Ask Derek * Inspiring Employees to Do More With Less

I received an important question via the “Ask Derek” section of the Globoblog today. “Ncedisa” asks:
“In a global recession, companies are facing layoffs, frozen salaries and other benefits cuts. How do you motivate and inspire your employees to do more with less?”
Strategic employee recognition programs are a powerful tool to accomplish exactly this by boosting morale and productivity while cutting costs and helping companies gain competitive advantage.

** By communicating to allay rumors and reiterate strategic objectives, showing employees how much you value their efforts and contributions, and measuring areas of improvement and where improvement may still be needed, you boost morale and productivity.

** By eliminating cash-based recognition programs, consolidating usually dozens of ad-hoc recognition initiatives, and drastically reducing or eliminating shipping and handling fees, you cut program costs by 50-70% or more.

** By ensuring you have the right people in the right jobs with the right attitudes, keeping them away from your competitors and building networks of success, you gain competitive advantage.

I’ve blogged on this topic regularly, and the posts can be found in the Recognition in an Ailing Economy section of the blog. But to highlight a few key posts:

Motivating Employees When Merit Increases Are Cut offers tips on what to with budgets under pressure and efforts to do anything to cut costs before turning to layoffs. This post also shares how strategic recognition accomplishes other critical goals such as making the rate of reward equivalent to the rate of effort, offering a “360° review” performance mechanism, and more.

Motivating and Recognizing More Employees with Less Budget Spend outlines how to audit the programs you have in place today to find efficiencies through consolidation. We’ve done this multiple times for clients, saving them 50-70% of their pre-existing investment in recognition while also helping them recognize far more employees for no extra budget spend.

Readers Speak * Trends in Employee Engagement, Recognition and Attitudes reports on the trends seen in nearly a year of informal polls on the Globoblog. For example, while managers think they are recognizing their staff, employees disagree. Communication and recognition is particularly lacking.

WEBINAR * Employees Tell How to Boost Productivity & Morale shares the results of market research we conducted in which employees told us their perceptions of layoffs, salary freezes and motivating those left behind. You can request the recorded webinar here.

Leadership Needed * Project Security and Hope to Motivate shares Gallup’s suggestions for keeping managers and workers focused engaged by offering a sense of security today and hope for the future.

Get Every Employee Working on Your Strategic Objectives shares my thoughts on to refocus, inspire and encourage employees in a way that helps achieve your strategic goals.

True leaders are conscientiously considering the question the world over. There are far more posts throughout the Globoblog on this topic. If motivating, inspiring and encouraging your employees to greater engagement and performance of your strategic objectives is important to you, I invite you to subscribe to the blog on the left or follow me on Twitter.

0 comment(s):