My Leadership Solutions

lead·er·ship: not only for those with a fancy title. High doses can lead to success. Side effects include courage and confidence

Never Use Bribery in the Workplace

by

It is never appropriate to ask your employees to do personal favors for you in return for promotions, time off, great projects or any other employment benefits .  Even asking for something seemingly harmless such as dog-sitting while you’re out of town or helping you paint your rooms in exchange for an employment benefit is not okay and can lead to lawsuits, high turnover, employee disengagement, and the termination of your employment.

I worked with a certain company, where a manager promoted four people after they did a series of personal favors that she had asked of them.  Favors included helping her move, painting her house, picking up groceries, and accompanying her to places.

As unbelievable and shocking as it sounds, this situation took place in a Fortune 500 company.  People who had been overlooked for the promotion figured out the reason that the others had been promoted and eventually went to Human Resources.  The company launched an investigation immediately and ended up firing the manager.

I know that there are many great managers out there and I don’t want you to experience a similar situation.   Never, ever ask for personal favors from employees in return for employment favors.

After the Training Event

by

The training is finished.  All employees have gone through it.  Mission accomplished, right?

No, you’re actually just getting started.  People need to apply the training on the job in order for it to become ingrained, which means that what you do after the training to reinforce the learning can be more important than what happened during the training.

Imagine if you want to learn to ride a horse so you watch a video on it or observe someone do it and then don’t actually getting on the horse and ride it yourself.  It sounds ridiculous, but this is the same thing as having people attend the training and then having no follow-up or opportunity for practice afterward.

The training is a great place to introduce employees to the new behavior and have them practice it, but they need to perform the behavior in their jobs in order to master it.

These tips will give you ideas on how to ensure that your employees get enough practice after training in order to learn the new behavior.

  • Incorporate activities that require the person to practice the new behavior.  These activities should closely resemble what the person will be exposed to in their jobs.  The training environment should be a place where employees feel safe to try and fail without being judged.
  • Offer timely training.  If the company is implementing a new process, but the change isn’t going to happen for another year, hold off on the training.  You want people to be able to practice what they’ve learned as soon as possible so that it becomes ingrained.
  • Make sure that managers are holding their employees accountable for performing the new behavior.
  • Managers should also be giving employees recognition and feedback tied to the new behavior.
  • Deliver follow-up trainings or meetings in the next few months after the training in order to reinforce the learning.
  • Hold people accountable.  Include the behavior as part of the performance reviews, but there should be enough time for learning and practicing before you do this.
  • Send out consistent communication stressing the importance of performing the new behavior and thank employees for helping out with the initiative.