4 Ways to Motivate

This was a great blog posting on inexpensive ways to help you motivate your staff in today's current business climate.

Four Ways to Keep Morale, Productivity Up
Posted by S. Caron, January 7th, 2009
http://www.hrworld.com/blog/20090107/four-ways-to-keep-morale-productivity-up/

When morale suffers, so does productivity. And when productivity suffers, well, it’s all to heck in a hand basket, isn’t it?
OnPoint Consulting recently asked HR professionals about what steps are being employed to keep workers happy and morale on the up and up.
“We were looking for practical suggestions that work in the real world, particularly in today’s environment,” said Rick Lepsinger, President of OnPoint Consulting. “So we went directly to managers and HR professionals to find out what they were doing to keep people engaged and focused on results and we found four best practices that were consistent across our interviews.”
Here’s what they discovered:
– Increase disclosure. Employees are always interested in the company’sfinancial health and leadership’s view of industry and competitiveconditions but tough times heighten the need for timely information.“The majority of companies we spoke with are increasing the frequency,detail, and amount of information they are providing,” observedLepsinger.
– Dust off recognition programs. Although many companies haverecognition programs in place they are often not being usedeffectively. “A quick win for many companies is to ensure managersuse available recognition programs,” says Lepsinger. “These rangefrom an e-card/thank you note to more substantial monetary rewards.”
– Find alternatives to lay-offs. Despite how bad things are, this willturn around and companies want to be prepared when they do. “Inaddition to the pain lay-offs cause individuals, many companies alsosuffer when the inevitable turn around comes and they discover theydon’t have the right people in place,” says Lepsinger. To reducecosts yet avoid this problem organizations are experimenting withunpaid furloughs, salary freezes or cuts, four-day work weeks, andreducing contributions to retirement and health plans. “These actionsare still painful,” says Lepsinger, “but they are seen as the lesserevil and better in the long-term for both employees and the company.”
– Involve employees. Encouraging employees to contribute ideas for costsavings and process improvement accomplishes two important objectives.Not only do some of the best ideas come from the employee populationbut involving people in decisions that affect them decreases thefeeling of uncertainty.