Make Their Day Blog

Is the economy affecting employees’ sense of being valued? Are the lack of raises, reduction in benefits, and increased workload having their toll? People who don’t feel valued aren’t usually engaged or motivated, so knowing the effect of economic changes on sense of value is important information for companies struggling to stay productive.

Over the course of  six weeks Make Their Day conducted a survey that asked:

“Do you feel more or less valued than a year ago?”

Of the 247 people who responded, the largest percentage (42%) said they feel less valued than they did one year ago. In contrast 31 percent reported no change and 28 percent said they feel more valued. Given the circumstances in most organizations: cutbacks, downsizing, extreme budgeting, it doesn’t seem surprising that people might feel less valued than they did a year ago. What you might find surprising is why they feel less valued.

The most sited cause of significant change in the way they feel was not pay, benefits, or work overload. It was the behavior of the manager or supervisor (49%)!

It always seems to come down to the relationship of the individual to the manager. People can tolerate just about anything but a manager who doesn’t seem to care. Here are a few comments from respondents who stated that they feel significantly less valued now than a year ago:

My manager is less positive.

There is less communication.

Managers are too busy trying to be heroes to their managers.

My manager is angry and disengaged.

These comments seem to indicate that there are more than a few managers who also feel less valued. Organizations often forget the importance of manager engagement in maintaining employee engagement. The following comment is from a respondent who says he/she feels significantly more valued, shows the value of engaged managers:

We have had no cost of living increase for two years in a row, the bonus plan has been stopped, and staff meetings no longer have lunch provided. My “living” costs continue to go up even though my bring-home income has decreased. This, obviously, does not feel good.

A few months ago we (”the staff”) put together three pages of grievances for and about “the management” along with suggestions for improvement. The management responded immediately and positively! We’ve been working with an outside consultant to ensure that everyone treats each other with dignity and respect. What a turn-around! It was risky, because there’s good talent out there that could potentially replace us. The way management handled this has made all of us feel more valued, as you can imagine.

This respondent doesn’t say what the grievances were, but clearly feeling respected was at the core of their concerns. Their managers’ engagement and interest in making improvements in spite of the economy really turned around a difficult situation. I hope employees recognized their managers for  coming through for them!

To see the results of this survey click here.

In the last post I looked at two books on the subject of influence. One is focused heavily on how we are manipulated into doing what someone else wants. Not the most positive subject, but Influence still manages to offer a lesson on positive motivation. The other book, Sway, looks at what causes us to behave irrationally. It too offers good lessons for managers. If you missed the last post, check it out here.

The third book I want to discuss is Influencer by the authors of Crucial Conversations, Influencer comes at the subject of motivation from a much more positive perspective, that of creating positive change by changing behaviors.

To achieve the results we want, the authors suggest we start by identifying the very specific behaviors that we want changed. Once we know what behaviors we want to change we can provide motivation.

Influencer provides examples where the behavior of entire communities was changed in order to improve health (eradication of Guinea Worm), keep convicts from returning to jail (Delancy Street), and reduce avoidable deaths in hospitals. The authors look at firmly entrenched behaviors and what motivators will get us to change those behaviors.

This book, like the previous two, holds some lessons for those of us that want to be a positive source of workplace motivation. (for the first three extrinsic motivators see the previous post).

Extrinsic motivator #4:  Peer Pressure. We all remember peer pressure from our school days, but we tend to forget that it is an influence in the workplace as well. It is the reason why you don’t have to turn everyone to your way of thinking. To achieve change you need to influence those whose opinions are most respected, the opinion leaders. Part two of peer pressure is to design a workplace with social support for the right behavior. This might be the pizza party for everyone when 51 percent of the department achieves a goal, with the promise of a bigger event when 75 percent achieve. The stakes aren’t high but there should be a little friendly pressure (and support) from those already achieving on those who have yet to get there.

Extrinsic motivator #5:  Change the Environment The old Western Electric experiments proved that if you change the environment people are more productive (Hawthorne Effect). Change things back the way they were and people are once again more productive. They showed that it was the attention itself that was motivating, not the environmental changes. When the attention was gone, the change itself made no difference.

