What Motivates Us?

Managers in these difficult times ask what motivates staff members. Of course having and keeping a job is most important nowadays but fear is a difficult motivator.  What motivates employees is a big question in all organisations. HR is interested in engaging employees and how could we do more as an organisation? The traditional answer to motivation was if you wanted something special done pay out bonuses. It worked when people were doing heavy mechanical work if you paid something extra you got more output. However in the modern knowledge based society this is no longer true. For instance we paid bankers huge bonuses as they had to secure safe investments and create more money. We all know now that didn’t happen. Well how is this possible if bonuses are the answer to motivate people? 

Modern knowledge employees are not really motivated by money. Yes, they are interested in getting enough money to live comfortably, but once that is secure they will look for other things to motivate them.  

What will motivate employees in this modern society? There are three things staff will be motivated by in the modern knowledge based industries: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

Autonomy – People want the option to be able to be self-directive and have some influence on what they are doing at work. Management has a need to direct everything and leave too little room for self development. This is great for a controlled production environment but it leaves little room for thinking in a knowledge based industry.

Mastery – People want to get better at what they are doing and increase their knowledge and skills and are willing to improve themselves. Most people want to become experts in what they do and are willing to go the extra mile to achieve this.

Purpose – A company that has a clear purpose which makes sense to people will give an extra incentive to work. People want to make a difference in the world. If their company offers a purpose in life then this can be a great incentive to work. That’s why Skype wants to be ‘Disruptive in the cause of making the world a better place’ and that why Steve Jobs wanted to put ‘A ding in the universe’. These things are different and make you want to go the extra mile and perform and are more effective than just the single goal of making a profit. 

There is a very interesting video on YouTube which explains how motivating employees works. I suggest having a look at this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Engaged Employees

What surprised me after my seminar for Small and Medium Business owners and managers was the interest of managers in engaged employees. I highlighted the difference between engaged and non engaged employees and I could see the reaction of managers in the room to engaged employees. How can we get them, how can we create them? Let me explain first what engaged employees are.

An engaged employee is one who is fully involved in and enthusiastic about their work and thus will act in a way that furthers their organisations interest. Engaged employees are likely to have less sick days and come to work energised and focused. 84% of engaged employees believe they can positively impact the quality of the organisation’s products. However on average only 29% of the workforce are engaged with their work. 54% of the employees are not engaged with their work. Of course these figures can be influenced by companies through their manager’s behaviour and their company policies.  But remember if you create a workforce of which 50% is engaged then you are doing extremely well as a company.

This brings us back to the question managers had in the seminar how do we create engaged employees? There are several things managers can do to create engaged employees. First of all give staff members clarity of job expectation, what exactly do you expect workers to do if they want to do their jobs well. How does their job slot into other jobs in the company and if they do something incorrect how will this affect other employees in their jobs and what support do they need from colleagues to do their job correctly. Employees need to understand what makes their job crucial for the company in order to be able to deliver an optimum performance.

Good communication between employees, supervisors and managers is essential. Managers need to be able to give constructive feedback to their employees. Tell them what they are doing well, what they have to keep doing and coach them how to do things better. Communication between employees needs to be good. Staff members needs to be able to talk amongst each other and discuss what they expect from each other. It is essential that there are good relationships between employees, supervisors and managers.

Employees need to be focused on how to improve their work. To consistently have employees focused on how to improve their work; to do it better, to do it faster. Workers need to be told that this is expected from them then conditions have to be created so that employees come up with suggestions on what could be improved and how. Manager and supervisors need to listen carefully to what staff members have to say and keep them motivated to keep coming up with new suggestions. 

To earn the respect of employees a company needs to have a clear ethos and a clear set of values which it is prepared to follow through even when business get tough. The ethos and values need to be clearly communicated to staff and employees need to understand them and realise the reason for the ethos and values. That doesn’t mean that management has to be soft it means management needs to be clear and employees (including managers) who consistently defy the ethos and values will be dealt with to ensure this will not happen again.

These are ways to ensure you will get employee engagement. This is not easy and even more difficult to keep doing over a period of time but the reward of having a large part of your workforce to be engaged is something special and will help you to outperform your competition.

Seminar Human Resources for SMEs

How to Create an Effective Workforce

    

Every Owner / Manager needs good employees, whether because we want to get more done, have employees who support us and the company or just make business more straightforward and simple. This seminar will help you to achieve this. I am going to show you how to handle staff issues and to help you to become better at creating an effective workforce.

This seminar will provide you with practical tips to handle and solve the most important human resource issues which may have caused you distress.

As manager / owner you want to increase your competitive advantage through developing a workforce your competition cannot match. The seminar can help you to: -

• Analyse the effectiveness of your workforce

• Organise the HR administration which will pass a labour inspection

• Recruit better employees who could move your company forward  

• Focus your employees on the important issues in your company

• Create an engaged workforce which will transform your company

• Deal with and resolve underperforming staff members

• Reduce your workforce if required

After the seminar you will be able to organise your workforce and select new employees and learn how to focus the employees on what is important. The benefits are getting a more effective workforce in these difficult times which will enable your business to survive.    

