Motivate Today’s Employees with Recognition

Are you wondering how to motivate your employees? Do you fear that today’s employees are sometimes un-motivate-able? Here’s the good news; employee motivation is easier than you might realize. Today’s employees really are motivated through recognition. The key is to understand the various kinds of activities considered to be recognition of an employee’s abilities, hence motivational for today’s employees.

Several years ago I conducted an employee motivation research project while I was traveling North America for the Dun & Bradstreet Foundation delivering full-day public seminars, targeted to business. After several months and hundreds of responses to a simple question, “What can your boss, or your company, do to improve your company loyalty?” It was amazing! Over 50% of the responses were: recognition, or something very similar. Guess what, it is the same today.

Part of Something Bigger

When you can find a way to help your employees to be part of something bigger than them, they are more engaged and their work has a purpose beyond the daily grind. For most of today’s active workforce in North America, this involvement is perceived as recognition. They receive pleasure from participating in something special; a huge marketing and sales campaign, a contest, company reorganization, special research project, community activity, etc.

The smart employer that really understands employee motivation gets in front and leads. As an example, a community project might seem like a drain on resources for a small business, but really is a marketing/publicity campaign if administered correctly. Employees are allowed to spend a small amount of company time on the project and encouraged to spend some of their own time doing the same. The innovative business leader finds ways to “spin” the project for publicity which will translate to more community involvement with the company and into increased sales.

Give Them Some Control

It has been proven over and over again since the famous “Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works” study conducted by Harvard back in the late 1930s that employee productivity increases when the employees have control over their environment. I wrote about a similar situation that I observed at a Grand Rapids manufacturing company in my first book, “The Art of Partnering.” When employees took over control of the worst production line at the factory, they solved many of the challenges. The line soon became one of the most productive and also desirable among employees to work. In both cases the employees were given the recognition of trust that they could successfully control their work environment.

Trust and Respect Are Powerful Recognitions

Today’s employees want to be trusted and respected as having something to contribute beyond mindless labor and compliance; and they want it now! For the “Baby Boomer” aged business leader, trust and respect is something that must be earned over a period of time. The natural gap here is the length of time. In order to motivate today’s employees, older business leaders must dramatically speed up their distribution of trust and respect—not a naturally easy thing to do.

For many of today’s employees, an employer’s trust equals respect in their minds; and respect equals belonging. If you can see your way to helping your employees to have an emotional ownership in belonging to the community of your organization, they will see that as recognition and will be motivated to participate at accelerated levels within the “community.” This accelerated participation, if channeled correctly, will mean accelerated productivity.

Give What They Cannot Buy

It goes without saying that you have to pay (total package) your employees well. If you do not, your competitors will. However, beyond the compensation package, you will find a myriad of opportunities to show appreciation for the value employees deliver to your organization.

Find, discover, and develop appreciation (recognition) in conduits with legs. When you hand out cash recognitions, the cash disappears instantly and is forgotten almost as quickly. Let’s say that you gave an employee $200. There are a number of consumable niceties that they could instantly enjoy—then they simply want more cash.

Or, perhaps take that same $200 and have your company logo embroidered on the back of a trendy leather jacket. Give the jacket to that same employee. How long to you think they will enjoy the jacket? Most likely for years, and every time they wear the jacket it is a reminder of your appreciation for their work. By the way, whatever you select as recognitions, make sure those items are not available to employees through purchase. Give them what they cannot but.

Recognition for today’s employees need not be elusive to employers. To motivate today’s employees, recognitions must be thought-out and implemented with the same care as a military operation; innovate, research, decide, organize, and implement. Do these things any you will motivate your employees to do more and be more than you had previously considered possible.

Transforming Your Commitment into Reality

In a tough economy, it is quite easy for sales and business development persons to blame the economy for their lack of prospecting and follow through. It is equally as easy for business owners and leaders to hunker down into sluggishness and immobility. Put more bluntly; just blame your shortcomings on the economy, everyone else does.

