Build Them Up So They Can Work

Posted on Nov 26 2014 - 12:23pm by Editorial Staff

Reward and Recognition

More and more, early retirement, an aging labour force and a declining birth rate are contributing to the worker shortage in the country. So just how do you go about motivating and building up your workforce?

For starters, before an employee gets to the point of reward and recognition, they need to decide who they are and what they want for themselves. Sadly, though, too many managers don’t consider such things. And they’re important if an employee is expected to align him or herself with the company.

But ask many an employees and they’re bound to tell you that such an alignment is difficult when their personal goals and the company’s goals simply won’t match. And if this mismatch goes on too long, managers tend to think that their employees are right for the company – the employee usually ends up thinking the same thing.

But here’s a thought: what if this mismatch wasn’t such a negative thing? What if by being pulled in a different direction, employees started becoming hungry for new challenges and roles?

Here are some steps you can take to help your employees be more productive, motivated and happier:

  1. Look into it. What types of tasks, projects, situations and goals do you or your staff really like working on? Where do they excel when things start to get complicated? Look carefully at such aspects.
  2. Take stock of your technical skills. Look at where you have proven expertise that has already gained reward and recognition. And then think about the skills you, or they, are good at but don’t really like using.
  3. It’s then time to make a clear decision about whether the employee should be a contributor or even a manager. Good managers want to be in the position and won’t resent the types of responsibilities that go with the job description.
  4. Next, explore the cross-functional roles and projects that will allow the employee to do most of what they enjoy and truly excel at.
  5. Finally, begin looking for way to create these roles for your staff so that they can start reaping reward and recognition.

Skills Development

This is also an important part of boosting your employees. If you can afford the time and money to put into developing skills, you will enjoy these types of benefits:

  • Less errors and defects
  • Better margins
  • Less grievances
  • Fewer accidents
  • Increased productivity
  • Increased customer satisfaction
  • Improved morale
  • The ability to build the business

Training may sound expensive, but turnover can be devastating. Recruiting, hiring and training one new employee can cost you between 70 and 200 per cent of that person’s annual salary! With this in mind, take a look at the following eight great ways to develop your employees.

Supporting Your Employee’s Skills Development

If your staff understands and supports the skills development strategy, it’s more likely to be a success. You can set the stage for a positive response by:

  • Ensure learning is goal oriented
  • Use different learning styles
  • Let your staff know why the program is being developed
  • Actively involve participants
  • Ask your staff what skills and knowledge they required to be successful at their jobs and how they would like to receive the training
  • Connect learning to relevant knowledge and life experiences

With effective strategies in place, you and your employees will be better able to meet a wide range of business challenges from staff retention to labour shortages. Efforts like skills development will help you increase staff performance and ensure staff will receive their well deserved reward and recognition.

Photo Credit: SuperJet International/Flickr

About the Author

Editorial Staff at I2Mag is a team of subject experts.