AxTenk Blog

Providing Positive Recognition
The way that you recognize employees is also very important. General compliments such as, “You did a good job” or “I’m proud of your improvement” are not in fact the best motivators. Here are some suggestions that really work:
1) Describe the importance of genuine, specific, and positive feedback.
You can add meaning to a compliment by emphasizing why what was done is important. The opportunity for high-impact recognition is lost if you say only, “You did a good job,” because you aren’t being specific and you haven’t said why positive performance is important. You need to explain:
 Why the performance is important to the employee
 Why it is important to the section, department, or organization
 Why it is important to you as the leader
2) Build employee confidence.
3) Track progress and head off problems.
4) Express appreciation.

Smart employers keep talented employees by providing flexibility in when they work, and often where they work and importantly how they work. They allow employees to balance personal responsibilities and work productivity.

Here are some strategies for managers in designing incentive for work-life balance. Which one might work for you?

? If employees need to travel during weekends, offer something in exchange. For example allowing family members to travel with the employee.

? If employees travel to areas where they have family or friends, allow them to spend extra time to visit those people at the beginning or end of the trip.

? If company prohibits bringing animals/pets to work, consider alternatives like arranging picnic/social gathering where their pets are welcome.

? Give your employees a flexible day off per year to be used for their special occasion. Sometimes, you may allow them to go home early on their birthdays for celebrating their happy occasion. Or consider arranging a gathering party for your team and their families. Welcome their family members, go for fun together and strengthen the social bond.

? When an employee request to work from home, explore both advantages and disadvantages carefully. Be creative about how that might work to benefit both the employee and your team.

? When giving employees flexibility to work from home, also consider subsidizing your employees’ home Internet service costs. These cost are small compared with the productivity you’ll get in return.

A Checklist of Job Enrichment Possibilities
? Develop teams. Self-directed work groups can make a lot of their own decisions. They can redistribute work, have greater work variety, team members learn more and get involved on projects through to completion.

? Engage the client. It is more effective engaging real people and understand their problems & needs rather than responding only to problems as they occur.
Assign employee to particular job make him accountable for the client, either from inside or outside the organization. It’s not surprising how many employees never see their clients.

? Work Rotation. New responsibilities and greater variety can help an employee feel challenged and valued. Employees can acquire important new skills that strengthen the workforce. It isn’t difficult to implement rotational assignments. You suggest the idea and let your employees develop the “who” and “how” part; you’ll be surprised at their expertise in making it happen smoothly.

? Increase feedback. In addition to annual reviews, find ways to perform peer review and client review opportunities. Employees want to know about their performance, and continual two way feedback allows them to be their own quality-control agents.

? Increase participation opportunities. Employees are empowered and motivated when they take part in decisions that have an impact on their work or ways to organize work and schedules. Involvement enables employees to see the big picture and allows them to make meaningful contribution.

? Develop creativity. Undiscovered or non-utilized creativity lost in the drain. If employees lose the ability to contribute their best ideas, they simply feel unmotivated and disengaged. You can help by recognizing and rewarding creative ideas, by giving employees the autonomy and resources to create, and by challenging employees with new assignments and learning.

? Mentor someone. Mentoring another person is motivational for many. If an employee has a particular niche or specialty and enjoys sharing this knowledge/expertise, you have a perfect win-win situation.

Employees quit their job when rigid workplace rules/conditions cause family stress. Some would leave your organization over work and family conflicts. This suggest the real importance of developing a “family-friendly culture.” But what does it really mean?

Employees prefer workplace that helps them balance the demands of their work and family lives, rather than forcing them to choose one over the other. In fact, Work-life balance becomes the key criteria for deciding whether to join or stay with an employer. Work-life balance is rated the single most important consideration among employees aged 21 to 30.

Family-friendly employers can offer features like these to attract talented employees:
? Job sharing
? Childcare facilities or subsidies
? Job Flexibility - work schedules
? Eldercare assistance (such as referral programs)
? Extended and creative maternity or paternity leave programs
? Work From Home

Job enrichment means institute change in what your employees do (content) or how they do it (process). Job Enrichment structures ways for employees to find the growth, challenge, opportunities and renewal they seek without leaving their current jobs or employers.
An enriched job:
? Gives employees room to initiate, develop, and implement new ideas
? Promotes establishing and achieving personal and group goals
? Allows employees to see their contributions result into an end product or goal
? Challenges employees to broaden their knowledge and capabilities
? Has a planned future beyond itself

The idea is to help your employees evaluate their jobs and discover ways and ideas for enrichment. These ideas will be different among employees. Be prepared for requests and discussions along these points:
? Greater job autonomy: opportunities for self-direction, responsibility for independence, and discretion in determining work procedures
? Increased two way feedback from clients, coworkers, and managers
? Participation in decision making process about work processes before they are written and enforced
? Opportunities for teamwork with people from other departments within organization
? Increased variety in tasks performed
? More opportunities to make impact to the organization or colleagues’ work
? Relationship with clients to learn about their problems and perspectives
? New challenges, learning and development beyond current levels

If enrichment is useful and beneficial for organization, why doesn’t it become standard part of every job? One good reason is this: What enriches one employee is different from another one. So, How do you tailor job enrichment to individuals and their unique needs? You need to ask them.

Try these six questions to help people probe for possibilities of enrichment:
    Do you know how important is your job to the company?
    What skills, expertise and talents do you use on the job?
    What skills, expertise and talents do you have that you don’t use?
    Do you find your job challenging and how to make it more challenging and rewarding?
    In what areas would you like greater responsibility for your current works?
    What are your goals in the next three to five years?
    How would you like your job changed? What areas of improvement do you want to achieve?

Here are reasons Why Most Employees Stay in the Organization:
1. Greater Job security and stability during economic crisis
2. Great company environment and culture
3. Diverse, changing job assignments
4. Flexibility: working hours, dressing code, and so on
5. Inspiring and motivating leadership
6. Full of  challenging work
7. Being recognized, valued, respected and rewarded
8. Clear Path for Career growth
9. Learning & Development
10. Opportunity to Work with Great people
11. Opportunity to making a difference
12. Pay according to merit
13. Good Benefits
14. Supportive and Inspiring management
15. Sense of Loyalty, good commitment to the organization
16. Job Excitement
17. Good Team Spirit
18. Have Pride in the organization, its vision and mission
19. Sense of Responsibility
20. Job Autonomy and sense of control

Here are Tips on How to conduct Interview more effectively:

 Use structured interview guidelines
 Ask open-ended questions
 Discuss future dreams and expectations
 Ask about prior roles and responsibilities
 Challenge their decision-making technique
 Probe for analytical ability
 Measure candidate’s tolerance level
 Focus on achievements and failures
 Don’t get personal and don’t get even
 Identify behavioral moods and attitudes
 Discuss their dream job and their reason
 Ask about relationship and team building
 Discuss past performance appraisals and accomplishments
 Place candidate in a role-playing situation
 Give a character testing questionnaire
 Discuss all critical information areas
 Discuss real workplace issues and solutions
 Ask fact-finding questions
 Use silence to gain more insight
 Beware for the ‘I’ person
 Start with 10-minute phone interview
 Give out your company literature
 Conquer skepticism; don’t prejudge
 Take candidate on a workplace tour after interview
 Assign homework prior to next interview
 Use panel or cluster interviews for final interview