[totters_traders]

besides offering them pay increases and promotions what do some of you guys do or have had maybe where you have worked to keep staff moral high and enjoying there work envirnment

[GlobalSynergy]

Good leadership is the backbone to good, productive and positive work environments. Good leaders will consistently motivate, while bad leaders will consistently push good employees out the door.

Creating a Vision

A great leader is always planning for the future and looking at the big picture. They share their visions with their teams and they motivate them to see those same visions so everyone works together to achieve it as a team.

Creating and/or bringing forth the company mission statement is a fantastic tool for businesses to use. The mission statement outlines where the company wants to and plans to head. It is the goal and the reason employees are employed at that company – to help lead the company into the mission statement.

Understanding Employee Needs

Every employee has different needs, and it is not possible to please everyone; however a great leader will understand each employee’s individual needs and strive to acknowledge and appreciate those needs. A good leader will be effective in identifying their employee’s motives and bring them together in unified teams.

Being a great leader is not about being popular, and it is not about being disrespectful. It is about understanding and recognizing of employee talent and having the ability to utilize those specific talents together in a team.

Clear Communication

Proper communication skills are essential in leaders. If a leader is unable to communicate effectively with their team, then they are unable to understand an employees needs therefore failing at the ability to lead them to reach the goals of the company.

Empowering the Team

A great leader has the ability to see an employee’s capabilities and does everything possible to help that employee develop to their potential. They have the ability to see what that employee could become, not what they are now. They motivate and provide the proper tools for that employee to develop their talents and succeed.

Great leaders have the ability to accept an employee’s successes. They understand the need to provide space or constant managing with each of their employees. They help to develop an employee’s individual goal within the company by providing coaching, motivation, feedback, and mentoring. They want each employee to succeed and to reach their best all while benefiting the company’s mission and goals.

Believing in the Team

Great leaders believe in their team. They believe their employees are smart, trustable and worth the time of the company. Through words and actions, repeated over and over, the leader demonstrates to the team that they are an integral part of the company and they are needed in order to succeed.

Trusting in the Leader

Honesty, fairness and consistency are three important factors that a team needs in order to trust their leader. A leader’s words and actions are carefully watched by their team, and they must be reliable. An employee will be much more willing to share confidential sensitive subjects with their leaders if they know that their leader is trustworthy.

[Nordstrom]

Bad leader - manages his employees.
Good leader - LEADS his employees.

[discountedclothing]

Originally Posted by totters_traders

besides offering them pay increases and promotions what do some of you guys do or have had maybe where you have worked to keep staff moral high and enjoying there work envirnment

I guess most important is how the manager interacts with his employees. Definitely I agree with Nordstorm.

[RLorenzen]

See first quote in my signature.

[Anastasia]

Ask them what would motivate them and what they thin should change and then follow up with the question about how much tme and effort they would be willing to put in themselves - so that they own what is happening. Being involved and assuming responcibility are the two greatest motivators

[greggomatic76]

Empower them, let them make decisions and use their own noggin' every once in a while. Trust them to do things without being supervised all the time and let them provide input on the decisions that impact their work.

[mthomas]

Pay isn't always a motivator, even incentive pay isn't neccessarily a motivator. If an employee hates their job or work environment (and im not saying that your employees do), money wont do anything to motivate them.

Tying incentive pay to status, however, can motivate employees. For example, ranking your sales employees based on highest incentive pay (due to most sales) can motivate your staff to try harder to compete for status.

Consider creating a distinct, creative and energizing culture for your business. You can do this by, as GlobalSynergy said: create a vision. Create a vision and a set of values that you live by. Make sure your employees understand and embrace these vision and values. From there, its up to you as to how to forward workplace cultural development from there.

Make sure your employees are promptly praised for their work. You should also ensure that your employees feel as if they have the autonomy and flexibility to do their work their way, so they have more ownership over what they do. More responsibility and accountability can also be a plus for some.

I have also found that i have had a lot of personal success by just telling the teams that I have lead that I have a lot of sincere faith in their ability to deliver a stellar job. I would then make sure I acted as a driving force in leading the team, but not micromanage.

If you want to get more technical, but it still can help you to understand motivation a little better, consider reading up on Maslow's hierarchy of human needs and Herzberg's two factor theorem. Both are motivation theories and are very informative.

