Manage My Employees

Short Article#34

I was interviewed by Kevin Gray at BNET (a CBS owned top-tier business web site) for the article: Can’t Pay Employees What You’d Like? Praise Them Instead. BNET is a great site for articles on management, strategy, marketing and more.

Personally, I’ve been struck by how many insightful comments have been posted to this article. You can see what I mean when you go to the article then scroll down and read the comments from some very well-informed readers.

Some have taken exception to the title of the article, or the article’s supposed impetus. However, I take a different view. As for "praise" itself, the point that shouldn’t be lost in the title of the article or the article itself (I hope you read it), is that more praise is generally needed in the workplace. And really, the definitive argument I’d make is that both praise and pay need to be at appropriate levels.

Too many seasoned managers, in my view, tend to follow the outmoded MBO style of managing people–where the priority focuses on projects not people, on tasks versus trust, on cost control instead of communications. In the last five years I’ve been encouraged by some progress, albeit empirical, but we’ve got a long way to go…

How do I know? I’ve personally interviewed over 2,000 employees and managers/supervisors in over twenty industries. Employees in large measure believe they are not given enough feedback, especially positive reinforcement, encouragement, appreciation.. whatever label we give it. In contrast, when they foul up or fall short they often hear about it immediately, and then it’s drudged up again and again in their appraisal.

**CASE: The employees of a retail chain I advised told me during interviews of how supervisors routinely did critical "write – ups"… which were placed in the employee’s file anytime they fouled up.

When I asked the upper leaders/mgrs if they also did positive "write – ups" they looked at me like it was the first time they’d ever considered the possibility. Balancing one’s feedback to employees, suggestions for improvement along with well-deserved praise, is essential if a manager expects the employee’s attitude as well as performance to ever be exceptional.**

In my experience, many managers struggle with giving fair, balanced feedback to employees, especially perhaps in performance reviews: For more see a free download of When Performance Appraisals Don’t Work .

With pay and bonuses falling victim to many budget-sensitive employers trying to survive these turbulent times, there’s nothing wrong with ratcheting up praise.

However, when the good times roll again, I’d hope that leaders/mgrs would not revert back to chasing everything with a dangling dollar in order to drive employee performance. Instead, be committed to a proper balance of appropriate "pay" with "praise."