As I am writing this the world is experiencing an unprecedented crisis with the coronavirus spreading fear, illness and economic devastation throughout the world. Everyone is scrambling to deal with the situation the best way they can.
Someone sent me a video from the World Health Organization showing how to wash your hands. If they would have sent me this before the virus struck, I would not pay any attention. But with a threat to health getting worse everyday I clicked the play button and was astonished at how little I knew about how to wash hands properly.
This made me think about how important training is. Of course, in a crisis you don’t always have time for training, so that should come before. Think of firefighters. They don’t have time for training when the fire starts, so training must happen when they are waiting for a fire to erupt.
I even created a planning worksheet based on the seven steps that can be downloaded from my website or from Eloquens.Watch the video and start washing your hands properly for better health and hygiene for everyone.
The key to staying engaged and motivated with you work is simple. Do what you love and are good at and keep the work challenging and interesting.
As human beings we all share one thing in common. The need and desire to be constantly satisfied and fulfilled. Whenever we become dissatisfied with what is going on, we seek something else to fill that need.
In life that can translate into self-destructive behaviour and addictions when people become driven to fill a void or emptiness in themselves. True satisfaction must be achieved through a balance between inner fulfillment and outer satisfaction.
Outer satisfaction can be in great part achieved through careers that are matched with skills and job interests. The responsibility for attaining this fall both on the employee and the leader and both must be achieved the self-knowledge and understanding others.
Many people study for careers and achieve degrees in areas that do not fully suit them. It is very common for young people to follow an educational path because the career prospects are bright. But numerous soon discover that the reality is not what they find fulfilling and some but not all are able to shift into different vocations that better suit them.
Leaders and managers must hire people that not only have the skills for the job but also the personality traits and job interests that are a good match. This can be very challenging and requires prudence, technique and tools.
When the right person is in the job the key is to give them challenging work that keeps them interested and growing. This allows the leader to delegate new responsibilities so they can free themselves to work on new and bigger projects.
One of my clients was thinking of giving shares or part ownership to some of his employees to get them to be more engaged and keep them from leaving for more money.
I suggested against it as his employees did not seem ready for this and it seemed he would be throwing away his money and causing new problems,
To give ownership of a company to employees requires a good strategy on how to distribute shares, to who and when. There needs to be a strong core of employees who are already committed to the company, performing well and are mostly self-managed.
A good first approach is to create a greater sense of belonging to the company by having the employees participate in decision making. This can raise the level of responsibility of employees and have them become committed and take action to implement the decisions.
Get Employee Input
The easiest way to start is by asking for employee input on decisions you are contemplating. This will show them your value their opinion and want to include them in your planning strategy for the company. It will also give you a sense of who is excited about contributing and learn about their business acumen. Be sure to give them feedback as to how their input affected your decisions.
Problem Solving Meetings
Holding problem solving meetings with employees to work on continuous improvement projects is a great way to have employees feel like they are helping steer the ship. It shows you value their thinking and want their contribution.
When decisions are implemented as a result of the problem-solving activity, the employees involved will can be the ones to get all employees onboard as they will understand what went into the decision-making process.
Again, you will get to see the attitude of employees and how much they care about making a difference for the business.
Strategy for Share Distribution
Before jumping into giving shares or ownership of your company to employees you need to think this through well and consult with professionals such as financial, tax, legal and Human Resources.
There can be great reasons to give shares or ownership to employees, but I suggest taking the participative leadership approach first and get a sense of who is ready for taking on a more committed role in the company.
The personal problems of employees can affect the performance of the department and the organization and cause great headaches to the manager.
Just this past week four of my clients spoke to me about personal problems that employees were having and how it impacted them and their business. All are small business owners, but personal problems of employees can affect all size businesses as it disrupts productivity in the department and affects the whole team as others will need to compensate if the person in question is absent.
One of my clients had a call from the wife of his salesman and she asked him why he was having the salesman go out of town every Thursday on a special project. The business owner replied that he wasn’t, and they quickly deduced that the salesman was having an affair.
The salesman was cheating on his wife but also on the business as he was lying about his whereabouts and of course this was also affecting his performance and productivity.
Course of Action
To affectively deal with personal employee problems there are two things you can do. One is prevention and the other is being effective in the way you respond to the situation.
Prevention
Preventing employees from having personal problems that affect their work order may sound impossible because you don’t have control of the decisions that people make. But you can influence them through the way you lead and manage them and as in all my videos on the best leadership style, I suggest a coaching style of leadership.
By meeting with employees one on one regularly and having them set and meet specific goals for self improvement, you are coaching them to be responsible and accountable. This teaches people to be honest and more mature. It also makes them think more clearly about the choices they make at work and in life and how it affects those around them.
Therefore, personal and leadership development for business owners and mangers is crucial as you need to walk the talk and be an example for others to follow.
You can follow my process for setting performance agreements with employees to learn how to drive great responsibility and accountability using a coaching approach. The basis of this is setting win win agreements with each employee.
Dealing with the Problem
In the example of the salesman who is cheating on his wife and lying to his employer the way to deal with the situation is to first decide if you want to keep the employee. If so, you need to confront him and set an agreement in writing to meet certain performance commitments and then meet up regularly to monitor his progress. The agreement should include a penalty should the commitments not be reached.
Further Prevention
If you are monitoring employee performance on a regular basis you should sense if there is a problem that might be impacting their performance. Obviously meeting with them to discuss the issue is needed, but you can also start to attract new employees should you need to replace the individual.
You can post jobs for free or set aside a small budget to keep new applications coming in on a regular basis. I also suggest building your employee rating online by having happy employees rate your company on job posting sites like Indeed and on Google. This way your free posting would attract more candidates on an ongoing basis.