The Question

What keeps you from doing what you say? That was the survey question I recently put out to a wide range of business leaders and solo practitioners. I was quite amazed at one of the responses that kept repeating, “I always do what I say.” First, that was not the question, however quite a number of respondents seemed to feel it necessary to tell me that they were not guilty of my query. Second, I did not believe a one of them. Be it to customers and colleagues or family and friends—even to one’s self; not a one of us ALWAYS does what we say!

Why We Do—Not

Below, I have listed for you my survey results. The first two on the list are one in the same to me; however I listed them separately because they are subsets of the issue.

16% - Poor prioritizing

10% - Lack of time

11% - Fear of failure/lack of self confidence

9.5% - Lack of focus/distractions

9.5% - No motivation/purpose/passion

8.5% - Over commitment

8.5% - Change in priorities

4% - Circumstances beyond personal control

5% - Miscellaneous

18% - Denial (I always do what I say response)

Total equals 100%

A Quarter of the Respondents

As I stated earlier, I believe that poor prioritizing and lack of time are one in the same. Adding them together and that is the reason one-fourth of the folks that responded offered as the key reason for them not doing what they say. Is the answer to hire a productivity professional? I really do not think so. These people need a reason to do better. They are in their comfort zone and are not being challenged. Unfortunately, their attitude is I’ll get to it when I get to it. If something really matters to these people, they will make it priority one and find the time—I guarantee.

What About Denial?

The next to the highest ranking answer category (18%) was what I refer to as denial—they just will not admit any shortcomings. Every one of the twelve-step programs for overcoming dependencies calls for your admission of problem as an early step. How in the world can you fix it if you will not admit there is a problem? Sure, some might be near perfect in doing what they say, in one area: customers, colleagues, friends, family, or self—but come on, we are all human and imperfect.

Pain Verses Pleasure

I believe that, for the majority of the population, pain is more persuasive than pleasure. Simply put, people tend to be more motivated to avoid pain than by the promise of pleasure. Yes, sure—you have examples to prove me wrong; however I will stand with my statement. And, if you really think about the population in general, you’ll surely agree with me—especially in the area of getting things done.

Mechanisms for Achievement

Regardless of the reason behind non-performance, ultimately you want to end the anxiety of lost opportunities and unfulfilled promises and learn how to get the things done that you said you would. In achieving the results you want there are four basic mechanisms for doing this:

1. Do it yourself. You have a “come to Jesus” talk with yourself and motivate yourself to do better. This method tends to be short lived and you will most likely backslide into your old habits of non-performance.
2. Get a friend to be your accountability buddy. If you seek help from a friend by giving them permission to hassle you when you do not do what you say, you will get things done for a while. However at some point your friend will give up hassling you. This is because at some point they will perceive that to push you any harder will damage the friendship and they value the friendship more than your productivity.
3. Get a distant colleague as your accountability buddy. This method will generally last much longer than the first two as long as both accountability buddies are somewhat pushing equally. Since there is much less of a quality of friendship at issue, each will feel empowered to drive the other harder and for a longer period of time.
4. Get a paid accountability advisor. If you are really serious about doing what you say, there is nothing better than a paid advisor. First, since you are spending your money, you appreciate the relationship more. Second, it is your advisor’s job to not accept your BS excuses for non-performance. A paid advisor with whom you communicate weekly, will in almost every situation, help you to go further toward ending your anxiety of lost opportunities and unfulfilled promises and help you to stay focused in the area of getting the things done that you said you would.

Add On Sales

There is a reason why McDonald’s enjoyed total revenues of $23.5 billion in 2008. Could it be that there are more than 31,000 McDonald’s restaurants around the world in 118 countries? That is partly the reason, however I believe the fact that they sell 9 million pounds of their delicious French fries per day is an even more important element.

