Provide a positive working environment
Recognize, reinforce, and reward everyone's efforts
Involve everyone
Develop skills and potential
Evaluate and measure continuously

Provide a Positive Working Environment

Happy employees make productive employees.  One of the most important factors is the work environment itself. . .how employees “feel” about the company.

Sears conducted an 800-store survey that showed the impact of employee attitudes on the bottom line. If employee attitudes improved by 5%, customer satisfaction will jump 1.3%, consequently increasing revenue by one-half a percentage point. Seeking ways to motivate and build worker morale pays dividends to any business or organization.  The motivated worker is more committed to the job and to the customer. On the other hand, demotivating jobs force workers to vote with their feet. 

Providing a positive work environment pays off financially. Most employers do not know how much turnover is costing them. A company experiencing high turnover faces a financial crisis. It costs anywhere from $4000-$15,000 to recruit, hire and train a new employee, depending on their skill level.  One Atlanta company lost 420 of the 431 employees they hired this year. If, for example, it cost them $4000 per employee, that equates to a $1.7 million loss.  Taking care of your employees saves money. 

Many businesses are providing more family-friendly benefits.  The Families and Work Institute released the "Business Work Life" study  (http://www.familiesandwork.org)  that  provides a benchmark for corporate work life policies and practice. The study focused on companies that employee 100 or more workers.

Ninety percent of the 1,000 companies surveyed allow workers to take time off to attend school events. Half let workers stay home with mildly ill children without using vacation or sick days. Two thirds permit flex time defined as allowing employees to adjust work hours on a daily basis. Nine percent offer child care at or near the workplace. Thirtythree percent offer maternity leaves more than 13 weeks. Twentythree percent offer elder care resources and referral services and half provide dependent care assistance plans. Fortyfour percent hold supervisors accountable for sensitivity to their employees work/family needs.

Mark Twain once said, "I can live for two months on a good compliment." 

Money may attract people to the front door, but something else has to keep them from going out the back.  Another survey showed the number one reason people quit their jobs was for a lack of recognition and praise.  Compensation fell into second place. Nothing can replace personal recognition and sincere appreciation. It is a powerful tool in keeping good workers.

The Gwinnett County Tax Commissioners’ office, located in Lawrenceville, Georgia, has one of the most innovative reward and recognition programs I’ ve seen.  The program is called “Shining Stars.” They practice peer recognition where co-workers reward each other for doing a good job. “Shining Stars” has taken off like a rocket. 

Since this is a local government, pay raises and promotions are limited. Katherine Sherrington, the Tax Commissioner, realized she needed something to bridge the gap.  She also realized that the employees themselves know who works hard and who deserves recognition. Managers can’t be everywhere all the time. Therefore, the employees are in the best position to catch people doing the right things. 

"Shining Stars" is a printed form they give to each other for doing a good job.   Workers have an unlimited supply of the “Shining Star” forms and employees hand-write a little note about what their co-workers did and hand it to or send it through distribution to the awardee. 

Throughout the walls, doors and cubicles, employees proudly display their form. For added recognition, monthly the office formally recognizes the employee who received the highest number of forms.  They get a special gift from the commissioner.  Then all the forms given out during the month are put in a basket and names are randomly drawn for additional prizes. The forms are read aloud and recognition given to both the awardee as well as the person submitting the form. Then the winner draws for his or her prize from another basket. This simple, but powerful program insures everyone gets some form of recognition.

Building a motivating reward and recognition system such as the one in Gwinnett County follows what I call the FAST-FUN formula:

Involve Everyone

Studies show that having workers involved at all levels has a major impact on improving profit and productivity.  A good example is Guardian Industries, an 800-person glass plant in Indiana. They decided to start listening to their employees to find their opinion on how to staff the plant’s 24-hr work shifts.  The employees decided that instead of working rotating day and evening shifts, they would rather work permanent 12 hour shifts. The result--turnover fell by 50%.

Wainwright Industries, located in St. Peters, Missouri created a total employee involvement program which increased trust, equality and ownership.  Wainwright faced a severe recession in the 70s and 80s.  Sales dropped and operations slowed to three days a week. The workers were frustrated and a riff was growing between the workers and management. So they started changing.  

