10 Tips for Improving Employee Motivation

Here is it, the end of the semester, the last Motivation Blog. Its been fun to learn about different companies, see the different ways they work, and how it is always changing. No doubt, we are having some hard economic times and right now it seems like people are being motivated just by the fact that they cannot get another job if they do not like the one they have. As the employer, you know that might put you in a good place if you know that they'd like to stay. Here are some tips on how to improve your employees though. We all know that it is important that the employees enjoy their work as much as, if not more than, the incentives they receive. It is important to have employees who want to be at work, and
Here are 1o Tips to Improve Employee Motivation:
1. Build a Foundation. Give the employee background on the company, let them know your plans for the future, and let them give their imput on the company and where they would like to see themselves go with in the company.
2. Create a Positive Environment. Set an environment where all employees feel important and appreciated. Let them know that you are there to help them as much as they are there for you.
3. Put people on the right path. Employees are looking for advancement. If you can help them get on the right path, help them set goals and help them find ways to achieve them, the employees will get excited about what is to come. This will make them more invested in what they are doing now.
4. Educate the Masses. Give employees the opportunity to improve their professional skills, learn new trades that can benefit themselves and the company. Provide workshops, training, classes paid for by the company. This will make them feel like you have taken a sincere interest in them and will boost their interest in the company.
5. Don't forget the Fun! Once in a while you need to put work aside and treat your employees to pizza, ice cream, birthday parties, or shut down shop an hour early or so, to encourage fun and give people a break.
6. Acknowledge Contributions. It is so important to take the time to recognize employees for a job well done, a task completed, or any accomplishments. Be generous with praise.
7. Provide Incentives. These can be small such as a gift card to big things like a raise or bonus. Also Employee of the Month recognition is a good start. If employee know they are working towards something, it will encourage more motivation.
8. Honor your promises. If you are willing to promise a raise or incentive, and they follow through, you have to follow through as well. If you are not willing to follow through later, do not make the promise to start with. Breaking promises will hurt trust and harbor bad feelings.
9. Provide Career Coaching. Bringing someone in from the outside to help employees reach the next level will really help them along. I also think that having an outsider for this will allow for honest comments and what their true goals are.
10. Match tasks to talents. You can improve employees self confidence by giving them tasks that you know they will enjoy or be good at. Once they have accomplished that task and their self confidence has had a boost, they will be more confident with other tasks.

I feel like these are great tips to boosting employee motivation and not all require funds to go forward with. Companies have been hit hard in the last few months from the economy and may not know what to do to continue to motivate since funding or benefits may have been cut. These are some way that motivation can still be improved with out throwing a lot of money at the issue. These were also very helpful to me for my own motivation factors. I hope you have learned something that you can take and use in your life. This has been so fun and so educational.
Enjoy and Have a great day!

Employee Motivation and The Economy

We all are familiar with the problems in our economy, which is also one of the major topics of the 2008 Presidential Election. Due to the problems with the economy, the credit crisis, financial institutions closing left and right, the downturn in the housing market, and our stock market being so vulnerable, people are getting more and more nervous as the weeks go on. We are all seeing the tightening of our budgets, trying to get out and stay out of debt, and some worrying about if they will have a job next week or a house to live in. Things are getting scary, but in this time, I think we are seeing changes in what actually motivates our employees.
We have seen the times where the things that motivate us to come to a job is the vacation time, company vehicles, employees allowances, and retirement packages. I think we are now seeing and heading more towards the time where people are becoming satisfied with just having the job that will pay the bills. It is more important to see that we can get insurance packages to support our families and having the essentials, not all of the luxaries. It is so important to just keep the job you have because our the scary possibility that there won't be anywhere else to go. I'm not exactly sure what the direct effects or differences in employee motivations that might come from the new President, but they will have an impact on the economy changing (hopefully for the better) which in turn will change the way we are looking at our jobs.
I am attaching a link to a website that describes ways a leader/manager can help in motivating their employees. They are the simple things such as your mood when you show up to work or giving feedback to your employees, that can help at any time, times of plenty or times of less.
http://humanresources.about.com/od/motivationsucces3/a/lead_motivation.htm
Enjoy! I hope everyone has a good day and remember not to take the little things for granted, try to focus on the things that we have, instead of the things we are lacking, and be grateful for them!

