Motivating and Managing Employee – A Positive Approach

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Date: 27th Jan 2007
Author: Hadi Ejaz Ahmed
Ranking: 8.67 (6 Votes)

How important is motivation? It makes all the difference. You may be the most knowledgeable, experienced, talented and capable manager in the world. But if your employees are lacking in motivation, mediocrity will creep into your organization. With an organization like Ultimus the main issue was that managers today were not hired as managers they are all technical guys who with there experience with the company promoted to the next level as manager. The trap to where most managers who are moved to next level in organization like ours occur in the inability of the managers to see that their work has fundamentally changed. Since managers are typically promoted because of their technical skills in an area so more often than not they keep on practicing the skills that got them the promotion rather than understand that they have a whole new skill set to develop. No one has explained that their primary responsibility has shifted from doing to helping others do. Now this may cause problems when we thinking about managing and then motivating employees as managing people is not as simple as developing a piece of software as people are different. Two people can reaction to a same thing can totally be opposite as compared to a software which behave in a predefined way (mostly?) under a given situation.

What every manager wants is to increase productivity in his department. Now the question arises how to do it...there might be million of ways ... but there is no hard and fast rule of doing it...we are only proposing few ways which can be utilized and can make difference if implemented...

As managers just ask your self a question: Who would want to be influenced and inspired by you? We feel this is the most important question that should be asked to every manager because managers can’t really do anything or be effective in their jobs, if their employees aren’t motivated to perform well. So as a manager it is very essential that you should continually look for ways to engage your people and rouse their enthusiasm and commitment to the organization and its goals. This seams simple thing to do but in fact this is very difficult because fact it people are motivated to do what is in their best interest they are not truly going to be motivated with your goals and objective and they will ask themselves " what’s in it for me " and as a manager it is your job to sync their goal and motives with to your organization goals and activities and help them realize that their goals will automatically be achieved if they achieve goals of there organization and when this happens, employees will naturally feel motivated to work hard, because it is in their best interest to do so.

So this mean that it’s very important to understand what are the basic motivation of an employee and how these motivations can be positively influenced so that they are directed toward the goals and objectives set by the organization. But here we have to keep one thing in mind that influence should be positive rather than negative which can then backfire in long run some example which come to my mind of negative influence or perhaps I should say not a very positive influence which according to me backfired was the UQ system as fear and manipulation don’t work very well as people are not trying to achieve something as they are looking to avoid loosing their jobs/salary. This approach can lead to resentment of the manager by employees, which then undermines communication and cooperation.

Second factor that usually implemented is the incentive motivation but the carrot on a stick seldom works well because people will temporarily work harder to get the reward, but what happens afterwards? You will have to keep coming up with better rewards - sweeter carrots - because your employees will expect more and more to go beyond the minimum work required also what will happen to people who don’t get a carrot? Don’t they get more dejected? Also sometime reward tends to develop a selfish feeling in the employee and they started to stop sharing information so that they can get more reward than other which in a long run is the worst thing for the organization. According to me, developing reward competition is never a good thing to do ... so what to do then actually a company should set up an approach that promotes personal growth and purpose. What manager should do is to help employees appreciate that they have something to contribute and you as a manager can help them do that. When you emphasize personal growth and development as a way to influence employee motivation, not only do you help employees maximize their contribution, you also are improving the productivity of the company. It’s a win for everyone.

So what drive employee then ... do you know what drive employee in your team some of you might think money some will talk about power but are these the only factors. To get people to perform at high levels you got to plug into their human side, affirm them and help them meet their own needs. You can start by paying attention. Watch how they do their jobs. What excites them? What turn them on? What turns them off? Encourage employees to try out their own methods, provided those methods are compatible with effectively getting the job done. Try to get an anonymous survey about attitudes in the work place and ask for suggestions for improvement. Once you get this feedback, don’t ignore the results. Use the finding to make changes that will improve everyone’s working condition, including yours. There can be few ways which can help to encourage employee more effectively.