The first step was to start calling the workers, "associates." This one small change lead to even larger changes. They eliminated time clocks and everyone was put on a salary. Today, associates are paid even if they miss work and paid timeandahalf for overtime.  A team of associates developed a profit sharing program that covers everyone at Wainwright. The team consisted of one manager and seven non-management associates. Ownership developed, propelling them down the track at a faster pace. 

What impresses me most is Wainwright’s Continuous Improvement Process. (CIP)  In 1994, associates submitted and implemented more than 8,400 improvement ideas. They presently average 300 ideas a week from 146 associates. The associates - not management - totally run this powerful process. This works because associates at Wainwright have authority to make any improvements, without permission up to $1000 in cost. If their idea or change exceeds this amount, they fill out a form to for approval. 

Each week the names of those submitting ideas are eligible for cash awards.  Four names are randomly drawn. Two people win $50 each for safety CIPs (Continuous Improvement Process), and two people win $50 each for regular CIPs.  The previous week’s winner makes the drawings. The company also has quarterly drawings for a $300 gift certificate, and it comes with a catered luncheon for everyone who submitted a CIP during that quarter. The final results--profits grew from $5 million to $30 million.

Despite these success stories, most businesses do a terrible job listening to and involving their employees. A Towers Perrin survey of  3300 employees show an increase from 25% to 30% last year who say supervisors has ignored their interests when making decisions that affect them.

Develop the Potential of Your Workforce

The German poet, Goethe, said, "Treat people as though they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of being."  Well-trained employees are more capable and willing to assume more control over their jobs. They need less supervision, which frees management for other tasks.  Employees are more capable to take care of customers which builds stronger customer loyalty.  All this leads to better management-employee relationships.

It doesn’t take a tremendous amount of money and elaborate fitness centers to provide a positive and attractive work environment.  Take for example Rodger McAlister, who owns Bobcat of Kentucky, a construction equipment dealership in Louisville, Ky.   His turnover is almost nonexistent.  This is quite an accomplishment in an industry that is over 60,000 technicians short. 

His employees and six service technicians share a profit-sharing plan that could possibly mean $700,000 upon retirement. They are eligible to participate after one year and become fully vested after six years.  Bob adds, that he hasn’t lost anyone after they become vested. To help his employees, he brings in a financial advisor to help the employees pick stocks, plan for retirement or how get advice on how to go about buying a house.

Family members receive 100% of the health insurance after the spouse is on the job for five years.  Every year employees celebrate their work anniversary with a cake and receive $100.00 for each year employed made out in a check to the Snap-On tool company.  

Bob’s wife thought of this idea. Twice a year employee’s children receive a $50 savings bond when they bring in their “all A’s” report card. They reward employee’s safety record with what they call, “Safety Bonus Program.”  Each employee’s driving record is screened twice a year.  Anyone who has a citation during the year is removed from the program.  At the end of the year the ones who remain get to split $2000.00.

To minimize the we-they syndrome, every Friday employees rotate jobs for one hour.  The person in the Parts Department gets to be a service technician and visa versa.   This builds a stronger team and improves communication within the company.

Continuous evaluation and never ending improvement is the final step of the PRIDE model.  Another way to keep and motivate your workers is to hire the right person in the first place. Hiring the wrong person spells havoc for everyone. Hiring the right person saves everyone a lot of headaches. Important point-You must go beyond the basic interview and try to find out more about the candidate before you know if they is going to be a good match between them and the company. Person to person job interviews fails to give you enough information to make a good selection.  Anybody can put on a “show” during an interview.  

Change or Be Changed

Winston Churchill said, America always does the right thing, after they try everything else first.”  Today is clearly not the way it was yesterday. The magic of keeping and motivating good people today isn’t about magic, nor is it only about money. Today’s leaders have to be environmentalists. They have to create a work environment where people enjoy what they do, feel like they have a purpose and feel they are reaching their potential.  It requires more time, more skills and managers who care about people. . . true leadership.  You may not like it, but this is the way it is.