I would like to welcome you at the seminar on Tuesday 28^th May 2013 in the Radisson Blu Hotel, Limerick at 4:00 pm.

If you want to attend this seminar please reply to us on info@campbellinternational.net 

One Hour Seminar

Human Resources for SMEs – How to Create an Effective Workforce

Tuesday 28^th May 2013 Radisson Blu Hotel, Limerick, 4:00 pm

Kenneth Buchholtz

Campbell International

Recruitment – A Major Investment

SME companies want employees with excellent skills with a great attitude to work. It is as simple as that. They want employees who can help them to grow and improve their business, who can work on their own without too much checking and correction. Who have initiative and come up with simple ideas on how to improve their work and their output. They want employees who make things easier and not more difficult. And they are right. Life is difficult enough at the moment for SME companies and any assistance employees can give to make the life of the Owner/Manager easier is much appreciated. If only employees performed their job well that would be a great help. The truth is that getting it wrong and hiring the wrong candidate can be very costly and no company can afford this in these economic austere times.

How do you get those employees with the right skills and attitude? One method is to look for them when you are recruiting for new staff members. The selection of new recruits is an important moment when you are deciding does this employee have the right skill set and the right attitude to work. Many SME managers miss that opportunity. Why? Because they haven’t really thought about what they are looking for. They haven’t identified the skills set and attitudes are which are required to be successful in their job. They are busy and just hope they will meet the right candidate at the interview. Well it takes more than that to be successful in recruiting new employees.

A HR consultant who specialises in SME companies can be very helpful in putting a recruitment process in place which solves your recruitment of new employees. At the end you have a process in place which delivers you the right candidates for the right investment while you have been trained on how to interview candidates and decide which are the best for your company. Campbell International can help you to organise your recruitment process and find those candidates which will help to develop your company.

Recruitment is a major investment in any company. The average industrial wages in Ireland is €36,000 and multiply that by 10 years. As you could expect that an employee would stay with you for at least 10 years and you are talking about a major investment of €360,000. A lot of Owners / Managers would seriously deliberate before making such an investment and look at it from all sides. Yet I know managers who would hire an employee in an afternoon without giving it much thought. Human Resources is a serious business which can develop your company into a serious player on the market. Ignoring human resources can fatally harm your company and send the company to the graveyard...

I am organising a short seminar on the following topic 

Human Resources for SMEs – How to create an effective workforce     

Tuesday 28^th May 2013 Radisson Blu Hotel, Limerick, 4:00 pm

If you are interested in attending please let me know at info@campbellinternational.net

Why HR for SME Companies

Small and medium size companies need a human resource consultant to solve their staff issues and create effective employees who help them to build successful organisations. Owner managers tell me that receiving the correct advice which solves their staff issues give them peace of mind which leaves them more time to concentrate on their core business. If you haven’t got a HR Consultant it is time to get in touch with one and see what he could do for your business.

Human Resources has become a specialised field where managers need to become an expert in the vast legislative requirements the company has to fulfil. In particular the EU Employment Directives have increased the number of Irish employment laws which have a heavy impact on any small and medium size business.

Furthermore, any company needs to be an expert on recruitment not only on how to conduct an effective interview but also where to find the future employees and get an undisruptive stream of excellent candidates. You need to look not only at their skill set but also what attitude the candidates have, identify the core competencies which are essential for your business and which each employee should be able to execute. Getting the right employees will help any company to develop and prosper and that applies today more than ever before.

If you want to become a successful company which is thriving, your employees need to be well able to perform their essential tasks. How do you make this happen? You need clear objectives for your employees and to be able to give constructive feedback to your employees. Most managers I know find it difficult to give constructive feedback and as a result they avoid giving feedback to their employees on the objectives they need to reach. This creates companies who have no sense of direction because nobody is telling the employees what exactly is required. A good HR consultant should be able to set up with you a simple yet effective performance management system which gives clear direction to your employees.

These are just a number of issues a HR Consultant could solve for you. Other issues are for instance how to create an engaged and happy workforce, because if you have an engaged workforce they know what they need to do and understand why this is important for the success of the company. A happy workforce is a more effective workforce. Having an engaged and happy workforce doesn’t have to cost money. It is about listening to your workforce and coming up with creative ideas on how to organise the work.

An experienced HR Consultant will give you good HR policies and practices, will streamline your company, save you money and create a high performance organisation which will survive and thrive in the current difficult economic times.

So why don’t you give me a call at 065 7071933 to discuss your needs and how they can be met.

I am organising a short seminar on the following topic  

Human Resources for SMEs – How to create an effective workforce     

Tuesday 28^th May 2013 Radisson Blu Hotel, Limerick, 4:00 pm

If you are interested in attending please let me know.