What they really do well is ask, “Would you like fries with that?” McDonald’s world wide excels at add on sales. I realize that others have also gotten on the “add on sales” band wagon, yet McDonald’s consistently performs year after year.

What Would it Take?

What would it take for you to create this kind of culture in your organization? You might be finding yourself a bit resistant, thinking that the MacDonald’s employees are mindless robots; and you might be right. However, they consistently perform. What would it take for your organization to perform at the level McDonald’s expects? Could the roadblocks be ego, intellect, and perception?

The Ego Roadblock

In my experience professional service corporations and chic retailers are the worst offenders in the area of letting ego get in the way of add on sales. I’ll ask you this. ”Do you want to hold on to your costly erroneous beliefs or do you want to increase revenues? When you let your ego get in your way, revenues will decrease.

The Intellect Roadblock

“I’ll do it my way because I know better.” This is the battle cry for intellects. In solving complex problems this is fine, however it is not acceptable is selling more of your products and/or services. Intellects are infatuated with features as opposed to being conscious of benefits. Intellects love to hear themselves talk about the technical side of anything and everything. Guess what? Your customers really do not care. They just want to know how your product or service will make their lives better—and, that it is a good value.

The Perception Roadblock

The perception roadblock to add on sales is one that will definitely need a brain adjustment. Business owners and the employees that sell for them too often feel it is an imposition on their customer to offer something additional. Somehow these folks got their head screwed on cockeyed and they really do need some help. When one truly cares about their customer, client, or patient; it is incumbent on them to offer every bit of value your/their organization has to offer.

One might say that McDonald’s is making people fat and unhealthy by offering supersizing or just “fries with that.” I do not think so. McDonalds is not cramming the food down the throats of their dining patrons but simply offering more value. Customers make choices. What you need to do is to simply offer your customers more choices and more value.

Success in Simplicity

McDonald’s, I believe, is successful because of simplicity. They do not rattle off 20 additional dining options but rather one or two. If you were to adapt this idea of simplicity to your organization, it might be done by just offering one single item to every customer as an add on, or possible having just one specific and different customized add on offering for every individual product or service. Needless to say, the multi-item approach is much more difficult to implement.

Why Else Don’t They Offer?

I have found that the primary reason you and your employees do not offer add on sales is because of a lack of training. I bet you thought I was going to say laziness. In my two decades of experience in work with organizations as a consultant, I have identified lack of training as the culprit much more often than apathy or sloth.

A Simple Solution

Your simple solution to increasing add on sales in your organization is daily training. Try this for a month and see if I’m not completely correct. At the start of every day, spend two to three minutes explaining to all the persons in your organization, why a particular product or service helps your customers’ lives to be better and suggest that they suggest it to customers that day. At the end of a month you have trained your entire company, on how to offer 20 new and or different, add on products or services. And your employees have consciously participated in that training.

Yes, it will take you, the leader, a bit of pre-planning time but, my gosh—isn’t that your job anyway? Do this rigorously for one month and I guarantee you that you’ll be pleased with the results. It is the little things that make the difference.

Three on Three—the Magnificent Supervision Tool

What an Idea--proven over time! It was in the mid-1980s, when I owned a manufacturers representative sales agency that I heard Patricia Fripp talking about this idea in one of her success seminars. I tried the idea with my sales team and it worked magnificently. For over a decade now, I too have been sharing this tool with audiences across North America and have received numerous notes of success from attendees.

Let me first warn you—while this tool is simple to understand and quite easy to use, if executed incorrectly, can be crushing to your ego. But, what the hay—as a leader, it is your job to leave your ego at the door when you come to work each day.

The Value

The important value you will receive from this tool is that of knowing what perceptions your employees hold about you and their work environment. I absolutely believe that in every company—no matter how caring toward employees—exists a metaphorical two-story outhouse. Since we all know what flows downhill, your concern needs to be that of determining how to dismantle or tear down this barrier between you and your employees, no matter how inconsequential you believe it to be. Learning the perceptions of your employees is key to bettering the work environment for them. It is also true for creating an open door safety net that will allow employees to operate in an environment that encourages them point out overlooked mistakes before they become costly catastrophes.

