This is the third in a five part series on achieving Employee Retention. The articles cover:
1. Competitive Compensation & Benefits
2. Sound Organizational Structure
3. Leadership & a Motivating Work Environment
4. Recognition & Rewards
5. Employee Dreams & Empowerment
The premise of the articles is that employee retention is not a program or product, but rather the result of effective organization
and leadership practices.
Leadership
Flipping your organization's chart provides multiple benefits. It puts your customers on the top where they belong. It positions your front
line people in the next highest, and important, position. It visualizes management's leadership role as a servant leader.
Servant leadership, where the master becomes the servant, focuses all managers on one primary responsibility: Helping their direct
reports succeed. They recognize that their success is dependent on their direct reports' success.
How can I help you succeed?
Servant style leaders:
Serve people throughout the organization
Lift and support others
Trust and believe that their people want to succeed
Focus on empowerment rather than power
Share information and include others
Concentrate on responsibility rather than being right
Foster an entrepreneurial climate rather than a bureaucratic one
Proactively seek opportunities to improve those around them
Eliminate barriers to their peoples' success
Model by treating every person in the organization as a valued customer
Keep the customer driven vision alive and in focus throughout the organization
Build and maintain a motivating work environment
Servant leaders concentrate on being supportive. They are not 'soft' leaders. Servant leaders establish accountability for themselves and
their people by practicing the above points and creating a motivating work environment.
Motivating Work Environment
Eighty-five percent of employees arrive at work already motivated. They want to succeed. They want to contribute. They want to play
on a winning team. The servant leader's job is to create and maintain a work environment that capitalizes on this natural motivation.
That environment contains four essential elements:
o Why we need to do this to attain our success
o What needs to be done
o Essential Tools needed to accomplish the job
o Recognition and Rewards needed to sustain and reinforce the environment
Why
Engaging peoples' minds as well as their bodies is a prerequisite to creating a motivating work environment. "Because I'm paying you to
do it, that's why!" is not an explanation that will capture peoples' minds and spirits. Explaining Why we are asking for their help, in
terms that are honest and significant to them, is crucial to work environment success. Following are several examples of Why
explanations.
Why are we doing this? Because, we need to:
o Become customer driven rather than activity driven
o Handle upset customers right on the spot
o Do it right the first time
These explanations need to be stated in specific terms that are relevant to employees - the people who actually do the job.
What
The next essential step in creating a motivating work environment is to identify What needs to be done. What statements convert the
above Why explanations into goals.
o To become customer driven rather than activity driven [Why], what we need to do is have frontline workers personally accountable
for specific customers' satisfaction.
o To handle upset customers right on the spot [Why], what we need to do is empower our people so they can resolve customer concerns
immediately.
o To do it right the first time [Why], what we need to do is make every person a QC inspector.
Treat these examples as just that, examples. Don't sweat the exact words. The more your people participate in shaping their goals the
greater their ownership and motivation to accomplish them. It's the process that counts, not management's word smithing.
Essential Tools
Providing Essential Tools is the third step in creating a motivating work environment. These are the tools that your people need to
successfully accomplish their goals. Provide these tools AS they are needed and only IF they are needed. Sample tools include.
Basic job skills
Customer relations and communications skills
Conducting effective meetings
Problem solving
Project planning
Leadership training
Performance improves when people know why they are working to accomplish goals. Performance improves further when they know and
accept what the desired results are. Performance improvements flow when people have the above, plus the essential tools necessary to
accomplish their goals.
This approach has unlimited applications. We have seen and successfully used this approach with engineers and service
technicians, union and nonunion people, blue and white collar workers, teenagers and AARP members, highly paid people and
minimum wage earners. It works!
A tremendous motivation and performance killer is the humiliation caused by assigning untrained employees to tasks that they are
incapable or accomplishing. Customers see an employee in uniform [or hear them answering the telephone] and automatically expect a
level of knowledge.
I've seen untrained employees in tears as they fail in front of a continuous audience of expectant customers. Placing employees in
this situation results in customer frustration and high turnover of both customers and employees. Insure that your people have at least basic
job and customer communication skills before placing them in a customer contact position.
Conclusion
Motivation is NOT about turning people on. Accept that people are already turned on. Servant leaders create a motivating work
environment that enables people to exercise their natural motivation.
People perform best in a work environment in which they:
o Know what needs to be done and why it is important
o Have the essential tools to complete their work
o Are recognized and rewarded for the results they attain
Serve your people so that they in turn are willing and capable of serving your customers. Research has shown that such an atmosphere
increases employee satisfaction and loyalty. Both of these factors are strongly related to increasing employee retention and profits.
Part 4: Recognition & Rewards will explore sustaining your motivating work environment.
