Newlyweds are surrounded by a bubble of happiness, contentment, and a sense of overall well-being. Nothing can go wrong, and everything seems possible.
The same holds true for new employees, and fortunately for you, there are ways to prolong this stage.
Provide genuine positive feedback
Employees, like anyone else, like to feel that their work is appreciated and contributing to the betterment of the company. You can provide this feedback in a variety of ways.
Compliment your employees for a job well done. Friendly acknowledgment can include a face-to-face conversation, a quick pat on the shoulder, a sincere "thank you for doing such a great job on that project," or a quick online message. Sincerity goes a long way towards promoting loyalty and ensuring your employee has a long and productive tenure with the firm.
Promotions will do the job
Married to the job? Doesn't mean you can't drag out the honeymoon. Flickr/Jeff Weston
When an employee is doing a great job in their current position, and shows potential for advancement, don't hold them back. Promotions tell your employee that you value their competence, insight, work habits, and loyalty. If your competitors identify and support your superstars before you do, you'll lose the battle for talent.
Schedule some fun times
A well-oiled work environment which keeps employees operating at the newlywed stage has fun as a focal point. Socializing builds camaraderie and takes the ho-hum out of the workday.
Consider informal outings, like a family picnic, or take some time out during the day for unique team building workshops.
Publicly acknowledge accomplishments
Who doesn't like being recognized for doing a great job or doing something out of the ordinary? When this happens, let as many people as possible know about it. After sharing great accomplishments widely internally, consider issuing a press release, or inviting some media attention, which can boost your employee's personal profile, your company's public relationship, and your HR brand.
If you use social networks within or outside of the company, use them to spread the word. You may be surprised how fast the news travels in the viral world. Appreciated employees love the companies they work for.
Use HR software
HR software can enable manager and co-workers to give kudos to their deserving colleagues. This can boost motivation and prolong the newlywed stage. Paying attention to the little things is what makes a person's overall work experience a great one.
Use your HR software to keep track of anniversaries, birthdays, promotions, and other personal occasions. Plan parties and celebrations to not only foster a team environment, but to promote individual achievements too. Just try not to play favourites.
Feed your workforce
Keep your employees in the newlywed stage by feeding them like a wedding reception. Food and beverages are a great low-cost investment that foster productivity, loyalty, and motivation. Keeping your lunchroom supplied with food, fresh coffee, bottled water, and/or hot chocolate will not only satisfy employee palates, but keep them happy and satisfied with the workplace environment.
Put more simply, the newlywed stage of the employee lifecycle can be extended by treating your employees like you would expect to be treated. Respect, friendliness, dignity, consideration, and a little bit of innovation always pay off in the long run.
Discover the correlation between employee tenure, projects, and engagement, with powerful HR software from TribeHR. Follow TribeHR on Facebook to receive all of our news, and maybe even a wedding invitation.
Why sharing knowledge is almost always good
A big question that business owners and human resource officers often ask is how much information about the business they should share with their employees. Do employees really need to know everything about the business? Is there some information that must be kept confidential?
Transparency can be a powerful way to engage employees. When staff members know what's going on, businesses are able to run more smoothly. Consider these reasons:
It Prevents Confusion
People working within an organization want to know what’s going on, whether it's changes to the business, or just overall progress. By informing employees of these changes, they'll be able to adapt to them more easily, and predict the next steps too.
Don't hog the ice cream sandwich of knowledge! Flickr/Cayusa
If your staff are puzzled or surprised about day-to-day activities, their productivity will suffer. You owe it to your team to give them a heads up on important changes, as these will affect how they do their jobs and live their lives.
It Prevents Conflict
When everything about your business is out in the open, your team feels more empowered to talk to you about both successes and problems. Suppose that an inevitable layoff situation arises: Your team might be nervous about losing their jobs.
But if they're already aware that you're in a bit of a precarious situation, they'll be more comfortable talking about the options and difficult decisions that need to be made, without taking things personally.
It Builds Trust
Trust is the foundation of every relationship. When businesses are honest and open with their employees, they can expect their employees to be so too. People often say that they're trusting, but then fail to live up to their own words. Sharing everything about the business with your employees shows that you trust them.
