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

Help employees lower stress during the holiday season

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December can be an especially stressful time as people prepare for the holidays and struggle to finish up projects before the end of the year.  As a manager, you have just as much on your plate as anyone else and probably more, but you can also take some steps to ease some of the stress of your employees.

  • Instead of having each person spend money on buying gifts for Secret Santa, have everyone on your team draw a name of another team member and write a paragraph on a piece of construction paper about that person’s strengths and why she is valuable to the team.  During a team meeting, have everyone read what was written about them.
  • Ask people what you can do to help with their workload.  Check with each person on the team to see if anyone has extra time to help someone else.
  • Try to be accommodating if someone comes in a little late or has to leave early.
  • Many people take time off for vacation this month, so if you’re assigning a project to someone, make sure that they will have enough time and resources to get the project done by deadline.  If the project depends on key info from someone who is going to be out on vacation for most of the project time, then you may need to re-evaluate the deadline.
  • Encourage people to take breaks during the day to help ease their stress.

After the Training Event

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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.

Motivate Employees for Better Business Results

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Employee motivation was the trendy buzz-phrase for a while, but now that companies are doing more with less money, motivation programs have been pushed to the wayside. It isn’t that people don’t care about their employees. Many organizations are upset about having to cut the programs that they feel are motivators, but costs are a strong factor in this economy.

Why Should You Care About Employee Motivation?

Making everyone feel good doesn’t seem to be necessary when there are hundreds of people ready to replace any employee who isn’t motivated enough. However, motivated employees can make a huge positive difference in your bottom line while unmotivated employees can cost you thousands, even millions.

Motivated and engaged employees care enough to go the extra mile for you. This is especially important in this economy, since each person has to handle a higher workload.  If everyone is doing just enough to get by, your company is not reaching its potential.

However, what you may not realize is that if you’re creative with some of your motivation methods, it’s not going to cost you as much as you think.

Effective Motivators

There isn’t a magical formula for motivating your employees. Each person is different, which is why it’s important to use a mix of methods.  You cannot motivate someone who doesn’t want it, but the good news is that everyone is motivated by something.   For most employees, you can build the right conditions and environment, which will tap into and bring out their inner motivation.

  • People want to know that they are making a difference. Be clear about the organizational mission and goals and to make sure that employees understand how their jobs affect organizational results.
  • Be fair.  Treat employees fairly by being consistent in the way that you treat them and the way that you use criteria to measure performance.  People can sense favoritism and it decreases morale and causes people to lose trust.
  • Recognition is a motivational tool that doesn’t cost anything and is underutilized by managers. Employees want to receive positive feedback about their performance. Make sure that it’s specific and timely.
  • Give feedback on performance in a way that’s constructive and focuses on the work goals.  Focus on the facts so that it doesn’t turn into a personal attack.  Let the employee share his/her ideas for improvement so that there’s employee buy-in of what actions he/she will take to improve. It’s much more effective than you telling the employee that they are to just take the feedback and do what you say without any discussion or questions (I’ve worked with managers who’ve done that and then been surprised that they didn’t see any lasting improvement).
  • Flexible work schedules and time off are also significant motivators. In our time-crunched society, employees need extra time to spend with their families, go to the doctor, or work on their hobbies.  It also helps them re-energize and avoid getting burnt out.
  • The opportunity for advancement and new challenges is another motivator. People get bored doing the same thing year after year. Dell is an example of a company who “gets it.” When employees perform well in a certain role in a project, Dell allows them to move to another position to keep them continually learning.  If you can’t move someone into a new position quite yet, give them increasingly more challenging projects.
  • Build relationships with your employees.  Ask them what their short-term and long-term career goals are and what skills they need to develop in order to reach those goals.  Support them by giving them ideas, resources, and projects that would help them build those skills.
  • Ask employees for their input and show them that you value their input.  They could give this anonymously in surveys or in a suggestions box, or be asked for their input in meetings or in discussions with their managers.
  • Money is not the number one motivator for employees, but without it, you wouldn’t have any employees. People need to first be able to make a salary that allows them to meet their life needs before they can be motivated by other factors.

Also, check out these books:

365 Ways to Motivate and Reward Your Employees Everyday:  With Little or No Money by Diana Podmoroff

Engaged Leadership: Building a Culture to Overcome Employee Disengagement by Clint Swindall

Make Their Day!  Employee Recognition that Works – 2nd edition by Cindy Ventrice

Top 10 Training Mistakes that Cost Companies Money

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1. Not determining the correct goals or objectives.

2.  Failure to do relevant research on whether training is necessary.

3.  People are not held accountable for changing behavior.

4.  Poor follow-up or reinforcement of training.

5.  Lack of buy-in from management.

6.  No opportunity for hands-on job application.

7.  Not offering a safe environment for employees to learn and practice.

8.  Lack of specific feedback around behaviors.

9. Lack of consideration of the learners and their learning styles.

10. Inexperienced or inappropriate trainer.