When the authors of Influencer talk about changing the environment, they aren’t referring to the short term bump in productivity of the Hawthorne Effect. They want us to look at our environment to see how it influences behaviors we want to change, and ask ourselves if modifications to tools, aesthetics, or any other physical factor, would induce behavioral change without additional effort. For a manager, it might be a staff member’s uncomfortable chair that keeps them looking for excuses to get up and wander. Or maybe the first come first serve vacation sign-up chart  is causing animosity among coworkers and reducing cooperation.

Extrinsic motivator #6:  Design Rewards Obviously I think this one is right on target. Rewards help people to move in the desired direction by providing something to work towards. Rewards don’t have to be money or even anything costly. Recognition is as effective a reward as you have at your disposal. If you still have doubts, see this story of one manager’s experience.

Extrinsic motivator #7:  Demand Accountability The mirror of rewards is accountability. Rewarding good behavior just doesn’t have the same impact if you ignore bad behavior. Years ago I taught a Coping with Burnout course. We discussed what had led participants to feel burned out. I quickly realized that most of the participants had once been top performers. What really “burned them up” was  seeing how little others could get away with accomplishing, without recourse. Lack of accountability undermined their sense of value.

External motivators - I have covered three books that demonstrate that we can affect the behavior of those who work with us. I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic of influence and motivating others.

Copyright Cindy Ventrice

The past few weeks I’ve read three books: Influence The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Caldini, Influencer The Power to Change Anything by the authors of Crucial Conversations, and Sway The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Braeman.

Why these three books? First, I wanted to learn more about what outside influences affect our behavior. What exactly are the extrinsic motivators that cause people to do what they do? Second, I wanted to see how we can apply this information to what managers can do to create a more motivating work environment.

Sway and Influence both come at the topic from the perspective of unwanted external motivators. Influencer looks at intentional use of external  motivators to affect positive change. Today I will explore Sway and Influence. Next post, Influencer.

Sway looks at what motivates us to behave in an irrational manner, doing things that, when we stand back and observe, just don’t seem to make sense. The authors build a strong case for a and is very interesting in helping us to avoid the triggers that produce irrational behavior. You could tie each motivator they discuss back  to the workplace. It would be worthwhile to explore the impact of each. For the purpose of this article, I want to focus on two triggers that really resonated.

Extrinsic motivator #1:  Labels. One of the most powerful concepts for managers to understand is how labels affect our perception.

Do we see an individuals current performance or do we see what we expect to see?

One example the authors provide is from sports. It seems draft pick number, the order in which players are selected to join a professional team, affects players playing time even years later. The primary factor in determining how much playing time an individual receives was not how well they play now, but how valuable they were rated before joining the league.

Think about how this plays out in the workplace. Once  a manager labels an employee a poor performer that manager is much less likely to see good performance. He looks for the behavior and results that confirm his perception and ignores conflicting evidence. Couple this phenomena together with employees who tend to live up or down to expectations and you have a recipe that makes improvement pretty tough.

Extrinsic motivator #2:  Compensation. Remember, this book is about irrational behavior, so the focus is on when compensation reduces performance. Weird huh?

The authors point out that when people are already motivated intrinsically, maybe they are doing something for the good of the community, compensation can actually decrease motivation. The authors provide examples from a number of experiments that show incentives can motivate someone not to act or to perform poorly. It seems that extrinsic motivators can squelch intrinsic motivators. To put it another way our mercenary tendencies can override the altruistic ones.

I don’t bring this up because I think we need to stop paying people, but because we need to look at what motivators are in play in any given situation and take care not to override the intrinsic with the extrinsic. This idea of conflicting motivators has very interesting implications for incentive programs and might explain why some incentive programs backfire.

The second book, Influence covers some of the same ground as Sway, dives deeper into the research, and takes a significantly more negative approach to the topic. In reading this book it sometimes  was hard to get past the feeling that the book should have been called Manipulation. I had to keep reminding myself that influence is, in and of itself, neutral and can be used for either good or evil.

Here is the extrinsic motivator from Influence that I found particularly relevant to my work in  employee recognition.

