links, meandering, pondering
Aug. 5th, 2003 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/72/realitycheck.html
http://www.laidoffinamerica.blogspot.com/
http://www.laidoffcentral.com/
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/72/backattheoffice.html
That last one-- Man, I have a lot to say about that last one. Namely, this part of it:
14. How do you get employees to do more without paying them more?
Memo to: CEOs
From: Your loyal (but slightly unmotivated) colleagues
Here's the thing, boss: It was never really about the money. Sure, it seemed that way a few years ago, amid guaranteed bonuses, sky's-the-limit options, and salary increases. When talent was scarce, you threw money at us and hoped that it would stick.
You got lazy. You threw money at us because that was easier than actually managing us. As business boomed, says John Sullivan of San Francisco State University, "managers forgot how to motivate."
Not that we minded the money. But nearly every credible survey on employee satisfaction shows that money isn't what greases our skids. Here's what's important: challenging work, a sane supervisor and respectful colleagues, and the promise of career growth.
You know how Southwest Airlines gets its workers jazzed? Every three months, an honored employee chooses the menu for a party of 15 -- and top management does the cooking. "Not only is it a blow-away honor that excites people," says Bob Nelson, coauthor of The 1,001 Rewards and Recognition Fieldbook (Workman, 2003), "but it has turned into a team-building thing for management."
It's not about the money. It has taken a recession for bosses to figure that out. How do you get more out of us when you don't have anything to give? Start by getting us to help. Try asking, "What would make you more productive?" And, "What's slowing you down?" They're powerful questions, first because they oblige us to take responsibility for our productivity, and second because they demonstrate your willingness to admit that we workers are -- yes! -- individuals, cheered and discouraged in myriad ways.
"Open a dialogue. See the person as a mass of interesting data that has to be explored," says Beverly Kaye, coauthor of Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay (Berrett-Koehler, 2002). Kaye recalls speaking to 1,200 managers at Wells Fargo Bank and asking them, "How many of you have ever been told by your boss, 'You're critical. I want you to stay. What I can do?' " Only a handful raised their ands.
"Why don't more managers ask?" Kaye wonders. "They don't ask because they're afraid of what they'll be told." They worry that their stars will want a raise when there's no money in the budget or a promotion where none exists.
As it turns out, what employees want and what their bosses think they want, surveys reveal, tend to diverge wildly. If you don't ask, you won't have a clue. Not only do we want different things, but our answers are subtly shaded and ever changing. We are complex individuals who pursue all sorts of different things: challenges, lifestyles, opportunities to learn, variety. To motivate us, you'll have to get under our skins.
"One problem is the creation of linear models for motivation -- as if people lead linear lives," says Donald Novak, a founding director of the Exetor Group and an organizational-development consultant. In most organizations, employees climb carefully orchestrated hierarchies. "And that is probably the biggest affront to multifaceted people, because they are constantly changing. Their employers have to keep pace."
If you do ask, you'll find that much of what we want doesn't cost so much to give. It's more a matter of thinking differently about how we work. "We're not talking about a group that you have to find lots of things for," says Novak. "It usually doesn't have to do with resources. It's about the corporate mentality of cautiousness."
The best employees, Novak observes, are risk takers. They are connectors who reach out and invent new things. When business gets bleak, many companies discourage risk takers by rewarding caution and by erecting barriers that thwart connections.
So here's an idea. Want to motivate us? Don't worry about the money (for now). Try getting out of our way instead. Keith H. Hammonds
Oh man, it's so true. I haven't really got any money, and my co-workers have let me know that almost nobody at the company has gotten a raise in the last 3 years. But... there are 6 or 7 vacant offices in the company's office. That right there would be a big motivator for an employee-- we value the work you do, so here's a whole office to yourself so you can turn the lights off when you want, and you can even close the door once in a while if you don't want to be bothered. Wow!
Or, here's an extra day off because we like you!
Nothing differentiates the hard-working, valuable employees from the slackers who can't be fired because they're related to somebody. Not even an "I appreciate your work" from the boss. Not even an occasional office party. Nothing. The boss firmly believes he owes us nothing beyond our paychecks, and makes that plain.
Sigh. Oh well.
http://www.laidoffinamerica.blogspot.com/
http://www.laidoffcentral.com/
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/72/backattheoffice.html
That last one-- Man, I have a lot to say about that last one. Namely, this part of it:
14. How do you get employees to do more without paying them more?
Memo to: CEOs
From: Your loyal (but slightly unmotivated) colleagues
Here's the thing, boss: It was never really about the money. Sure, it seemed that way a few years ago, amid guaranteed bonuses, sky's-the-limit options, and salary increases. When talent was scarce, you threw money at us and hoped that it would stick.