Google

Well the other day in class we had a guest speaker, who was great by the way. She was talking about different companies that are known for their high employee motivating environments. One that was mentioned was Google, which sparked my interest and reminded me of their great employee packages, so i'm going to let you all know about the environment at Google.

Google claims that they are not like conventional companies, the only thing that makes them like other companies is their focus on innovation and smart business practices. Even though they have branches all across the world, they still strive to keep the small company feel. "Googlers thrive in small, focused teams and high-energy environments, believe in the ability of technology to change the world, and are as passionate about their lives as they are about their work." Google provides tailored compensation packages, they can be comprised of salary, bonus, and equity components, and also the opportunities to further their financial situation.

Their work enviroment is also a huge deal, they have excellent food, nap time, child care areas, game rooms, massages, and still with a comfortable small company feel.

On their website they have the 10 Reasons to work at Google. So here they are:
10 Reasons to work at Google
1.Lend a Helping Hand
2.Life is Beautiful
3.Appreciation is the best motivation
4.Work and Play are not mutually exclusive
5.We love our employees, and want them to know that
6.Innovation is our bloodline
7.Good company everywhere you look
8.Uniting the world, one user at a time
9.Boldly go where no one has gone before
10. There is such thing as a free lunch after all
There are explanations for all of the reasons on the website.
Here is the link to find out more about this employee focuses company if you are interested:
http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=about.html

Health Care Benefits

With healthcare, or the lack of, health care coverage being such a hot topic in United States life today and a major topic in the Presidential race, I decided this would be one of the employee benefits that would be interesting to see how companies are changing for their employees. I found one company, Financial Corportation, that is helping their customers, but in this business it is their customers that kind of serve as their employees. They serve their customers by just providing benefits for their companies, which is to help by providing programs that bring efficiency to their customers businesses. These programs include benefits and in this article, they are now providing discounted health care and medical programs and services to their existing customers. This program will offer them 10% -60% decreases to most all of the big medical carriers of any kind. Launching this program will possibly effect 45 million individuals who do not currently have health care.
What an amazing program they are trying to set up. This company saw a need and is putting a plan into effect that will satify the need. This is truly something that would motivate me as their employee or customer, and especially with such a widespread issue. I think they are setting a great example, and maybe not every person will take advantage of this offer, but 45 million people is a huge undertaking and in my opinion would help most morale and stress in many work environments.
Here is the link to read into the finer details. Some of my information was taken straight from the article to get the facts right.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/dalrada-provide-affordable-healthcare-products/story.aspx?guid=%7B164DCAE6-A038-49BA-81B9-FD8B3A675C23%7D&dist=hppr

Employee Motivation

Like I said, my posts are going to consist of a Human Relations topic. The topic I have chosen is Employee motivations and benefits. I want to be able to find out what really makes people tick. We all have had jobs we like or dislike, but what makes this happen? This truly is a human issue because it is not as easy as we may think to find out what motivates people to go to work. There are many things, not just one in particular, that motivate employees. Giving the same thing to everyone for a job well done, may not be the best thing for everyone. Since we are human, we know that we all have different needs and wants. These priorities are different to everyone, but some of them include money, insurance plans, other benefits, vacations, parties, or personal recognition. I also think that motivation can depend on the type of company you work for. Is it a fortune 500 company, a mid-sized corporation, or a family business? I believe that this will effect what drives people as well. I am excited to see what the results will be and I believe that this research will help me become a better manager because hopefully I will be better able to understand my employees later on.

http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/
Here's a link that talks a little about my topic and is where I gathered some of my thoughts from.
Enjoy and I look forward to learning more about human motivations.

New blog

Well I am new to the blog scene. This is going to start as being a blog for a class. I will be talking about a Human Relation issue at first. Hopefully it will turn into a real life blog after that. We'll see what happens.