Manage My Employees

Posts Tagged ‘Employee attitudes’

Article #50

Admittedly, I’m addicted to great customer service. I like to get it. I like to give it.

Whenever I don’t get great service, I’m disappointed. At times, it makes me boiling mad. Take the experience I had the other day around nine in the morning….

My Customer Service Experience Was Terrible

I stopped at a national chain drug store for a bottle of over-priced, filtered water—the kind that’s supposed to make you “smarter”—at least that’s what the label says. I could have gone to a convenience store, but in this case I knew they had what I wanted and it was handy.

Several bottles of the water were lodged at the back of the slotted holder, and it happened to be, of course, at the upper most shelf of the refrigerated unit. Since I couldn’t reach them without climbing on top of the unit myself, I turned to the rather tall, thirty-something-old employee (looked like he could be a manager) and made him aware of the problem (opportunity actually).

He looked at me briefly, and without smiling or saying anything he immediately stopped stocking the shelf he was working on and walked over. Still, without saying a word to me, he pulled some bottles from the back of the slot and started handing them to me, one… then a second… then a third bottle. “Whoa, wait I only wanted one,” I said. He took two bottles and put them back, turned and walked back to the shelf he was stocking just a few feet away.

The man never smiled, never made a comment in my direction, never apologized for the inconvenience, nor did he make any attempt to thank me for my business.

Impersonal. Indifferent. He made me feel like he could care less about my business.

To make matters worse, when I walked to the front to pay, the employee (a young lady maybe in her late twenties) was leaning on the counter with both elbows, scowling.

She was gloomy, indifferent, and uninterested in me, her customer. She was just going through the motions of ringing up my merchandise and going back to being mad at the world, or feeling sorry for herself. Who knows?

What I do know is that she didn’t greet me, didn’t smile. She didn’t say thank you—she did nothing to make me feel like she could give a rip about my business. I even had to ask for a bag.***

There Were 5 Vital Points These Employees Had Not Bought Into:

• The most important activity that can ever go on in any business is when the customer calls or comes in to buy something. Contrary to popular belief, this trumps “real” job duties like stocking or straightening shelves, sweeping, doing paperwork, filing, typing, looking something up on the computer… or TEXTING. Heaven forbid!

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Short article # 40 

The article from BNET (link below) makes an apt point regarding employee praise, a point that should be common knowledge for any manager or leader: 

• Principle: deserved praise is critical to feelings of connectedness, employee loyalty, as well as ongoing contribution of uninhibited effort.

One of my own consulting engagements closely mirrors the story told in the article: A small business client was suffering from accelerated turnover, and inexplicably, several professional staff level employees had resigned only months prior to collecting sizeable bonuses.

Can lack of praise or lack of relationship with one’s manager be a significant enough factor to prompt an employee to leave an employer, moreover, can it actually cause them to walk away from tens of thousands of dollars in bonus money? According to my first-hand experience, yes.

Thanks for the Bonus — I Quit! | The View from Harvard Business | BNET

Short article #36 and #37 (combined)

It all started three or four decades ago with the ubiquitous employee suggestion boxes. For the most part, those antiquated  methods of getting employee input never really worked very well. Why?

Mainly, employees sensed that management really didn’t want their input. Two things in particular tipped them off.

First, nothing was ever acted on as a result of the input. Secondly, management never followed-up with employees later to discuss the ideas. (I realize ‘never’ is a big word… but it’s the word I most often hear from employees).

Thank goodness, many employee suggestions boxes, often located in the lunchroom or break room, went away. (I think they were turned into kindling wood, or hidden away in the closet by embarrassed managers).

Unfortunately however, suggestion boxes have now been replaced with more modern, but still largely ineffective methods for gathering employee input, such as:

• An “open door” management style which seemingly encourages openness from employees but rarely gets it.  
• Employee forums. Such forums often turn into gripe sessions (at least that’s what I’m told by managers who don’t like doing them anymore.)
• Monthly or weekly staff meetings (aka “huddles” or “departmental meetings”) where the employee perspective is rarely  garnered because such meetings are often monologues instead of productive, honest dialogues.
• Employee performance reviews. Too often reviews are one-way communications of arbitrary scores and ratings that have nothing to do with improving performance or building value into people. Secrets to Giving Employee Performance Reviews.

What’s wrong with the aforementioned methods for acquiring employee ideas and suggestions. Nothing! As long as, employee suggestions or ideas are handled effectively.

Highly effective managers are good at getting a steady stream of helpful, open dialogue from employees. Ideas they can use to cut costs, improve efficiencies and increase profits.

One of the best ways to start generating more useful employee input is by making sure you avoid the 6 Most Common Fumbles Handling Employee Input:

• Manager says they want input, but really doesn’t. He/she believes that the people in the company with all the answers are the people who hold titles, not the employees, because employees have a limited perspective.

