Employer Resources
Maximise Productivity Through Your People
Employees with good self esteem and clear goals are highly valuable in regard to the success of any business. What candidates see and hear about the company during the application process helps them decide whether or not to work for a company, but what happens after the employees begin to work determines their happiness, fulfilment and retention. Although the effects of pay and financial incentives on retention are strong, don’t count on higher salaries, better benefits, or perks to keep people in an environment where they feel unhappy. Focus on building employee self-esteem and using career counselling to keep your employees motivated, productive and on track.
Boost Self Esteem - The role of self esteem is vastly underestimated in the productivity and retention of staff. Self esteem is a feeling of confidence and satisfaction, and the perception of value, worth, capability and intelligence by which a person measures themselves. Changes in self-esteem can result from the way a person is treated and to a high degree, impacts productivity and also stability i.e. Retention.
Boosting the self esteem of your employees is easy and does not cost money and the rewards are huge. Be genuine in your concern and interest in your employees. Making them feel like you sincerely value them as people as well as employees assists in raising self esteem and making them feel valued. On an operational level, be careful not to make the distinction between management and ‘workers’ too pronounced as the ‘us and them’ mentality does little to boost self-esteem or productivity. The key is to make everyone feel valued and avoid situations that demean an employee and promote things that build up employee esteem.
Set High Expectations – Simple things such as providing challenging assignments and not jumping in at the first sign of trouble and sticking with the employee through difficulties will communicate a high level of expectation to an employee and helps them to realise their capabilities. Showing you have high expectations in them, and the faith in them to realise these expectations, increases self esteem and productivity.
Provide constructive criticism and positive feedback – provide feedback which is useful to the employee. Constructive criticism where required provides opportunities to formulate better ways to operate and positive feedback makes employees feel good about their contributions. Do not be judgemental and encourage employees to be interactive when discussing why a task has not been as successful as it should be. Frequent, accurate, helpful and informal feedback goes a long way in improving productivity and work practices whilst also increasing self esteem.
Reward performance and loyalty – communicate with your people and understand what it is that they value and then use this to organise reward programs that suit the individuals. It may be money, it may be flexible working hours it may be as simple as celebrating birthdays or milestones in careers. Simple, but genuine rewards make a clear statement of your appreciation and recognition of an employee’s efforts and loyalty.
Career Counselling – Career counselling can identify clearly defined paths of advancement and promotion for the employee within the company. It is worth taking the time to understand individual staff’s career ambitions and regularly review where they feel they are heading and what you can do to assist them in achieving their goals. Staying in tune with your employees desires and allowing them the opportunity to feel they are heard takes just a bit of your time and attention. Schedule times for career counselling and encourage employees to participate by giving some thought to their goals, career objectives and job satisfaction. A general form with specific questions that they rate as ‘very important’ through to ‘least important’ is helpful in forming a picture of what an employee wants in their career. Following the session develop an action plan with the employee which gives them short term goals which will help them along the way in achieving ambitions aligned with what the company can offer. Knowing that they have a career path is a great motivator for the ambitious employee and will increase productivity and retention.
Job Enrichment Programs - Job enrichment provides for an environment offering fulfilling, meaningful and challenging work. Job enrichment is a deliberate process designed to capitalize on the employees’ ability and personal skills to allow the individual to focus on something beyond a narrow job description. It is a continuous process that allows for employee participation in a wide variety of areas. Job enrichment makes the job more valuable to the employee and the employee more valuable to you. In the formulation of a job enrichment program take into account the following:
- Create the proper environment
- Design the job for maximum use of skills
- Provide proper equipment and systems
- Provide continuous learning and growth opportunities
- Create alternate career paths
- Certify skills
- Try rotation – keeps the job interesting
- Consider group job enrichment
- Grow employee capability
Job enrichment is a valuable method of increasing productivity, self esteem and generally creating a workplace in which employees want to be a part of.
All of these strategies are tools in Human Resource Management which are invaluable for the business to grow and be as productive as possible. Once established, HR programs which incorporate these strategies are not time consuming but very rewarding to both the business and the employees.
