Remember the wind chime, the umbrella, the party, snacks and bonus check in our last post? Well during the corporate foray of employee rewards and recognition efforts, everyone in the department, regardless of their level of involvement in the project, got the wind chime and the umbrella and the party and the snacks and, yes, the bonus check. In addition to the one size fits all approach whether earned or not, although an umbrella at some point is going to come in handy, and the wind chimes do actually still hang in my backyard almost ten years later, no one
A wind chime. An umbrella. A large corporate hooray party. Office snacks on demand, at anytime, for free. A bonus check. One that at the age of 23 was a shockingly large one. All are things I’ve experienced in my career during a corporate change management project that constituted employee recognition and perks. Despite the fact that the umbrella was expensive (for an umbrella) because of its cute designer label and the bonus check as I mentioned was large for the context of my 23 year old, living paycheck to paycheck mind (so much so that my new husband and I
“$11.32 an hour,” she said. “That’s what many people can earn sitting on their couch. How am I supposed to encourage them to get off the couch when many of the jobs they qualify for don’t pay that?” This statement came from a frustrated state career center worker tasked with getting individuals off federal and state assistance through a job placement program. I could turn this conversation into a political post, but I won’t go there. Instead, I’d like to focus on how it illustrates a basic premise of motivation. I’m going to spend the next few weeks talking about
In a leadership training class on communication in the workplace, I had one participant tell the group that meetings at his company were the biggest waste of time. When probed as to why, the basic gist of it came down to two reasons: 1. No one knows why the heck a meeting has been called and/or why they need to be there 2. Nothing results from the meetings Because of this dialogue as well as other feedback we had received, we started incorporating a segment on effective meetings into our standard Communication Outline lineup. Whether you are dealing with these two
Do you know the number one reason why people quit a job? It’s not for more money or better benefits or advancement opportunities. People may cite these factors as a reason for leaving in an exit interview or casual conversation, but what most likely led them to look elsewhere in the first place is because of a bad boss. As a Harvard Business Review article stated, “Studies have consistently shown that having a bad manager or a poor relationship with one’s manager is a top reason an employee quits.” Yep, most likely your number one reason for turnover is bad