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Short Article #29

“What do you think?” asked the manager to her employee. Surprised, the employee responded, “Well, I don’t know if this would work or not but I think…”

Those four words posed in the question, “What do you think?” may be more telling of one’s management style than any other sign.

Why? Here are four possible reasons, you may want to add one in a comment yourself:

• It’s a sign of whether you genuinely care to hear the opinions of others, or just want to appear like you do.
• It’s a sign of whether you lead by “getting others to want to do” OR “getting others to do” what you believe should be done.

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Short article # 28

Is there a difference in disengagement and low morale? Perhaps, as author Terry Kabachnick asserts in her book, I Quit But Forgot To Tell You.

Low morale is not disengagement. Low morale occurs when an employee gets frustrated with the work load, the work environment or their supervisor. Disengagement occurs when an employee ceases to care, ie. Their heart’s just not in it anymore…!

How bad is disengagement? A Gallup poll a few years ago revealed that 74% of American workers admit to being disengaged, this costs U.S. organizations $350 billion annually in lost productivity.

What are some of the signs of disengagement?

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The reader comment by RStone below, referencing a quote-gem by Mother Theresa (see post 10 Inspiring Quotes On Leadership | Manage My Employees) provides an apt reminder that our ‘words etch in the minds’ of our employees.

 RStone:

January 9, 2010 at 9:00 am (Edit)

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
- Mother Theresa

I’ve led a number of seminars on “Giving Praise” and I’m struck by how many managers, can recall years later, the words spoken to them by a former supervisor, military commander or other authority figure. Those words, as Mother Theresa put it, still ‘echoed’ in their minds and more often than not, merely recalling those words stimulated

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Everyone knows times are tough, but what will your organization do exactly to keep employee morale and performance high?

I’ve provided a link (Engaging Employees Tops Leadership Priorities in Tough Economic Times) to a nice article on what leaders can do to rev up workplace attitudes. In addition, I’ve added a few tips you might want to comment on…

Definitely, be a straight shooter on what these tough times mean to your company, and the department. Don’t spin the truth one iota.

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One industry, healthcare, has all but escaped the draconian impact of the economic recession. However, healthcare is, as other industries are—battling low employee morale.

According to a survey by CareerBuilder (referenced in this article: Healthcare employers battle low employee morale | Healthcare Finance News) nearly 4 of 10 healthcare employees report low motivation and 1 in 4 say they have no loyalty to their employers.

Losing good employees costs the leaders of any organization dearly. This is especially true in healthcare where job knowledge and experience is valued so highly (or it should be).

What can healthcare employers, or any employer for that matter do to ramp up morale:

Get innovative about employee incentives. Think in terms of low-cost but meaningful rewards. Don’t stop your recognition program just because the budget doesn’t permit you to reward like you once did, instead revamp.

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Saying ‘Thanks’ and/or giving praise doesn’t come as naturally to some managers as it does for others. I started out thirty years ago in my career being one of those managers who found giving ‘praise’ harder than giving correction.

I’m better at it today, and yet, I’m certainly not perfect. The results of improvement have been remarkable—especially in how it helped me create a more positive tone and relationship with others at work, or in my personal life.

It helps to have a few reminders of how easy praise (saying ‘Good Job’ or ‘Thanks’) can be when we pause to look for it, then share it with our associates.

Here are ten more examples of how you could say Good Job!…

• Thank you for backing my leadership on this project, I really appreciate it.
• You project enthusiasm to our customers for their business… and I really appreciate that.
• You have a lot of qualities we admire around here, like…
• You did a great job on that project, you got it complete under an intense deadline!
• Let me compliment you on how well you calmed that customers down, you did it with professionalism and a whole lot of tact.
• You do a great job on follow-up, I never hear a complaint from anyone in the company about the communications coming from your area.

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In part 3 we’ll look at a few tips for revving up our praise or thanks to employees. Next, we’ll look at ten more ways to say Good Job.

3 Tips on Revving Up Praise:

• Be sincere. When you see something praiseworthy – praise it. On the other hand, if you don’t, then avoid feeling like you need to come up with something that won’t be in earnest.
• Don’t wait until something’s perfect before you acknowledge it with appreciation or praise.
• Be timely. If you wait to say it later…you may forget. When you see it, say it.

10 Ways to Say “Good Job”…

• You’re catching on fast, I like the effort you’re putting in.
• Super job on that report, it was exactly what I was looking for.
• Thank you! Your input was really helpful for me to hear… I like other viewpoints to consider.
• Actually, it doesn’t bother me when you challenge the status quo around here, because you do it without being confrontational. I know your purpose is to help us grow, get better.

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