Appreciate everyone uniqueness: A team is a group of people and diversity is very important for a team. You don’t want everyone in the team to be alike else it can dent the diversity. So not everyone can be excellent or achiever. So by acknowledging to your staff that everyone is unique, you will be demonstrating that you honor and appreciate the individual talents and differences all employees bring to the organization.

Brainstorm sessions with individuals: By brainstorming you will begin to discover what employees would like to get from their work. Ask employee to brainstorm ways to make work more fulfilling. Then don’t forget to take action and move forward with ideas and suggestions. When you receive employee idea that are not appropriate, always explain why and hold out for reconsideration at a later time. Always remember things like personal growth and recognition, creativity and meaningful purpose is important to your worker as they are to you. So one other way is to ask employees to describe their ideal job and what they like or don’t like about their work and then use what you learn to make work more fulfilling.

Make them feel like an entrepreneurial: We are not suggesting to give every employee stock option? but we are talking about developing an entrepreneurial mindset in employee so that they start thinking like a business owner and not an employee. Which in turn make them motivated and take exceptional pride in their work and start caring about the success of the organization.

Tell employee what is expected of them and be specific: Here are the questions every manager should be able to answer for every employee working in his team.

• What is expected of me?
• What is my role as a part of the group and the organization?
• What is considered unacceptable performance?
• What I must do to reach your standard of performance?

Be explicit and give as much detail to these questions as possible because the more detail you give the better chances are there for employee to understand what is expected of him and the greater chance that the employee will meet or exceed those expectations.

Recognize and praise them: Beside pay there are other ways to share in the reward of a successful performance. For example you may be amazed how employees respond to a simple complement of a job well done. It’s best to compliment a person face to face and then follow up by sending him or her email of appreciation. Its also not necessary that you recognize only bigger things but in this regard the small things matter more. Like for example sending a thank you and sorry note to someone who has been asked to work on the weekend and giving them free lunch/drinks. This can really make employee feel special.

Showcase their success: Showcasing success often calls for special recognition, like if you go to MacDonald’s you can see a certificate for the employee of the month hanging somewhere on the wall. This thing can really boost up the confidence and spirit of the whole team. There is a quote worth quoting here “There are two things people want more than sex and money" recognition and praise"

Training, training and more training: Nothing fires up successful performance among employees more than training. Training people send out a clear message that says, "You are worth this investment!" Give employee’s special learning opportunities, both inside and outside of the organization. Always encourage ongoing personal and professional development. When employees are exposed to training programs, seminars, e-learning etc it tells them that management really values their performance and wants to help them to continually improve their skills. When you do this, make sure you also give employees immediate opportunities to us their new skills. This way the training pays off quickly and people take what they learned seriously.

Criticize but positively: Sometime it is very necessary to highlight the problems but never ever try to make this a showcase like we do with success. Try to call an individual meeting with the person and ask him about how he/she can make improvements and where he/she could have handled the situation better. Don’t make fun of the situation. Also try not to blame him/her because everyone makes mistakes and this is how we learn and improve. Try avoiding using charge words and lay down the situation in a way he can understand and explain the possible solutions to the problem. Some example of charge words are:

DESCRIPTION	POSITIVELY CHARGED	NEGATIVELY CHARGED
Hard To Convince	Firm	Stubborn
Daring	Adventurous	Reckless
Emotional	Warmhearted	Mushy
Cares About Others	Thoughtful	Do-Gooder
Protective	Custodial	Defensive
Common	Plebian	Vulgar
Modest	Unpretentious	Submissive
Direct	Straightforward	Blunt
Cautious	Careful	Cowardly
Provocative	Inspirational	Suggestive
Dull	Prosaic	Tedious
Worldly	Sophisticated	Condescending
Intelligent	Brilliant	Know-It-All
Plain	Unadorned	Homely
Enterprising	Resourceful	Tricky

These are some of the charge words I happen to dig out ... try searching Google and you can find lot more ...and try using the positive charge words instead of negative ...

Happy Management ?

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