Take a look around your office. Is everyone walking around in a coma?
Maybe it’s time to shake things up!
For many organizations, it’s critical that top management focus on re-engaging their constituents.
The workforce has been bombarded by the media with many value-based issues, such as healthcare, taxes, the war in the Middle East, unemployment, the recession, etc.
Your team members, some more than others, are being affected by these issues and bringing their emotional baggage to the office. In some cases, management is causing their own problems.
Regardless of the size of your company, you need a highly motivated workforce to compete in today’s economy. Here are ten useful ideas:
1. Organizational chart – Does your current chart actually reflect today’s lines of authority? If not, revise it so your team knows it, understands it, and can follow it.
2. Look at all your key jobs to see if they need to be re-engineered. Many jobs have changed to the point they require the player to be all things to all people.
3. Replace job descriptions with key accountabilities, which do a much better job of helping people understand what they really need to do. The Job Benchmark process delivers these key accountabilities.
4. Analyze each key job and determine if continuous learning is required for superior performance. If so, do you have a plan and budget to keep everyone current?
5. Engage them in decision making. Think about how our children and grandchildren have helped older generations with email, cell phones and computers. They want to be involved. Inspire a shared vision and build consensus by getting input from the team.
6. Praise your team for their contributions.
7. DWYSYWD Do What You Say You Will Do. Are you modelling the way?
8. Job Fit – Match talent to the task or job. The job benchmark will show you what type of person the job wants based on behaviors, values, skills, and acumen.
9. Create a positive environment by ensuring everyone’s intrinsic motivators are satisfied on the job.
10. Engage outside the office. Support their ideas about going green and encourage their involvement in community activities.
Contact us for a complimentary consultation to see if we’d make a good team.
Steve,
Thanks for all the great tips!
Regarding #2, it’s very interesting how more and more jobs are evolving over time. Due to downsizing and needing to do more with less, an employee can have their duties evolve and expand a lot over time. As a result, I agree that it’s important to reassess what employees are doing. A lot of problems can occur if their job simply becomes too much for one employee (even a really good employee) to handle. If this isn’t done, the company runs the risk that the employee will leave and go work somewhere else.
I also really like #5 and #6. I think listening to employees and praising employees are very important. This can raise employee morale, motivation, and productivity.
Thanks Greg. What I see happening is employers are putting people in the wrong seats on the bus. That’s why a Job Benchmark for key positions is so important. In my process we ask, “IF the job could talk, what would it say it wanted?” More on the process is here https://www.endgamebusiness.com/jobbenchmarkingass/
Steve,
Thanks for sharing. I definitely think that making sure employees are the right fit for the job is extremely important.