Especially when it comes to employee relations, it's vital that you and your team are on the same page. As much as possible, anything about the business that might affect the employees, whether good or bad, should be shared with them.
Although every business has (of course) some things that should be kept private, it's best to keep these to a minimum. The more you share, the more you prevent confusion, prevent conflict, and build trust.
Share your plans, track projects, and engage your team. Get powerful HR software from TribeHR.
10. Nepotism doesn’t work
Vader isn't a very good recruiter. @egerlach
9. If your culture sucks, referrals don’t work
"We also give recruitment referral bonuses... That General Solo guy would make a great member of our team, too."
8. Don’t ask your employees to kill their offspring (or anything else that extreme/illegal/dramatic/etc)
Your employees might resent it... or throw you into the reactor shaft of the Death Star.
7. Motivating with fear leads to poor performance
How many Admirals did Darth Vader force choke in his career? Did the next ones perform any better? Maybe they were so afraid of meeting the same fate they could never focus on their jobs.
6. Give your employees freedom to learn what they need to
It wasn’t until Luke left the Rebel fleet to learn with Yoda that he became a true Jedi.
5. Money isn’t the only motivator
Han Solo got his payment for delivering Luke & Leia to the rebellion successfully. And off he went. But it was his dedication to his colleagues and the cause that brought him back in the nick of time to save Luke from Darth Vader in his Tie Fighter.
4. Invest in technology - it helps with employee performance
How could Luke have survived Jabba’s Palace and his encounter with Sarlak if R2-D2 and C-3PO hadn’t been there to help? Not to mention the lightsaber that R2-D2 returned to him. Those were vital pieces of technology in Han Solo’s rescue.
3. People can screw up under pressure, but that's no reason to give up on them
Lando Calrissian caved to Darth Vader and had his friend trapped in carbonite, but he still was essential to the successful attack on the second death star.
2. Trust your employees - they’ll often find new solutions to problems
"Luke, you've turned off your targeting computer" "Use the force, Luke". The targeting computers had already failed the Y-Wings. Plus, would Luke have developed into a Jedi if some General had shouted him down the first time he tried to use the Force?
1. Hiring the right team and getting the right culture is vital to success.
The Rebels had the right people in place, and were working in a culture of optimism and hope, the right one for their mission. The Imperials hired a bunch of faceless drones and were working in fear. Guess who won when they clashed?
May the 4th be with you.
Resources That Help Employees Transition
Every employee is going through a different phase in their career. Some are just entering the work field and need help to transition. Other employees are taking on more responsibilities at work. The transition process affects the comfort level that workers experience. Employers can help employees on every level through Human Resources. This applies to excelling on-the-job and in other areas of life.
The transition process sometimes includes learning more information about your company and its goals. Having resources available that give this information allows employees a chance to build a firm foundation. Those starting a new position will have a some valid concerns as they transition. Through intuitive resources employers can smooth this process. Being a supportive employer clearly defines the company's expectations for each employee.
Transition is about more than simply reading information. It is also about experiencing the friendly and social environment that your job offers. Next generation tools allow workers to track their own progress. Depending on the phase that a worker is going through, their needs will vary. Transition isn't simply a negative experience, but it is a time to build a firm foundation during this new phase.
Offer a Positive Environment
Working in a positive environment makes it easy to do goals. Having a positive environment doesn't mean that the work is easy. It simply means that workers are able to recognize the benefits that their company offers. Each phase of transition should include the knowledge that your work is important and valuable. This knowledge encourages many workers to become even more productive.
Be a Transparent Employer
Transparency is necessary whether you are a long-time employee or a new hire. Workers are more comfortable working for employers that they understand. It doesn't matter, what challenge a job may hold. If a worker feels confident, he or she will stay loyal to the company. Well defined rules and expectations play a role in delivering this transparency. Employees that know what's expected of them tend to deliver through their tasks and accomplishments.