The Tool

The brief description of this tool is to sit down with your key employees, department heads or executive team—one at a time—and ask them to share with you three things that they do not like about how you manage them and the organization. Then to ask them to share with you three things they do like.

A Word of Caution

In order for you to successfully use this tool you need to realize that your employees will be very skeptical at first. They will wonder what’s gotten into you—what’s your true motivation in asking these questions? Also, you must be aware of the fact that they will “feel the water before jumping in” meaning that they will test you first before they will share their true perceptions. With this being stated, be cautious to only thank them for their answers rather than to question or challenge their answers in a knee-jerk fashion. If you do not understand what they are saying, it is okay to ask for clarification but any comment other than a “Thank you” will greatly diminish your employees’ willingness to take a risk and tell you the truth.

Tool Implementation

Select the employee with whom you believe you have the best relationship for your first go at the Three on Three. Do this because you will be the most at ease with this person. After your first success, each consecutive session gets easier to conduct.

1. Find a neutral location (your office is unacceptable) and sit them down in a relaxed atmosphere.
2. Tell your employee that you have a desire to improve your management style and the work environment for all the employees.
3. Ask them for their help in honestly answering some questions.
4. Insure them that nothing they say will ever be held against them in the future.
5. Now ask them to share three things with you that they don’t like about your management style or the work environment. Remember, the first answer is testing the water so even if you feel like you’ve just been stabbed in the heart, you must only reply with, “Thank you.”
6. Repeat step #5 two more times. Generally, the second or perhaps third response is where you hit gold and get some real feedback.
7. In a sincere manner, tell them that you will work on what they said and that you will get back to them in a week or two to discuss what you have done about the items they shared.
8. Now you can ask for three things they do like about your management style and the work environment. Again, only respond with, “Thank you.” This is not the time to puff up your chest and talk about your greatness.
9. After the third positive response assure them that you are going to try to do more of those things in the future.
10. The master key to this whole process is that you MUST get back with this employee in the week or two that you promised and have completed some definitive action toward improvement on at least one of the items they shared with you as being a problem—an action toward all three issues is optimal.

Do this Three on Three process with your key people at least twice a year—quarterly is better—and at this time next year, I guarantee that you will have noticed results.

Praise Employees for a Job Well Done

Praise for a job well done! Was the response most frequently given to me during my six-month Employee Loyalty Survey in 1995. At seminars across the country, I asked attendees to tell me the one thing that would improve their company loyalty. Present, were of all levels from entry to executive, and recognition is what American workers want most!

I believe most executives, owners and managers secretly yearn for employees who have an emotional ownership in their company. Employees that operate as if they owned the company and always looked out for the company's best interests. Unfortunately, few are willing to do what it takes to cultivate this emotional ownership. Often, I hear managers saying that loyalty is too costly. But, how much does it cost to say, "Good job" or "Thank you?" Not a cent! The cost is the manager giving of him or herself--and to some, that price is too high. I have found that a little bit of recognition goes a long way.

Find creative ways to recognize your team. Don't let your creativity limit you, ask your employees what they might like. Ask colleagues what they have done. Listed below are 50 "easier" low cost recognitions offered by my seminar attendees.

Low Cost Employee Recognition

1. A visit from the president.

2. E-mail from the president.

3. Notice to all employees of a special performance.

4. Letter of recognition in employee's permanent file.

5. "Highlighting Employee" section in company newsletter.

6. "Well Done" pens.

7. Company coffee cup.

8. "Attaboy or Attagirl" stickers.

