus the standard headcount over a given period of time.

How to calculate employee turnover: take the number of employees leaving, divide that by the average total number of employees, and then multiply the outcome by 100 (to give you a percentage).

The number of employees leaving and the total number of employees are usually measured over a year or sometimes month by month.

So, if on average your business or department had 190 employees last month and 43 employees left last month, you’re left trying to sort out an employee turnover rate of around 23%.

This is one of the issues addressed in the new free guide available for instant download on the HRwisdom free employee retention guide page now.

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click here now: Free HR Guide.

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Managing Generation Y In The Workplace

January 15, 2013 / HRwisdom

Managing Generation Y In The Workplace

Today’s HRwisdom Blog looks at managing Gen Y staff and comes thanks to HRwisdom expert contributor, Robert Watson.

Over to Robert . . .

Weekend papers regularly feature stories about “Generation Y” – the group of people born between about 1979 and 1999.

Once a group attains a label, it follows that writers compile the quirkiest features of that group and turn it into literary entertainment.

However, being a business manager you have probably seen some of these people applying for jobs and perhaps you have even employed some and noticed that they are somehow “different” to your regular workers.

So, it will help employers if they can have an understanding of the characteristics of Gen Y.

Gen Y are commonly described as:

Very confident of themselves
Impatient
Quick to learn
Positive about the future, and
Spending significant amounts of time socialising using computers and mobile phones (and you thought they were wasting time!).

What if you are recruiting Gen Y people?

Unlike their parents, Gen Y don’t look in the newspaper waiting for job vacancies to appear each Saturday. No, they actively use search engines on the internet to spot advertisements and have them automatically sent by RSS feed to their mobile phones. Gen Y can literally send in their CV one minute after the job ad has been posted.

As an employer, you should be using the internet as your primary method of advertising vacancies.

Having said that, it can be smart to use a two-pronged approach.

First, place a small newspaper ad which shows your company name (brand), the job title, a reference to the more comprehensive internet ad and just enough words to excite Mum and Dad into telling their son or daughter.

Second, your internet ad (or website) should contain details to excite the potential Gen Y applicant:

Use fresh and bright colour so that your vacancy looks different from the bland text-only ads
Show photos or a video of your existing employees smiling at work (an informal but free method of recognising your best employees!)
Talk about growth and exciting future developments because Gen Ys want to see that your business is not stagnant
Mention technology where appropriate, and
You still need a basic description of what the work entails, remembering, however, Gen Y will be wanting to see if your workplace looks like an interesting and fun place to be. As an example, do school kids join fast food outlets because they want to cook 1000 burger patties in a shift? No! They join because they want to be part of a fun-loving team of young people.

What if your business already has Gen Ys?

With Gen Y, be aware that their loyalty to anything is often fragile. If they don’t like your workplace, they will leave and then start looking for other work (although we’ll wait and see what impact the global financial downturn has upon this characteristic). In contrast, the older generations would hang on in a lousy job until they had secured another job.

To a large extent, you need to entertain the Gen Ys, and there is a way to do this which will tap into their impatience and their need for fast-paced learning.

Consider setting up a Learning Log which is a plan of all the topics needed to be mastered before a person can be considered for the next position. Although the topics might be broad, the individual sub-topics will be small and very quick to learn. Training policies help plan for such learning.

An Example: A Supermarket Business

Level 1 Check-Out Operation

Opening the register
Greeting the customer
Operating the conveyor, scanning and packing bags
Transactions – Cash, Credit cards, EFT, Cheque
Failed scans and Sale items
Shutdown and Balancing the till

Level 2 Front End Supervision

All aspects of Check-Out Operation, plus
Accessing the safe
Handling returns
Responsible sale of cigarettes
Dealing with abusive customers
Confronting suspected shoplifters
Emergency evacuation drill coordination
Rostering of staff.

In the past, a business might train all of these things in a single four hour session of mostly theory.

However, with Gen Y you would use a staged approach, with separate lessons over a period of time. Each mini-lesson would have a small amount of theory, then a walk-through of the appropriate Standard Operating Procedure and, finally, an appropriate number of hours doing the activity under the watchful eye of your most experienced supervisor.

Short, sharp lessons building up towards the end point makes for a program which engages the Gen Y employee.

The Bottom Line:

Rather than shaking your head in frustration at Gen Ys, your challenge is to tap into their many strengths so that your business can ride the fast wave into the future.

HRwisdom

Just For Fun – How To Welcome New Staff From Overseas

January 14, 2013 / HRwisdom

At HRwisdom, we talk a lot about being proactive and taking positive steps to ensure a motivated and high-performing workforce.

Today, just for fun, we’re sharing one option you may wish to consider.

No doubt about it – this method is guaranteed to ensure you have sky high employee engagement levels – it just might take a little more planning (and rehearsing) than usual.

If you do any international recruitment and you’re worried about employee turnover and the associated costs . . .

This is one fun example of how to welcome new staff from overseas.

Remember to share it with friends and colleagues.

Video On How To Welcome New Staff From Overseas

Feel free to share this.

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Watch This Powerful HR Video Presentation On How Great Leaders Inspire Others To Take Action

January 13, 2013 / HRwisdom

Today the HRwisdom Blog is sharing with you a powerful HR video that should serve to inspire you and any person leading people in any type of organisation.

When describing how great leaders inspire others to take action, the speaker shares such legendary examples as Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers.

By the way, we have a lot more excellent management information to share with you.

Make sure you are part of the HRwisdom Community (it’s free).

Just use the form over on the right below to get started.

Then watch the video presentation.

Remember to share this on Twitter and Facebook.

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