Different things motivate different folks. Some people are motivated to enhance their appearance while others are motivated by prestige or sexual conquest. Others are motivated by money. When it comes to work, many people are not motivated to do much of anything except show up and collect a paycheck. It is our job as managers to create an environment in which employees are inspired to do a better job and forge.
A recent Gallop Poll stated that about 20% of people queried described themselves as “actively disengaged” at work. Most of these people also said that they were not given the proper tools to do their job or that they were not given clear directions for completing the task. From this Poll, we see statistics that are astounding. These employees who are being described as “actively disengaged” are costing employers more than 300 billion dollars a year! This same Poll showed that these people are more likely to go hooky or to be late and are also described as less enthusiastic to their jobs.
A frequent mistake that employers make is levying too many regulations for employees to follow. This is highly de-motivating for the employee! They feel that they are not empowered to creatively carry out tasks for fear of breaking a rule.
Having employees feel that they are not trusted is another critical mistake that management makes. Creating rules and polices that question an employee’s trustworthiness is common practice in major businesses. An example includes allowing a certain number of days off when a family member dies. This assumes that if there were no limit on the number of days, the employee would take advantage of their time off.
The following are tips to create a work environment that fosters motivation.
Guidelines for an Enjoyable Work Environment
• Minimize rules and policies to the essential. Rules are there to protect your business and create structure; if a rule does not serve that purpose, then you will need to consider retiring that particular policy.
• After the rules are established, it is essential that all employees know what is expected of them. Ensure apt promulgation of all regulations.
• Establish a code of conduct. Implement a collaborative effort which involves all or most of the employees that work with you. A vision and mission statement keeps the ship sailing towards a common goal.
• Follow the rules- no exceptions. If management fails to practice what it preaches, can it expect its employees to keep within the bounds?
• Management should address inappropriate behaviors immediately before they become habits. Use counseling or a progressive discipline approach rather than a “you’re in trouble” approach.
• Clearly broadcast work place guidelines for professional behavior.
• Seek employee feedback on rules and policies. Request for ideas to enhance these policies for greater employee empowerment. Sometimes staff have great ideas; after all, they do the job everyday!
• Ensure that these novel ideas of consistency in enforcing policy don’t come as a cold shock to rank and file. If you have been letting employees “get away” with things in the past, you should meet with them and explain that the new policies are there for everyone’s mutual benefit.
8 Golden Techniques To Get People To Love The Rules
A Golden Rule To Manage Job/Workplace Stress
A Golden Rule To Manage Job/Workplace Stress: Having gone for a sea bath, don't be afraid of the oncoming waves. Take your plunge!
* Getting a job, involves lots of stress.
* Getting a job, without the stressful environment, is a blessing.
* Getting a job, with the type work profile that you like, a cheerfully disposed staff, and the administration that maintains the human relations at its best, is a boon!
You put in your best efforts, but everyone around you is dissatisfied. The reasons are beyond your understanding. Your fellow-workers are not happy with you; some of them do not hesitate to taunt you. Your boss frowns at you for nothing. Your wife nags you for your late arrival by 30 minutes from the office. Traveling through public transport, leaving your kid to school, going to the market in between hustle and bustle of office and home-what more is required for you to say, ‘oh, this hellish life!’
These are some of the issues that contribute to your job workplace stress.
If someone else is to be blamed for your stress, blame yourself much more for giving that prominent place for the Satan of stress. Throw him out lock, stock and barrel from your personality. Take a firm stand. Yes, it is possible; it is achievable.
A story goes thus: An educated youngster, fed up of his job workplace stress, ran away to Himalayas. There he met a Yogi. The youngster prostrated at his feet with all humility, and prayed that he wants to stay at His hermitage, as he was fed up of the city life and the job workplace stress.
Yogi’s reply was historic: Don’t runaway to any Ashram; create an Ashram, where you are!
What you need to to is to analyze and understand your stress. Take out the negativities one by one. Unburden the burden! Mind in itself, doesn’t have any existence. It is supposed to be a bundle of thoughts. Take out the thoughts, one by one and reduce the heavy load that you unnecessarily carry on your head.
There was another young man who wanted to take a bath in the sea. He stood at the seashore all the time worrying- let these waves disappear from the ocean, then I will take bath. Will that situation ever be possible? The message to such an youngster would be- having gone for a sea bath, don’t be afraid of the oncoming waves. Take your plunge!
With a positive bent of mind it is possible to control and transcend job workplace stress. Stick to your job, have patience and understanding! Go placidly amidst the noise and din. Everything is happening, as it should!
A Goose That Lays Golden Eggs
Even as a middle-aged adult, I am fascinated by the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. It would be wonderful to find something like a goose that lays golden eggs. You just give it a warm place in the barn and feed it a little grain every day, and presto!, it provides you with an endless supply of riches. Just a little over two months ago, I stumbled upon just such a thing: marketing products through the internet. “Absurd!” you may say, or “What has this guy been smoking?” you may ask. But, consider the following factors before you pass judgment:
• You can set up your own internet marketing business in just a few hours for much less than $100 (yes, only two zeroes; this is not a typo).
• You can create and sell your own products for nothing more than the cost of your own time and the electricity it takes to run your computer; or you can create nothing yourself and sell other people’s products for unusually high commission rates.
• You can sell physical products if you wish, or you can sell information products, which require no physical inventory, no storage costs, no shipping costs, and involve absolutely no environmental impact (what about the electricity, you ask? Perhaps a valid question, but let’s face it, if you weren’t doing something useful with the few cents of electricity your marketing efforts consumed every day, you would still have your computer on while you are surfing the ‘net or playing video games, right?).
• You have light-speed access to a potential market of hundreds of millions of customers, but you don’t have to summon up the energy and wear out the shoe leather required to actually knock on hundreds of millions of doors.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about internet marketing is the existence of an enormous network of like minds out there in cyberspace who are willing and able to help you set up your own business, in many cases at no charge to you, through discussion forums, on-line courses and free or inexpensive software. The mysteries of domain registration, web hosting, e-mail autoresponders, e-book publishing, payment processing and web design are very simple to solve with a little work using easily accessible resources.
Internet marketing is the only business opportunity I know of today where a person can start with almost no capital and be up and running and collecting revenue within just a few days. Of course, there is no free lunch. You have to work at it (even Jack had to find grain to feed the goose . . .), but teachers are out there waiting for you if you take the time to look. You can find excellent resources at http://www.emarketingmeister.com.