9. Paid time off.

10. Recognition at meeting.

11. Flowers.

12. T-shirt.

13. Lunch with the president or other executive.

14. New title.

15. Balloons.

16. Gift certificates to local restaurant, theater or video/DVD rental store.

17. Flex time.

18. Special parking space.

19. Private verbal praise.

20. Team pot luck celebration.

21. Choice of work assignments.

22. Certificate of Appreciation.

23. Cookies.

23. Team congratulatory song.

24. Selecting the workplace radio station for a week.

25. Come in late or get off early card.

26. Get the workplace recycled soda cans for a month.

27. Hand shake and "Thank you."

28. Company specialty advertising items.

29. Boss for a day.

30. Care package to spouse or children of employee.

31. Wash employee's car.

32. Food: all-day suckers, pizza, donuts or maybe something healthy.

33. "Get Out of Meeting" card.

34. Free vending machine privileges for the week.

35. Lotto tickets.

36. Gold star on desk.

37. Facial, pedicure or massage.

38. Cater breakfast at employee's desk.

39. Party at owner's or executive's home.

40. "We'll do it Your Way Today" card.

41. Software, special keyboard, new chair, etc.

42. Notice about employee accomplishments in local newspaper.

43. Assign additional responsibility.

44. Guaranteed quiet/thinking time.

45. Include employee in decision making.

46. Decorate office for holidays.

47. Lunch or dinner at long meetings and training classes.

48. Listen to the employee.

49. Encouragement.

50. Allowed to attend a seminar of their choice.

In The Art of Partnering I wrote about Management By Partnering Around (MBPA). I believe MBPA is the best possible solution to greater productivity. This applies to anybody who considers them a manager or better yet, a leader. Use Ken Blanchard's model from the One Minute Manager, find employees doing things right and give them a "one minute praising" on the spot. What a great way to build relationships.

Management by Partnering Around
When I suggest partnering around, I'm simply suggesting that you create mini-alliances throughout your organization with employees, teams, executives, and others. As in networking, your goal in MBPA is to get to know as many employees as possible. Next, learn their strengths, weaknesses, and their interests. This knowledge will allow you to successfully put people together using the "Adaptive Organization" model. It will serve you well by unleashing employee creativity and more effectively utilizing their unique abilities.

If you will commit to MBPA, you can add my favorite recognition program to all your other incentive or motivational workplace programs. Rigsbee's Recommended Recognition Program is that of offering negotiable corporate tender. The benefits to this recognition system are: Immediate and customized recognitions. We all want to know how we are doing. Who would not like their "reward" customized to their individual preferences?

Employee Recognition Certificates

Too expensive you say--not at all! This is the best deal in town if you do it correctly. Print recognition bucks assign a value and hand them out when you catch your employees doing a great job. It's praise for a job well done. Who should hand out the certificates? It should be supervisors, managers and executives/owners.

Assigning the value is a bit tricky. You want them coveted by the employees but not so valuable that your managers are hesitant to hand them out. An Air Force major I met in Alaska assigned the value as a paid day off but for most companies it is too valuable. Managers are much less likely to hand out days off than a coffee mug.

First look at what you already have that would create value in the lives of your employees, vender freebies, specialty advertising items and so forth. Then see what toys can barter for within your community and then post a list of "recognitions" and assign how many certificates needed for redemption. One certificate might be worth a paid hour off or a T-shirt. Two certificates might get your employee movie tickets for two or lunch at a local haunt. Five certificates might get a company jacket of paid vacation day. Play with it, put up new postings each month of the newly acquired goodies. Be creative, always add something new to keep the program fresh and your employees guessing.

This program only works of the supervisors, managers and executives/owners will give of themselves to find employees doing things right and reward them for a job well done. Take a risk and try it. All you have to lose is the productivity your not now currently getting. Whatever method you select for recognizing your employees, the important thing is to start now.

How Trade Associations Can Serve Members

Reduce focus on ancillary activities.

Feel good activities generally serve only a few members yet much of an association’s valuable resources tend to be squandered in this area. Generally association members, frequently senior within the organization, with too much time on their hands will drive activities that matter to them while only serving a small constituency of members.