[stan999]

You are right about management having to play a role in properly motivating the team. Behaviour is also based on moods and emotions and these vary from time to time. People become more easily naturally motivated at times than at other times. We are now in the era of being able to predict this natural motivational behaviour using science. One such company is Mightyz com, where they are using this model to forecast human mood and emotions 7 days in advance. I think that in the future tools such as these, and possibly others to be discovered will play a valuable role in helping management better shape motivation amongst their employees.

[Anastasia]

We have provided so many ideas here ... I just wonder if totters_traders could tell us what he likes / dislikes? How else will we find out what other people think?;-)

[Gene]

Well I think that the best way to keep morale high is to make sure that you have a staff that is committed to the common goal. Make sure they know what you're shooting for, and then let the excitement build as you get closer to reaching that goal. If they're not pumped about it, and it's affecting their work, maybe it's time to let them go.

I hope this helps.

[ZingerIntl]

Have you tried making it fun? I had a friend who would put up a picture of the ceo of his competition and if anyone had to go to the bathroom they had to grab a hockey stick and shoot a tennis ball and hit the picture. 3 trys or no go. Everyone started trying to distract the shooter to make them have to sit down for 30 minutes. Everyone would stop working for 30 seconds and laugh. he never had employees quitting. He also (and many fortune 500 companies too) are starting to offer a sleeping room where every day, any employee can take ONE 20 minute nap. Companies like nike and i believe google are finding the employees can now work consistantly til the end of the day. The logic is that if employees are tired, they slow down at 2 or 3 (usually shortly after lunch) if they have a nap they work til 5. It means you actually GAIN an hour or two from each of them.

Another option. Find out what their family wants. Heres my logic. I had a marketing firm. Always paid commision, So I found out what my employees wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, or husbands of my employees goals were and told them to tie eachothers goals together. So if my employee gets to this level, or does this in sales or gets promoted or whatever, then they would take out their significant other on their wants. What this does is makes the loved ones at home (which should mean more to them than you do as the boss) the motivator.
Story
My girl wanted to go to niagra falls canada. Cost me about $2000. So I said when I get to this next promotion I will take you. Well when I worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week trying to help my team, she was at home pumped for me, not lonely and naggy. When I came home it was 'Im proud of you' not 'Why you home so late?'
Get it. Love is the greatest motivator. Help them get what they want (appreciation) and you will get what you want (appreciation... look up the definition and relate it to everything in life) Thats one of few words that matter to living abundantly or accomplishing anything.

[ACMAir]

Just make sure a job never becomes a task. Tasks are dreadful, but a job can be entertaining. Southwest Airlines for example, has multiple parties throughout the year for its employees, all of them, to enjoy themselves at a high end restaurant or hotel and socialize. Without having a bit of 100% downtime, employees will never be effective. Never treat employees like robots.

Slightly off topic, but if you see a company as a country, and your employees as the citizens, the only time citizens head a rebellion or revolution is when they are not fed and cornered. Apply that to business.

[The Stealthy One]

Flexible work hours are one of the best ways to motivate somebody and make he or she feel more positive about the job. One of the best ways to work this arrangement is to assign your employees the tasks they need to perform, and let them do their work - on their time. If they come in for only 2 hours a week and complete all assigned tasks - great. If it takes them all week - that's fine, too.

But I can guarantee you, from my experience, that this will go a long way towards achieving your desired goal.

[outsourcery]

Urm.. without knowing the specifics of your situation, the 3 points I see a lot in small businesses with people trouble are:
1. A clock watch mentality. Clock watching creates a very wasteful workforce, with less accountability for performance... some small business owners mistakenly think that watching log-in log out hours is management.. it isn't. It is what governments and large companies use in leu of good management Focuss on productive outcomes (easier said then done obviously).

2. Hold yourself to higher standards than your employees. If you take long lunches and fudge the afternoon, they'll resent it. Lead from the front.

3. Descriminate in favour of top performers. Another management myth is that everyone should be treated the same. Laud your top performers and provide underperformers with the opportunity to improve.

Read the Effective Executive - Peter Drucker. The most important management book ever written....

Cheers