Keeping staff engaged
1. Have a good structured recruitment process to get the right person for the role. Include testing, both skills and personality, references and even interviews with different staff members. It is an expensive exercise to have to re-hire and manage people out of your business if they are not the right fit.
2. Ensure you have a written job description that is signed by the staff member and their manager. This confirms that everyone knows what is expected of them. Review job descriptions regularly.
3. Involve the staff in the bigger picture, where the business is headed, involve the staff in setting goals. Ask for regular feedback on how things are going. Feedback can be done via an anonymous survey (go to www.surveymonkey.com), you can do a small survey for free.
4. Know your team’s natural abilities, their strengths and their weaknesses. Aim to have them working in their strengths area at least 50% of the time. Think about tweaking roles to take advantage of people’s strengths.
An example
Mary is really good at financials and report writing, she is thorough and efficient and loves creating spreadsheets and doing data entry. Mary isn’t an outgoing person and not strong in client service, she tends to be a little dismissive with clients and forgets to engage with them when they come to the front counter. This means that she can come across as abrupt and sometimes rude. Currently Mary covers a very busy front counter for 2 days a week so that Beth, the receptionist can scan invoices and update spreadsheets. Beth, doesn’t enjoy the data entry and is quite slow.
By giving the scanning and the spreadsheets to Mary, not only is Beth a lot happier that she only has to deal with the clients, she is also assisting the other team members with tasks that she can do at Reception. Mary also likes the fact she doesn’t have to cover Reception and has actually managed to get Beth’s work done in one day instead of two.
Small changes can make a big difference to team happiness and efficiency.
5. Have regular meetings with your teams. Depending on the size of the team will dictate the structure of your meetings. In simple terms, each department should have a weekly meeting and the managers of those departments should meet weekly or fortnightly to ensure that communication between department’s flow. For smaller teams, the whole team meeting once a week is all you need.
Ensure you always have an agenda so that the meeting is valuable.
Be careful - over communication or unstructured meetings can be just as disengaging as under communication.
6. Offer training to every staff member. This should be both technical and soft skilling. Some training can be internal, by webinar, seminar or traditional. There are lots of options these days and some are really cost effective.
Asking the staff member the sort of training they would like or need is a good way to approach. Letting them know what their ‘training budget’ is for the year, is also a good motivator.
7. Carry out regular performance reviews, where staff can look at the previous months, where they have succeeded and where they have been challenged. They can set goals and identify training needs. A good time frame for this type of review is 6 monthly.
It is really important to remember that this review is not a disciplinary review and you should not ‘save up’ all the negative feedback for this session. A staff member should not be surprised at their review.
Always provide regular feedback on performance, particularly with a staff member who may be struggling or underperforming.
8. Be creative with rewards. There is a lot of research that says, pay increases are not always the best motivators. Flexible hours, membership’s, training, challenging projects and social activities are all other great options rather than giving pay rises.
9. Reward your staff for going beyond the job. A person is employed to do a role and the amount of remuneration is negotiated at the time of acceptance. If the expectations are clear at the start, then the staff member will not be expecting more remuneration or reward for ‘doing their job’. If they go beyond their job role and take on more responsibilities, exceed targets or offer additional value, reward them. If it is a permanent change, then a salary increase may need to be considered. If a temporary achievement, reward them a different way.
If you would like more information, contact Anna Chipperfield, PJT’s executive coach for a free consultation.
2. Ensure you have a written job description that is signed by the staff member and their manager. This confirms that everyone knows what is expected of them. Review job descriptions regularly.
3. Involve the staff in the bigger picture, where the business is headed, involve the staff in setting goals. Ask for regular feedback on how things are going. Feedback can be done via an anonymous survey (go to www.surveymonkey.com), you can do a small survey for free.
4. Know your team’s natural abilities, their strengths and their weaknesses. Aim to have them working in their strengths area at least 50% of the time. Think about tweaking roles to take advantage of people’s strengths.
An example
Mary is really good at financials and report writing, she is thorough and efficient and loves creating spreadsheets and doing data entry. Mary isn’t an outgoing person and not strong in client service, she tends to be a little dismissive with clients and forgets to engage with them when they come to the front counter. This means that she can come across as abrupt and sometimes rude. Currently Mary covers a very busy front counter for 2 days a week so that Beth, the receptionist can scan invoices and update spreadsheets. Beth, doesn’t enjoy the data entry and is quite slow.
By giving the scanning and the spreadsheets to Mary, not only is Beth a lot happier that she only has to deal with the clients, she is also assisting the other team members with tasks that she can do at Reception. Mary also likes the fact she doesn’t have to cover Reception and has actually managed to get Beth’s work done in one day instead of two.
Small changes can make a big difference to team happiness and efficiency.
5. Have regular meetings with your teams. Depending on the size of the team will dictate the structure of your meetings. In simple terms, each department should have a weekly meeting and the managers of those departments should meet weekly or fortnightly to ensure that communication between department’s flow. For smaller teams, the whole team meeting once a week is all you need.
Ensure you always have an agenda so that the meeting is valuable.
Be careful - over communication or unstructured meetings can be just as disengaging as under communication.
6. Offer training to every staff member. This should be both technical and soft skilling. Some training can be internal, by webinar, seminar or traditional. There are lots of options these days and some are really cost effective.
Asking the staff member the sort of training they would like or need is a good way to approach. Letting them know what their ‘training budget’ is for the year, is also a good motivator.
7. Carry out regular performance reviews, where staff can look at the previous months, where they have succeeded and where they have been challenged. They can set goals and identify training needs. A good time frame for this type of review is 6 monthly.
It is really important to remember that this review is not a disciplinary review and you should not ‘save up’ all the negative feedback for this session. A staff member should not be surprised at their review.
Always provide regular feedback on performance, particularly with a staff member who may be struggling or underperforming.
8. Be creative with rewards. There is a lot of research that says, pay increases are not always the best motivators. Flexible hours, membership’s, training, challenging projects and social activities are all other great options rather than giving pay rises.
9. Reward your staff for going beyond the job. A person is employed to do a role and the amount of remuneration is negotiated at the time of acceptance. If the expectations are clear at the start, then the staff member will not be expecting more remuneration or reward for ‘doing their job’. If they go beyond their job role and take on more responsibilities, exceed targets or offer additional value, reward them. If it is a permanent change, then a salary increase may need to be considered. If a temporary achievement, reward them a different way.
If you would like more information, contact Anna Chipperfield, PJT’s executive coach for a free consultation.