Encourage Each Employee
Each employee will be able to do their work goals. It's a breath of fresh air to find a company that cares about your transition. This means not dropping you into some alien world. Employers that encourage employees find that these workers achieve more. Encouragement offered through the tools and resources that make success possible. Workers that receive encouragement have a better attitude about the future and what they can do for the company.
Workers benefit from having employers that care about their transition. This is true no matter, what phase they are going through. The emotional side of this process is just as important as the actual work that it leads to. A well-rounded employee is a positive and productive employee. These are people that provide company's with long-term security as it relates to qualified workers. The transition process for each stage of a career impacts the next stage of that career.
Rightly or wrongly, reward systems are embedded into most organizations' employee motivation schemes. For employees, working in a company that rewards both effort and results can offer an incentive put in that extra effort.
But for employers, one dilemma can make it challenging to come up with the right reward and incentive system. Do you reward the individual, or the team?
Combined, individuals form a team.
But the team is still composed of individuals.
Flickr/Jeff Wilson
Individuals have a lot to do with the success of every project. If you work in an architectural firm, for example, you'll know that a big part of a project's success lies with the lead architect. Or if you're a salesperson, your success lies in your own individual effort.
When it comes to team environments, however, the reward question becomes rather murky, because it's tough to identify or quantify who exactly deserves the credit for which success. To help you out, here are 2 ways to create a reward system that rewards both individual top performers, and team achievements:
Every team is made up of individuals. Treat them that way.
One easy mistake is to lump together teams into one homogenous entity. This causes management to view all successes and failures as the victories or burdens of the collective, which is not always the best way to go.
In order to get the best out of teams and the individuals within them, team performance should be broken down into the individual level. In this way, regardless of overall success, there can still be rewards or recognition for top performers.
It's a good idea to create a peer-to-peer reward system within the team, where each individual can identify colleagues for their successes, and reward them in a unique way. When the team leads the reward process, it can help to prevent any feelings of jealousy or resentment which might arise.
Team-led individual rewards leave room for HR or for supervisors to implement team-level recognition, which ensures that the entire group is acknolwedged for their success, too.
Forget the carrot and stick: break out the champagne instead.
Rewards are sometimes viewed as monetary incentives for good performance. This can be effective for individual employees, provided that the reward arrives quickly and with an explanation for its cause. On the other hand, it can cause problem for teams, as the manner of distribution becomes harder to determine.
For example, if everyone gets a set amount of money (say $500), the reward is more meaningful for people with lower incomes, who may have contributed less to the project. But if the reward is a percentage (say 1% of salary), then supervisors—who may have done very little of the actual project work—might receive an unreasonably large bonus. A percentage-based system is particularly problematic for hourly workers.
The best way to handle this is to create different types of rewards and recognition. Instead of offering cash, consider temporarily boosting expense accounts, or offering to make workplace improvements of the employees' choosing.
For example, the team might decide to use its $1000 reward to throw a party or to buy a pinball machine; individuals might decide to stock up on high-quality office supplies, business swag, or other invaluable tools and weapons.
Given the choice, team members will often opt to celebrate victories rather than create complex reward systems. This is proof that recognition often trumps rewards, and that celebrations and teambuilding can help to replicate successes in the future.
The best approach to rewards is a hybrid approach, which simultaneously strengthens teams and recognizes individual efforts.
Improve your recognition and track your rewards, with public kudos, anonymous feedback, and secure employee profiles from TribeHR.
What's morale? That's a tough question. It's an emotional reaction, and not a visible thing. It's intangible. This can make morale very difficult to measure. How do you measure something that you can't see?
Morale in-and-of-itself is hard to describe; fortunately, it's a bit easier to track positive and negative morale.
People know when they’re feeling positive. Positive morale is a fuzzy energy that makes you feel capable of doing more. By contrast, when morale is low, there’s a sense of apathy; a sense of withdrawal.
You know yourself can probably tell whether your morale is up or down. It may even shift from day to day. But how can you find out about other people?
The simple way to find out is to ask the question! A direct “how’s your morale today?” might not work, but more indirect questions can be helpful. Think first about the ways that positive and negative morale are expressed, and ask questions about that.
Frequent health and safety issues: generally bad for morale. Flickr/Makuahine Pa'i Ki'i
- Are you happy working here?