Let go of trying to control the small issues, which is common in associations. Association leadership is a turnstile and as such each set of leaders wants to make their mark and “resolve” small issues that do not need to be resolved. They do this because these small issues are really low hanging fruit, easily accessible. Rather, leadership needs to focus on the issues that really matter to the majority of members and these issues take real work, the kind of work that few leaders are willing to tackle.

Work on what matters to members.

Here is the challenge. I cannot tell you how many associations I have worked with that the leadership’s approach was something like: “It doesn’t matter what the members want, they need…”

There are two basic kinds of association leaders, first there is the person that truly desires to serve their industry and there is the second that desires to serve themselves. Over time there have been fewer of these that truly desire to serve and more that want to control or gain personal value. This is where the association paid staff must exert strength to minimize the damage that the glory and power seeking leader can cause.

What do most association members want?

In a nutshell most of the folks that join an association do so with the hope of minimizing the learning curve in growing their business. Secondarily, is to join in with masses in their industry to affect legislation that might have a positive or negative effect on their business.

While many association members site networking as a primary reason, networking is merely a conduit for the above value they seek. Networking in itself is an activity, not a benefit. However, proper intelligent networking will generally deliver the business growth and legislative benefits that members seek.

Recommendations:

1. Yearly, offer an open ended survey to membership. Too many surveys that I’ve seen associations send to their members only ask the kind of questions that support the erroneous assumptions of its leaders.
2. Leave the low hanging fruit for the paid staff. Volunteer leadership should be involved in helping to set the strategy rather than be obsessed with the daily operational activities of their association.
3. Focus on the big (and difficult) issues that will truly deliver value to members in their most important areas of business growth and legislation oversight. Leave the petty and small stuff to the paid staff.
4. Do not fear the diversity of membership but rather embrace it. When I mention diversity, I am talking about more than just racial, ethnic, nationality, and gender—I am talking about diversity of thought. In my experience, too many association leaders needlessly feel threatened by diversity of thought and unfortunately squander resources attempting to control that which should not be controlled; diversity of ideas.

Most folks join their industry’s trade association to grow their business through new and innovative methods, learned through a collaborative community—the trade association. It is not a religion or benevolent society. Both paid and volunteer leaders would bode well to keep this at the fore of their thinking and decision making during their leadership tenure.

Leopardology

Standing at a high boy, at yet another cocktail reception…at yet another meeting, and knowing not a soul—approaching me was a pleasant man that was specifically seeking me out. He said, “You’re Ed Rigsbee, and I’ve wanted to meet you.” In a South African accent, he introduced himself as Kivi Bernhard, the next day’s luncheon speaker.

Well, what a treat! I attended the next day’s luncheon and stayed for Kivi’s presentation. For business leaders, Kivi’s is a fresh voice on business success; drawing parallels to the hunting skills, techniques and success of the leopard, which he claims is the most successful predator on the planet. He did an excellent job of luring in the audience, mesmerizing the group with his stories and video footage.

Following his presentation, Kivi had for sale a few advance copies of his new book, Leopardology—The Hunt for Profit in a Tough Global Economy! Enjoying my new friend’s presentation, I stood in line and bought a copy. Reiterating an important point from his speech, his inscription to me on the inside cover read, “May you always be blessed to ‘Hunt your hunt!’”

I recommend very few books, and I’m recommending this one to you—I really enjoyed the book! Through a new window, Kivi’s book if filled with proven business success truths—many that he learned as a new immigrant, building a successful wholesale diamond business in the U.S. The business parallels he draws compared to the African leopard are compelling, inspirational, and motivational.

I really do not want to give away his ideas and lessen your reading experience; however I do believe this book to be exceptional, especially in our current difficult business environment. It motivated me, and it will motivate you. Go buy the book, today!

Here is the direct Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=leopardology&x=0&y=0

You may contact Kivi through his web: www.kivibernhard.com