Extrinsic motivator #3:  Gifts. The desire to reciprocate is a strong intrinsic motivator triggered by the act of giving a gift (an extrinsic motivator). Caldini points out that reciprocation is used  to compel us to buy or donate. Companies give free samples and, at some level, we feel an obligation to make a purchase. Charities give an unwanted gift and the statistics show we feel obligated to donate.

The need to reciprocate when we are given a gift is  a powerful motivator. The need to reciprocate may partially explain why recognition improves performance. Recognition, whether in the form of praise or award, is a gift. When we receive the gift we want to give something back. I know there is far more to why recognition improves performance than simply wanting to give back, but it is part of why praise motivates us to work even harder.

Labels, compensation, and reciprocation, three motivators that the authors explore for the negative repercussions. Managers need to understand how these triggers work to avoid unintended consequences and reinforce good performance.

Next post, we’ll look at Influencer and explore a different perspective on extrinsic motivators.

An article in the Wall Street Journal online offers three ways to motivate recession-weary staff: ask for input, offer cross-training, and assist with family matters. These are all good ways to communicate staff value, but when you are talking about motivating the weary, there is an important ingredient missing, and that is FUN.

People need to laugh, or at least smile, at work. It reduces stress and increases cooperation. It is good for business.

How can you lighten up?

1) Give out a silly award. Get something cheap: an eight-ball, a wrench, a jar of peanut butter. Endow it with meaning: looking ahead, mistake of the week, smooth handling of a sticky situation. Keep it light-hearted. If you go with something like the mistake of the week, give yourself the first award.

2) Have a crazy contest: office miniature golf tournament, who can build the biggest house of cards in 5 minutes, or the ugliest pet contest.

3) Have a competition that relates to work and make the prizes fun: customer service contest between departments or branches with toy giraffes for the winners (sticking your neck out for great service), or a competition with previous results (production rate, error rate, safety record, increase in sales) and celebrate any win with a pizza party.

4) Add a touch of fun to your meetings: put a bit of humor in your PowerPoint, take a moment to play “something no one here knows about me is,” put toys on the table for people to fiddle with throughout the meeting.

When your routine is beginning to wear on your team, break with routine. Do something out of the ordinary. If your are afraid that people won’t like it, remember, even groans build energy.  Put some squishy stress balls on the table. Tell people that if they don’t like your humor, they can throw the ball at you. You will be surprised by the number of smiles you can generate in just a few minutes.

Now it is your turn. Tell us how you lighten up at work!

Copyright 2010 Cindy Ventrice

We are wrapping up a really tough year. We have experienced layoffs and budget cuts and are all struggling to do more with less.

Many people were laid off this year. Some are back to work, at least with temporary assignments. Others are still struggling to find work. It can be really demoralizing. If you know someone who has lost their job this first resolution is for you:

1) Stay connected. For those who have been out of work for awhile, it is easy to fall into a funk and withdraw. Help them out. Send an occasional email, take them to lunch, make a LinkedIn introduction, anything that let’s them know you are thinking about them.

For those who are employed, employment generally means a greater workload, less resources, less compensation and/or benefits. In some workplaces the atmosphere has become oppressive while in others, people have come together with a strong ‘can do’ spirit.  The atmosphere all depends on the attitudes and actions of absolutely every person who works there.

We all want to work in a great place. If you don’t, be the catalyst for positive change. Here are two simple workplace resolutions that will help turn your organization around:

1) Say thank you. These two simple words tell your colleagues that you appreciate them. You will soon see how appreciative they are as well.

2) Acknowledge your coworkers. Few of us work in a vacuum. Acknowledge the support and encouragement that others provide. Praise their contributions. Share the credit.

Two workplace resolutions (that work equally as well at home): praise and appreciation. Neither takes much time. You can keep it as simple as you like. Offer both and you will see smiles. People will be more cooperative and positive. Your workplace will be more enjoyable (and probably more productive as well!)

These are resolutions you can keep and you will make someone’s day over and over again. What would you add to the list?