- Do you feel valued by the company?
These are your typical questions that form part of the assessment of morale levels in an organization.
When we talk about positive and negative morale, we pick up on these types of senitments. But to get a true measure, you need to conduct a comprehensive employee survey. There’s more to employee surveys than just morale assessments, and there's more to morale than employee surveys, but the two do go well together.
In 2009, organizational psychologists David Bowles and Cary Cooper published a book called Employee Morale: Driving Performance in Challenging Times. It mainly focuses on the benefits of improving morale, but has some great definition pieces on how to recognize morale, and how to change it. If you’re thinking about the types of questions you need to ask employees, this is a great resource.
The key areas you'll want to consider when it comes to morale are job satisfaction, engagement, appreciation, and consideration from management.
This piece started by discussing morale in definite opposites—a dichotomy. Is it positive or negative? In reality, like most measurements, morale has a variety of levels. This is helpful. If morale is already good, you can measure whether it's getting better or worse, before things are catastrophic. Simple yes and no answers aren't useful if you can't foster changes or improvments in your employees and work environment.
The simplest measures use numerical scales. Don’t ask “are you happy in your job?” but rather, “how happy are you in your job?.” Provide a scale of 1–10 or 1%-100%, and ask the employee for the value and a short explanation.
Alternatively, have them answer with by how much they agree with a statement. For example:
Please respond "strongly disagree," "disagree," "neither disagree nor agree," "agree," or "strongly agree," to the following statement: "I am happy in my current job."
With a series of related questions on engagement, values, involvement, and other related concepts, you can get a simple set of measures for morale. Repeat the same survey with different departments, or at different points in time, to track changes and determine variables.
This type of survey need not be restricted to morale. They can work great for leadership qualities, organizational communications, or just about any other intangible area that's vital to the HR portfolio.
Get unlimited, specific, actionable feedback from your employees in an easy-to-use software suite. Get TribeHR today.
Employee engagement is an area in which many managers fail to deliver. “I'm too busy to deal with my staff,” and “they're all grown-ups, I don’t need to babysit them” are the common excuses we hear from such managers.
But engaging employees is one of the most basic functions every manager should perform. After all, employees overall do far more work than managers do.
Engagement isn't all about big bucks. Money will only get you so far, while effective and sustained employee engagement efforts have more lasting and significant results. It’s more about relationships, communications and emotions. But the key to employee engagement is task ownership.
Owning a task means that employees are responsible and accountable for their work. Engaged employees are partners in the growth and success of the organization. But how specifically does this relationship play out? Here are some of the merits of promoting task ownership among your employees:
1. Employees work harder
If their name is on the line, people will be more diligent in completing work on time, within budget, and with excellent results. Knowing that there will be a reward for a job well done is also a strong motivating factor for hard work. If the employee owns a task, they might even feel compelled to work extra hours just to complete it to your—but more important, to their own—expectations.
2. Employees become more productive
Engaged employees not only work harder; they also work smarter. Since they understand that they're directly responsible for completing the task, they'll find ways to do it more efficiently, but without sacrificing quality. Thus, they're usually able to finish the job ahead of schedule, then move on to another task. As a result, what others might finish in five days, they'll do in half that time.
3. Employees feel proud, valued, and trusted
Having been assigned a specific task, employees feel they're part of the “elite circle.” They take pride in the fact that they were chosen among a pool of equally talented individuals to work on a critical project. Their confidence also gets a boost, as they feel valued and trusted by their superiors. This is a strong driver for both professional and personal growth and development.
4. Employees develop their capabilities
In their efforts to prove they're worthy of the trust they've been awarded, employees find innovative solutions, think of creative ways of doing things, and develop unique strategies. They'll also want to make their mark in the company, and be known not as a regular manager, but one who has well-rounded skills and good planning strategies. Task ownership develops the skills and capabilities employees need to progress within a company.