You got lazy. You threw money at us because that was easier than actually managing us. As business boomed, says John Sullivan of San Francisco State University, "managers forgot how to motivate."
Not that we minded the money. But nearly every credible survey on employee satisfaction shows that money isn't what greases our skids. Here's what's important: challenging work, a sane supervisor and respectful colleagues, and the promise of career growth.
You know how Southwest Airlines gets its workers jazzed? Every three months, an honored employee chooses the menu for a party of 15 -- and top management does the cooking. "Not only is it a blow-away honor that excites people," says Bob Nelson, coauthor of The 1,001 Rewards and Recognition Fieldbook (Workman, 2003), "but it has turned into a team-building thing for management."
It's not about the money. It has taken a recession for bosses to figure that out. How do you get more out of us when you don't have anything to give? Start by getting us to help. Try asking, "What would make you more productive?" And, "What's slowing you down?" They're powerful questions, first because they oblige us to take responsibility for our productivity, and second because they demonstrate your willingness to admit that we workers are -- yes! -- individuals, cheered and discouraged in myriad ways.
"Open a dialogue. See the person as a mass of interesting data that has to be explored," says Beverly Kaye, coauthor of Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay (Berrett-Koehler, 2002). Kaye recalls speaking to 1,200 managers at Wells Fargo Bank and asking them, "How many of you have ever been told by your boss, 'You're critical. I want you to stay. What I can do?' " Only a handful raised their ands.
"Why don't more managers ask?" Kaye wonders. "They don't ask because they're afraid of what they'll be told." They worry that their stars will want a raise when there's no money in the budget or a promotion where none exists.
As it turns out, what employees want and what their bosses think they want, surveys reveal, tend to diverge wildly. If you don't ask, you won't have a clue. Not only do we want different things, but our answers are subtly shaded and ever changing. We are complex individuals who pursue all sorts of different things: challenges, lifestyles, opportunities to learn, variety. To motivate us, you'll have to get under our skins.
"One problem is the creation of linear models for motivation -- as if people lead linear lives," says Donald Novak, a founding director of the Exetor Group and an organizational-development consultant. In most organizations, employees climb carefully orchestrated hierarchies. "And that is probably the biggest affront to multifaceted people, because they are constantly changing. Their employers have to keep pace."
If you do ask, you'll find that much of what we want doesn't cost so much to give. It's more a matter of thinking differently about how we work. "We're not talking about a group that you have to find lots of things for," says Novak. "It usually doesn't have to do with resources. It's about the corporate mentality of cautiousness."
The best employees, Novak observes, are risk takers. They are connectors who reach out and invent new things. When business gets bleak, many companies discourage risk takers by rewarding caution and by erecting barriers that thwart connections.
So here's an idea. Want to motivate us? Don't worry about the money (for now). Try getting out of our way instead. Keith H. Hammonds
Oh man, it's so true. I haven't really got any money, and my co-workers have let me know that almost nobody at the company has gotten a raise in the last 3 years. But... there are 6 or 7 vacant offices in the company's office. That right there would be a big motivator for an employee-- we value the work you do, so here's a whole office to yourself so you can turn the lights off when you want, and you can even close the door once in a while if you don't want to be bothered. Wow!
Or, here's an extra day off because we like you!
Nothing differentiates the hard-working, valuable employees from the slackers who can't be fired because they're related to somebody. Not even an "I appreciate your work" from the boss. Not even an occasional office party. Nothing. The boss firmly believes he owes us nothing beyond our paychecks, and makes that plain.
Sigh. Oh well.
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no subject
Date: 2003-08-05 06:50 pm (UTC)Neither. The woman is given no perks and no respect, and the programmers the same. The woman has it worse because now more is expected of her, and the boss verbally abuses her and gets into screaming matches if she doesn't deliver superhuman results every single day.
Which is the single largest place that my company is going wrong, I firmly believe. No motivation, no management, no rewards system, no punishment system. There are no raises, and there's no step before being fired-- a temper tantrum by the boss happens so often that it may or may not even mean anything in real terms, so it's hardly a benchmark, but it's all my predecessor had to warn her that she was going to be fired after 9 years. Holy cow.
I've been working my ass off for four weeks now, and the only in-depth talk the boss has given me resulted from him catching me checking Google News the other morning. I mean, Jesus, my sister's in Iraq and we hadn't heard from her in three weeks. Is it so wrong for me to check the headlines? But that's all he noticed. Not my instant responses to his often incoherent requests, not my heroic efforts to interpret what he meant and get the results he was looking for but couldn't articulate.
So I stopped working extra hours. I still come in early and leave late, but now I don't start work until 9 am sharp (I surf the web up until then) and at 5 pm sharp, I shut down my work computer and go sit outside with my laptop.
I get the exact same treatment as I used to when i worked an hour extra every day, so I really see no need to go back to that.