Is Your Culture in Neutral?

When you visit any small business during your normal life routine it is always easy to determine if that business has a negative work environment.  If it is, you probably won’t be going back.  No one really wants to trade with a business where the climate is harsh.  How is it that the small business owner completely understands the effects of a positive work environment?

Everyone has reason once in a while to become negative at work. That’s just normal.  But when that negativity becomes a habit, everyone suffers and it will dramatically affect productivity.

Research has given us the following conditions that can lead to negativity in an organization:  

• Any major change not implemented well
• A history of rewarding poor performance and ignoring excellence
• The absence of a learning environment
• A challenge to stability
• One-size-fits-all approaches to individual motivation

 If your company is going through any of these issues, you need to keep a watchful eye out for negativity, it can cost upwards of $300 billion dollars a year in lost productivity.  It is up to executive leadership to recognize a bad condition and develop remedies to cure it. When negativity emanates from the executive suite, it is up to everyone to let them know as well. We know that’s not always easy, but without it, the downward tailspin the company can get into will be fatal for all. 

If you don’t know whether you are at the beginning of your tailspin, just walk around the workplace. Extreme negativity is palpable, positive energy is obvious.  Neutrality is just that…folks are in the middle, going through the day to day, not really negative but surely not positive either.  If you are in neutral, that’s a great time to start making changes to turn the organization into a positive place where people really want to be, not just have to be. Happiness doesn’t just feel good; it’s great for your bottom line.

To begin the process of becoming a positive workplace with highly engaged and responsive employees, here are some strategies.  They can help transform the company from the inside out:

Foster positive communication.  Language is important; make sure you replace any negative or critical language with a more favorable tone.  Just take a look at communication from management over the last month.  Single out the negative statements from the positive ones, and then put it into a ratio.  You might be surprised how easy it is to change.  Then make it a habit to do it.

Assist in building positive relationships.  Don’t focus on the mistakes, emphasize strengths over weaknesses and recognize positive performance whenever possible.

Associate all work being done with positive meaning.  Highlight the value and significance associated with the company’s performance and connect the outcomes with the core values of the employees.  

Encourage a positive climate. Make sure the positive emotions predominate over negative ones  Exhibit positive emotions and express gratitude regularly will inspire your employees to flourish. 

IN THE ABSENCE OF A POSITIVE FOCUS,

 A NEGATIVE CLIMATE WILL BE THE NORM

                                                    ….Dr. Stefani Yorges

We’ve all had days when 99% goes right, but we concentrate on only the 1% that went wrong.  Counter that tendency toward the negative with an overload of the positive!

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

What Great Bosses Know About Employee Recognition

It’s not unusual for people to be raised with the philosophy to simply do your job and that will be reward enough; or people don’t deserve thanks for doing what they are supposed to do, only if they are extraordinary. Many were told that if you show up on time, work hard you’ll succeed in the workplace and move up the ranks…that a paycheck meant “I love you.”  But that’s just not the case.  In one engagement survey after another we see that the paycheck is not the driving force behind people staying on the job.

When managers have this philosophy it can certainly affect the way they deliver performance feedback…and why people can find them more negative than positive.  But the really top managers don’t do that, here’s what great bosses know about recognition that others don’t:

• Whether a manager is a self-made success or someone who doesn’t need nor expect thanks, they realize it’s not about them, it’s about what works best for others.
• They realize that today’s employee wants more appreciation and when they get it they may deliver more to others.  That can change your workplace to an entirely warmer culture. 
• Good managers know that you don't have to thank them all and thanking people doesn’t mean you’re declaring them to be perfect. 
• Great managers have discovered that after starting a habit of recognizing that it is not that daunting and that it builds a habit of something they look forward to 
• They know that just because some disgruntled employee blows off your thanks, they don't take it out on others by withholding appreciation.
• They know that thanking employees doesn't necessarily rise to the level of praising them and that by choosing their words carefully they can make certain that effort doesn’t escalate into the land of undeserved praise.
• They know that when you take note of small efforts and successes you help to improve the performance of less-than-perfect employees.
• Great managers choose their words of praise carefully so their highest performers have no doubt that they are valued. 

Everyone needs to feel valued (yes even the boss).  Recognition is so powerful because it answers that fundamental human need. Managers are in a unique position to offer -- or withhold -- such recognition, and with it the feeling of being valued.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Building and Managing an Employee Recognition Budget

Usually before anything else can be done to design and implement an employee incentive or recognition program, you must have a budget.  Without one you’re stuck at the starting gate ready for the race, but the gate never opens.

Over the years we have assisted many companies in building budgets.  Without spending quality time to do it, you will have to deal with obstacle after obstacle in developing the program and constantly be looking for permission to add all the pertinent strategies to make the program as effective as it can be.

Oftentimes, many parts of your needed budgets will already be embedded in the financial workings of the organization but in separate departments or disciplines.  When this is the case, you may find that you are competing with managers of those departments who want to maintain control of those budget dollars.  That can be a common occurrence.

There are common formulas and metrics for building a program budget that all have merit, such as: 

• Percentage of compensation
• Percentage of achievement levels
• Fixed budget design
• Open-ended design

 While these standard guidelines can help create a structure to track a program once approved, they won’t help you get the approval. In the end result you will also need to be able to analyze results and determine how the budget was spent.

Over the years we have seen many guidelines of how to determine budgets.  One of the best we have seen that also includes information on now to sell the budget to executives comes from Citizen Watch Company.  You can download a copy of that guideline here.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Employee Engagement Research…Why Not Just Engage Them?

Surveying employees about their thoughts on a variety of issues is a time worn tradition within the HR world.  Today they are used mostly to establish a benchmark measurement for employee engagement levels. The research output is then used to respond with an enterprise level remedial plan to improve on those outputs.

If you are at the stage where you believe you have an employee engagement issue, you probably do.  And if you do use some type of employee research to determine your engagement level, what does that really tell you?  What should your employee engagement score be?  Is 100% employee engagement possible…of course not.  It is a constantly moving target. 

The concepts of "employee engagement" have been with us for many years. More than 30 years ago Gallup and other companies pioneered the concept of the "engagement survey." The roots of these surveys started in the late 1800s when Fredrick Taylor, a pioneering industrial engineer, studied how people's attitude impacted their productivity in the steel industry.

Today there are hundreds of different vendors who provide you with validated benchmarking tools to assess your employee’s level of engagement.  The problem is however that most companies feel these are not keeping up, not detailed enough, not in real time.  And they don’t consider all other work related issues which are drivers of employee commitment.

Building a highly engaged workforce takes combination of many things, each impacting people in different ways.  One thing we do believe is that employee recognition and engagement are inextricably linked.  If you have the money to research an expected employee engagement problem, why not spend your budget attempting to improve it instead?  That way the money will get into the hands of the employees where it will probably do more good than just knowing what “level” they’re on.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net