5. Employees become more loyal to the company
As more tasks are assigned to them, employees develop a stronger emotional attachment to the company, helping it develop into “our company.” Engaged employees feel that they owe it to their company to stay and continue delivering the results. They also develop a stronger sense of partnership with organizations that have shown them confidence and trust. In the end, engaged employees who own their tasks are more likely to stay with a company, even despite other opportunities that are available outside.
Manage goals, measure engagement, and tie them both to organizational values, with HR software from TribeHR. Get started today with a free trial.
Debates for and against bonuses are rife in HR circles, with proponents and opponents giving a raft of issues for and against. But for modern HR practitioners, the debate needs to evolve beyond simply a question of how bonuses should be served, to a greater ideal of what a bonus really is and should be.
Smaller companies may not have the luxury of offering cash-rich bonuses, but they do have a range of perks and other effective ways to give "bonuses" and compete for talent.
Here are three ways you can incentivize your employees without having to throw bags of cash at them:
1. Give autonomy
This will only get you so far. Flickr/coda
Motivating employees is a hard nut to crack. Many small businesses feel they've done it all, yet employees still leave. For next-generation HR practitioners, employee autonomy is the highest echelon of employee motivation.
Everyone wants to know what they're doing and feel like they're capable of doing it well. Employers need to create the type of environment that gives employees the freedom to do their work quickly and in their own way.
To cut micromanagement and unnecessary supervision, create recognition programs that enshrine the individual responsibilities of each employee. When the program succeeds, make sure you help it percolate to every department and managerial accountability.
2. Help your employees master their profession
Boost your team's skill sets, value, and self image by offering training programs that allow them to refine and gain mastery of their work. Effort can only boost productivity when it is supported by skills.
Training workshops, task rotation, and self-improvement subsidies will help to boost knowledge transfer in your company, in a way that your team finds enriching and engaging. Motivated employees should feel that their employment is constantly improving their skills, general knowledge, and life experience.
What's more, introducing non-linear training classes for things like cooking and origami helps add value to your employee's lives, increases motivation, and boosts loyalty towards the company.
3. Provide a reason to be there
Motivation is often mistakenly restricted to monetary rewards. This is perhaps the biggest misconception that many small companies have bought into, which prevents them from going out and winning top talent.
Performance incentives are more complex than a biweekly or monthly cash exchange. Employees are looking for a higher purpose and vision. It's management's job to ensure that corporate values and vision are well understood and supported by employees.
Think about the human or social reasons you're in business: Is it to make people's lives easier? Is it to solve a social problem? Is it to create an enjoyable experience? Employees who feel that a company's only motivation is to boost the bottom line are more difficult to retain.
People will invariably tie their life purpose to their work experience. Good managers will ensure that these are complementary, not antithetical.
These three simple methods have been tried and tested by countless businesses who win top talent without having the budget to offer kingly bonuses. Implement them effectively, and you'll hear bonus clamoring drop, and productivity soar.
Unleash your workforce with engaging software that promotes autonomy and purpose. See what TribeHR can do for you.
Did you know that many managers spend nearly half their time at work mediating employee conflict?
Imagine the things you could do if you weren't constantly playing referee to a couple of warring co-workers. Economic difficulties have only increased workplace turbulance, with employee conflict increasing by as much as 40% since 2008.
Even if some people are stressed about their job security, your workplace should never be a war zone. It's supposed to be a friendly place where people collaborate to create the best product they can, whether it's service-related or material goods.
Employees who constantly clash are major distractions for most organizations, as they reduce productivity and create tension. This isn't good for business, and can ultimately undermine your managerial effectiveness and corporate success.
So how do you deal with social conflicts and distractions? For starters, you have to take each occurence seriously, and deflate the situation before it gets out of control.
You should always start by assessing the situation. Before you even talk to the employees, look for changes in their behavior or performance. If you notice unusual behavior, did it start before or after the conflict began?
If someone who's normally very outgoing suddenly withdraws, log into your records. Repeat for any and all uncharacteristic behaviors. This will make it easier if you later need to call a meeting to talk to the battling coworkers. Behavioral logs are also useful for performance reviews, and even in administering disciplinary actions, if you feel that innapropriate behavior has gone too far.