Copyright 2009 Cindy Ventrice

Focusing on your employees’ strengths engages them, while focusing on their weaknesses disengages them. Are you surprised? Probably not, but now it is confirmed by Gallup, which says managers who focus on:

• Strengths - have 61 percent engagement among employees and 1 percent disengagement.

• Weaknesses - have 45 percent engagement and 22 percent  disengagement.

Even more amazing, managers who ignore their employees have only 2 percent engagement and 40 percent disengagement!  I know managers are busy, but imagine how much more time they would have if an additional 39 percent of employees were engaged.

For more on focusing on strengths see this post and for more on criticism this post.

My question to you is, if focusing on the positive produces the best results, why don’t more managers do this?

This old Reebok commercial offers one way of engaging your team…

Video: Motivate Your Team

It’s entertaining, but for better ways to motivate, check out these previous posts:

Seven Resolutions

Webinar on the Principles of Great Recognition

And you might want to check out this post:

What Exactly Is Engagement?

Watson Wyatt recently released a study regarding internal communication that held a big surprise for me. One of the areas of study was Goals of Communication Regarding the Economic Downturn. Easing stress, improving engagement, and managing change were the most frequent considerations. Retention, trust, and productivity rated lower as company communication goals, but by far the lowest rated goal was communicating the effect of the economy on benefits!

The study found that only 10 percent of employers worldwide were attempting to educate workers about the effect of the downturn on benefits. This figure breaks down as 9 percent U.S., 8 percent Europe, 4 percent Canada,  0 percent Australia, and 23 percent Middle East!

I am completed baffled. How do employers expect to reduce stress, while improving retention and trust if employees don’t understand the rationale behind changes to their benefits? What is the thinking behind this lack of communication?

Connect the dots and you can manage expectations and maintain trust and morale. Reduce benefits without a complete explanation and you destroy trust and morale. Seems pretty obvious, so why isn’t the necessary communication happening?

Do you have insights on this? I would like to hear from you.

Yesterday, CareerBuilder.com posted the results of a recent survey.

They reported that those who were laid off in the past twelve months showed a strong preference for working for a small business. After job growth potential, the reasons given  included:

• A family-like work environment (56%),

• More employee recognition (49%),

• A sense that you can make a difference (48%), and

• An absence of corporate red tape (46%).

What I find interesting  isn’t that employee recognition appears on the list, but how all the listed reasons relate to the kind of employee recognition that I write about in Make Their Day! The key message of the book being that everything that contributes to an employee’s sense of visibility and value adds to their feeling of being recognized.

Let’s look at each of their reasons for preferring a small company in a bit more detail:

A family-like work environment. No one expects to feel invisible in a family or a small company. The expectation is that in a small company everybody knows and supports each other. People believe they will be more than a cog in a big machine. The assumption is that in a small company people are valued for who they are as much as what they do.

More employee recognition. When potential employees expect more recognition from a small company they certainly aren’t expecting more big incentives and awards. They anticipate being “seen” for what they accomplish in a much more meaningful way. I honestly don’t know why this is the case. I haven’t found that supervisors in small companies are any more accomplished at providing recognition. I have to think it goes back to the inherent forms of recognition found in the other three reasons for the small company preference.

A sense that you can make a difference. Throw a pebble in a pond and you see the ripples. Throw it in the ocean and, well… nothing much seems to happen. It is the same with big company versus small. Unless a manager takes on the responsibility for connecting the dots from an employee’s actions to corporate goals, employees in a big company tend to feel inconsequential and not very valuable.

An absence of corporate red tape. Bureaucracy sends a powerful message. That message is  “we have to regulate everything because we don’t trust you.” Being trusted and respected is a key component of feeling valued and recognized.

This careerbuilder.com survey tells us a great deal about the work environment that people find most motivating and luckily for the large company, it can be replicated by great managers and organizations of all sizes.

Cindy Ventrice

Fellow Berrett-Koehler author Noah Blumenthal has written a parable that fits very nicely with the employee recognition theme of this blog.  Rather than reveal what the story teaches I want to recommend that you purchase the book today. Noah plans to give 25 percent of the week’s royalties to Miami Children’s Hospital.

You can be a hero and read a story that just might change the way you look at the world!