Reward employees or
they’ll punish you
Kansas City Business Journal—SALLY FORD
Forget your competitors. It’s your employees who
are the greatest threat to your company’s success!
According to Gail Dutton in her article, “The Re-enchantment
of Work,” which recently appeared in the American Management Association
’s Management Review, “disenchanted employees can
create havoc in a company—or leave and create new competition.”
She goes on to say that “keeping your best and brightest may be the
wisest business decision you make.”
Savvy companies head off this potential threat by giving
employees valid reasons to stay and minimizing their reasons for leaving.
The management buzzwords of the 1990s—from empowerment
to family-friendly workplaces—describe efforts to integrate employees'
work and personal lives and encourage them to think like entrepreneurs.
These concepts haven’t caught on everywhere, however, and there is
increasing disenchantment among employees.
“Lack of recognition is a common thread among both
political defectors and disenchanted employees —the feeling that
one’s contributions don’t matter,” said espionage expert
Bill DeGenaro, head of DeGenaro & Associates Inc., a management consulting
firm based in Bloomington, Minn. As evidence, he points to a CIA study
of political defectors, which found that the main reason for defecting
was a lack of recognition.
"This almost directly translates to corporations
today," DeGenaro said.
The secondary reasons for corporate disenchantment
are: low wages, lack of opportunities, out-of-date skills and lack of
creative input.
In corporations, as in nations, disenchantment leads
to a loss of innovators, a withholding of energy and even to sabotage
or espionage. Entrepreneurial employees who realize that their companies
never will accept their innovative ideas are likely to become despondent
or bail out.
If they leave, they might join the competition or start
a new (and perhaps competing) company of their own. The most likely saboteurs
are individuals who feel very angry, totally disenchanted or trapped.
Experts report that before employees resort to sabotage,
they begin to withhold their energy. They do what is required, but no
more. They do not develop or adopt new ideas easily. J. Barry Mason, a
professor of business administration at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa,
refers to such employees as “shelf-sitters” who have never made
much of a contribution to the company but never hurt it either. You need
to recognize the shelf-sitters and re-enchant them.
Corporate awareness is key. Pay attention to attitude
surveys.
Taking the pulse of the company and finding ways to
re-enchant the work force are worth the effort. The innovators will offer
new thoughts and tremendous energy, while the disgruntled shelf-sitters
will be inspired to become more productive and fulfilled.
The keys are meaningful recognition and challenging
jobs. The type of recognition that matters most is highly visible; it
shows how the individual's actions made a significant contribution to
the operation.
There is no better example of how to master these techniques
than the late Ewing Kauffman, my role model and a role model for many
others. He showed us how to create an environment of mutual respect in
our businesses. He treated his employees like family.
He said, “my greatest ability is people orientation.
I think the greatest thing an executive - a leader, or so-called manager
- must have is a caring relationship with people.” He acknowledged
that this attitude encouraged good business. ”If they know you care
for them, they know you expect a lot out of them, then they will live
up to those expectations.”
In the first 15 years of the company, he met with each
new associate for a half hour or so as part of their orientation.
Also, all associates received a letter from him on
their anniversary with the company congratulating them for their contribution
to the company's success. He was also known to write letters to associates'
parents to thank them for raising a child with admirable attributes.
He helped them develop professional goals and then
provided an atmosphere in which they were motivated to succeed. He not
only shared monetary rewards with his employees (associates), he never
missed an opportunity to publicly recognize and thank his employees for
their contributions. At Saturn last year, before their two-week summer
shutdown, the leaders handed out beach towels and sunglasses to each worker
on the factory floor, shaking their hands and thanking them for their
contributions.
Here are some ideas on how you can provide meaningful
recognition and job challenges to your employees:
- Mention an employee’s name in a memo, status report or letter seen
by peers.
- Award a certificate of merit in presence of peers.
- Post a person’s name on bulletin board along with description of his
or her accomplishment.
- Assign temporary jobs that have more responsibility or visibility.
- Have a worker attend meetings with next-higher level of management
(as a guest, a participant or as a presenter).
- Give money, stock options or time off as a reward. Give a reserved
parking spot.
- Give an employee a nameplate for her or his office.
Hopefully these ideas will help you keep your "best
and brightest," and your company will be known for treating its employees
as its most valuable asset.
Sally Ford is president of Ford Consulting Group
Inc., an outsource for human resources management and creator of THRMP.
(Copyright 1998)
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