Objectively view your company or department from an outsider's perspective. Is the office always tense? Does everyone seem dissatisfied with their job? Do your employees do the bare minimum and groan at giving more than you ask for? If so, it's probably a good bet that the two employees who are in constant battle are simply manifesting your company's culture.
People are intuitive by nature. They often take on the characteristics of the company they work for. If you're in an environment where people feel as though they have to compete against each other all the time, it's emotionally draining, and incubates more conflict than teamwork.
To get a thorough understanding of the situation, meet with each employee separately in a comfortable environment. Offer some coffee or refreshments. This is an opportunity for each of them to be completely transparent with you. Is one employee living in fear of the other? Does one feel like they're carrying the other employee's weight? Does one constantly undermine the other's work?
When you're done with the separate meetings, call them both into a neutral place to address the situation. Discuss the problem and possible resolutions. Are they willing to work on the problem? Are they stubbornly inflexible about who is right and who's in the wrong?
See if you can come up with a viable solution. Perhaps a transfer is in order. If your company is too small to move one person away from the situation, then you'll have to make it clear that their job is more important than the conflict.
Once you've got a clear picture in your head of what's going on, you can either shuffle around one of the workers to a different department, encourage them to resolve the issue, or if it's bad enough, terminate one of them.
Don't let it get to that. Promote co-operation and solicit anonymous feedback with social HR software.
Engagement sometimes feels like a buzzword in today's progressive work environments. Everyone wants more engagement and socialization. The benefits are indisputable. But let's take a step back for a moment and ask "what does engagement even mean?"
One definition is that employee engagement is "a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization, which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work."
Employee engagement clearly revolves around one central theme: interpersonal relationships. If you're working to keep your team engaged, here are five strategies that you don't want to skip:
Face-time
"The complete guide to hiring and firing government employees" is a real book. Hopefully you can avoid situations where you'll have to fire someone, but it can happen anywhere. Flickr/Business Book Summaries
All the technology in the world can't replace real face-to-face interaction. Face-time affords human interaction, which helps to build team cohesion on multiple levels. Frequent encounters create the type of relationships that technology-based interactions can never deliver.
HR and management should resist the urge to become "more efficient" by needlessly adopting technologies that replace physical face-time, and make sure that policies are in place that bring employees together. Telecommuting and branch offices still have a role to play, but these aren't a be-all-end-all.
Common courtesy
It may seem obvious, but it's often forgotten. Saying thank you makes all the difference. Countless employees will tell you that management is quick to point out mistakes and failings, but doesn't dish out enough compliments.
No good deed goes unpunished. For unappreciative managers, this usually comes to pass in the form of disjointed teams and high turnover rates. It doesn't cost much to recognize a good deed done.
Connecting work with meaning
This can never be emphasized enough. Meaning and work need to be intimately intertwined. Employees spend nearly half of their waking hours at work. When higher ideal, which transcends financial compensation, is evoked, work is infinitely more rewarding.
Engagement is all about fostering an emotional connection to work—otherwise known as purpose—and this is what transforms good teams into a well oiled performance machine.
Division of deliverables
Don't pass the buck. In many cases, teams take flack when a project falls through, even when their core responsibilities weren't a part of the reason the project failed. Define deliverables explicitly, and stick to the definitions whenever possible.
A team that knows where its responsibilities start and end is more focused, more engaged, and working toward one common goal. If a project fails, acknowledge the team's input and be candid on why the project failed. This will keep the team in the loop, allocate responsibility equitably, and help to prevent future problems.
End gracefully
Terminating team members after doing everything to integrate them is never easy. The news that a close-knit team may be separated can deal a difficult blow to the team's morale. Approach this issue with sensitivity.
Acknowledge the emotions that may arise during this transition. Identify the leaders in the team and use their roles to communicate the impending reality to team members. Finally, praise and thank each team member for their role in the team, and reinforce the fact that team members each have unique values and capabilities that transcend the team's existence.
HR needs to have a human face, and respond to employees as individuals. This approach will keeps teams engaged from recruiting, to separation, and beyond, without undermining the valuable contributions of each member.
With TribeHR, managing the complete employee life-cycle is easy. Learn more.