by Diana Southall | Aug 2, 2012 | rewards
“Employees expect to be recognized when they do good work. Thanking employees for doing good work is not just common sense, it increases the likelihood that they will want to continue to do good work and serves as a catalyst for attracting and retaining talented employees you and your organization need to be successful.” Dr Bob Nelson.
Dr Bob’s research found that managers who used recognition reported that it assisted them to:
- Better motivate employees (90%)
- Increase employee performance (84%)
- Provide practical feedback (84%)
- More easily get work done (80%)
- Enhance productivity (78%)
- Better achieve their personal goals (69%)
- Achieve their job goals
Our July 31 blog post on feedback mentioned that ideally employees want about 6 praises for every 1 correction.
To ensure sure managers are providing this level of aligned praise, an organization should have a formal recognition program. Back to the Aberdeen report (read 7/31 blog post), 65% of Best companies have a formal rewards and recognition program compared to 46% of the lowest performers (and I will bet you $1 that the Best companies have better alignment of recognition with goal-specific employee activities).
I remember in college I had a supervisor (another student) who would also say “thanks for your help today” but this did not engender any sense of pride or accomplishment— and now I realize why. He did not specifically explain what I did that was good today, and lost the opportunity to encourage goal-specific activity next shift.
What conversation are your managers having with employees and how often?
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by thepeopleplan | Jun 21, 2012 | Uncategorized
Henry Ford said, “The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.”
When employees feel they are acquiring new skills, have development opportunities and a clear career path they are more likely to be engaged with their job and stay with the organization.
It is not enough to offer training programs, it is critical to communicate and provide appropriate and engaging learning and development opportunities to your employees (especially to Gen Y employees). If you identify high potential employees and systematically increase and broaden their skills, you will also do more to retain rising stars in your organization.
There are two types of development Job specific or in current knowledge area (depth) and new skills (breadth). Both are important but there are many reasons to expand the skill set of your employees to add new potential strengths:
- You don’t know what they might turn out to be great at, or interested in, beyond what their current role involves.
- You need to build a broader talent pool, a network of possible replacements that could be tapped as business needs change (or as key people leave the organization).
- You need to develop a strong learning culture, one where employees naturally seek out new skills and competencies with less explicit prodding from you or your HR partners.
- You want your people engaged and interested in the work and research shows that new, challenging assignments are one of the best ways to accomplish this.
(source: Taleo Research White Paper -Learning and Development: The New Business of Business Leaders)
Large employees are continuing to use training and career opportunities as part of their Total Rewards portfolio. A recent Aon Hewitt Total Rewards survey reports that over half of organizations focus on Career development (61%) and training/ learning (56%) to increase engagement and retention.
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by thepeopleplan | Jun 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
To achieve your organization’s goals, you need employees that are competent in their jobs, committed to the goals (believe in values and direction) and engaged to use their talents to achieve those goals.
When employees do not share the values of the organization, do not believe that they can/ should work toward the goals, or do not perform with the required activities (actions) to achieve their own required results, there is mis-alignment in the organization.
Signs of lack of alignment:
- People remain silent and don’t voice their opinions when you call for a decision/ input
- You are being surprised by the actions people take because they are inconsistent with the agreed-upon direction or core values
- You don’t see tangible progress on goals when by all rights you should be moving forward
- In meetings, people keep bringing up the issues that you thought were resolved
- People complain, make excuses, and blame others for lack of results
- You observe a lack of ownership and enthusiasm for implementing an established course of action
- People voice disagreement with a decision or a direction that has already been taken
The solution:
A company’s culture will not become aligned by itself. This change will take a concerted effort to brief alignment to the fundamental beliefs that employees (including managers) hold that prevents the change in behaviors to support the new direction. Here are the overall steps to the “Leadership Alignment Process.”
- Get consensus on direction and goals
- Build and communication the business case for the change and goals
- Communicate the required beliefs, values and activities to support the goals
- Recognize and reward those that become committed and engaged with the direction
-source, Partners in Leadership Culture Change model
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by thepeopleplan | May 17, 2012 | Uncategorized
Compensation (base pay) is the most expensive reward you offer employees yet it is not very impactful in retaining or motivating employees. (It is in attracting new employees and a factor in their decision to take your job offer). Your pay practices can also become a major de-motivator if employees feel that they are not paid fairly compared to other workers.
The problem:
- Surveys find that about half of employees do not know how their compensation is determined.
- Many organizations say that they “pay for performance” yet a top performer might receive a 4% raise instead of a 3% raise—not exactly providing a meaningful difference to reward extra effort.
- Incentive plans often create unintended consequences of discouraging teamwork, encouraging behaviors that do not serve the customer, or become an expected entitlement and not a motivator or perceived reward for great performance.
The solution:
Many theories of motivation and business authors (Dan Pink, Brad Ham) share the philosophy of Total Rewards—provide fair and market competitive wages and then provide the other Rewards to engage your staff. (See our series on 13 Total Rewards in the Rewards category of our blog).
As for incentives (variable pay), these plans need to be carefully designed and communicated so that they align individual effort with business goals and then share a reasonable part of the gain. Give employees an upside when they and the organization does well and you protect your bottom line for the lean times.
Contact us to learn more about the WNY Compensation & Benefits Survey to benchmark your organization to others in the region.
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by thepeopleplan | Apr 19, 2012 | Uncategorized
Let us take a moment to describe what Human Resources Management really is.
Most people think of the administrative side of “HR,” that department that handles payroll and benefits and record keeping. While important, HR administrative does not make you any money (actually costs you money to maintain) and does not help you improve your business or profits.
The strategic side of Human Resources Management is defining and using processes to make sure you have the Right employees, doing the Right things, and that they do them Right. Then we need to keep these Right People engaged and reward them! This concept is really what Performance Management is all about (so much more than an “annual review”)- managing employee performance for organization goal achievement.
What your managers should be doing:
- Explain performance expectations to each employee (and how they can support organizational goals)
- Get employee commitment to meet expectations
- Measure performance and share with employees
- Give feedback and coach employees to improve performance
- Recognize and reward good performance
- Build a culture and a team that works together to achieve organizational goals
What your organization needs to define and communicate:
- Overall organizational strategy, values, culture
- Specific goals by department and job
- Performance expectations for each job (tied to organizational goals)
- Measurements of performance by individual, team, department, entire organization
- HR systems to assist with recruiting, selection, training, management for employee success
- Total Rewards strategy that attracts, retains and engages top performers
- Manager coaching and resources to do all of the above
The above elements are what all large organizations have – but small organizations can have these as well with the People Plan™ . This is a four-phase process to identify your custom People strategy and then implement People systems to allow your organization achieve its goals. Contact us to receive our free white paper on the 9 steps to build a People Plan.
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