2020 - Page 11 of 13 - Optimus Performance

The Key to Staying Engaged and Motivated at Work

Mar 10, 2020 Comments

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.

So, the recipe is simple

Hire the right person for the job
Provide a good work environment
Give the right tools and support to do the job
Make sure they find the work interesting and challenging

Giving Shares or Ownership of your Company to Employees for Retention and Engagement

Mar 03, 2020 Comments

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.

Here is a good article to check out for small businesses

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.

How Personal Problems of Employees Gets in The Way Of Organizational Performance

Feb 25, 2020 Comments

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.

Improve the Quantity of Job Applicants to a Job Posting

Feb 18, 2020 Comments

The more applicants you have for a job posting the more choice of candidates you can select to proceed through the selection process. You want your job posting to standout from the crowd especially if it’s a popular and competitive job category.

Job title

The job title is what people see first when they see you listing so make the job title highly appealing. I recently posted a job on Indeed for a client and did an A/B test by posting the job two ways.

One of the jobs was posted with the title Operations Support Specialist along with the text and job description provided by my client. The other posting was titled Operations Support Specialist Great Career Opportunity and I wrote a new text to describe the job along with just a few of the main tasks. I wrote this version with specific copy to sell the appeal of the job and the company (see the copy at the bottom of this page)

Results

Within a few hours of posting both versions of the job the one with Great Career Opportunity received six resumes whereas the other had none. So how you title and describe the job is crucial to how people perceive the opportunity and are motivated to apply.

Revisions

I continued to revise the job posting based on feedback of the quality of the resumes received by the hiring manager who was doing the screening. I decided to add the words Customer Service to attract people with that experience as the job did in fact require customer service experience and know-how.

Even later I modified the title again but kept the words customer service and all postings with those words did very well. From the larger quantities received the manager found good candidates to start with short phone interviews and then moved forward with in person interviews.

Salary posting

I find that when a job is posted with a competitive salary range it drives up applies. Anyone looking for a better salary will want to apply if the job appeals to them so making it clear in the posting will also boost the response.

Hiring and selecting the right employee for the job and company is an extremely important step in building a strong and successful team and organization.

Sample job posting

If operations and customer service is the type of work you love and you have experience with inventory management, then this position is a dream job come true. You will work as part of a great team of professionals serving the best companies in the telecom industry. This is a steady path and secure field of work that is poised for even greater growth over the next five to ten years.

You can show off your skills in operations by managing all aspects of product returns (RMA’s) for the company. You will assist the pre-sales team in managing product evaluation and deepen your knowledge of operations through learning advanced use of the Oracle ERP data base system.

Managing all product returns (from customers and manufacturers) is a vital part of inventory management and you will work closely with the operations manager to assure that this crucial operation is done accurately.

You will be provided with all the training you need to build on your skills and experience with inventory management.

Your strength is attention to detail, and this will enable you to produce high quality work that will be recognized and appreciated by your manager and team members.

Your experience in operations and your education has given you the skill set you need to excel and grow in this position.

The company offers competitive benefits such as group insurance, performance bonus and the salary will reflect your knowledge and experience.