August 2009 Newsletter

by admin on August 10, 2009

Northcutt Media

Moving Forward

Let’s talk about motivating your employees.

Keeping employees motivated to work hard and perform to their abilities can be a deciding factor in whether your business succeeds or fails. The simple truth is that employees can make or break your company. They are the face of the company when you’re not around. They interact with customers much more often than you do. Employees can be your most valuable asset, or your most costly liability.

With that in mind, are you treating employees like they’re a valuable asset?

Here are a few strategies for making sure that your employees build your company up instead of dragging it down:

  • Increase employee loyalty by following the Five I’s.
    • Interesting work – a bored worker is an unhappy worker.
    • Information – knowledge is power. Give your employees the power to do their job well.
    • Involvement – get your workers involved in making decisions, and encourage them to "buy in" to the success of the organization.
    • Independence – do NOT micromanage!
    • Increased visibility – when your employees do well, let them (and others!) know.
  • Performance pay
    • For certain employees (often salespeople), performance pay can be a great way to align a worker’s goals with the company’s goals. It is imperative, however, that those goals are clearly communicated, that the incentive system rewards accomplishing those specific goals, and that "gaming the system" is clearly not allowed.
  • Encourage teamwork by rewarding everyone for a job well done.
    • Sometimes singling one person out for recognition can be demotivating to the rest of an organization. Experiment with rewarding everyone when one employee does a standout job. This ensures that everyone will feel motivated to cooperate and assist each other, regardless of whether it will "put them behind" in the standings.

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