What motivates your employees?

While reading the most recent issue of Quirks Magazine, I came across the article of “Job satisfaction, focus on research steady.” It discussed job satisfaction within the research industry. According to the annual corporate researcher salary survey, job satisfaction data for the research industry is similar when compared to years 2013 and 2014. In 2015, data shows that 21 percent of respondents are very satisfied with their current job, 34 percent are satisfied, and 20 percent are somewhat satisfied. An improving economy and salary increases may have contributed to the high levels of satisfaction; however, it’s not the sole factor. The survey found that those who were very dissatisfied with their job also reported making the second-highest average salary of $131,000. As a side, one commentator offered a suggestion for all businessmen and businesswomen: “knowing what you are worth can be powerful leverage during raise negotiations.” Presenting survey data from research studies on compensation can help serve as an aid when discussing salary.

Employee satisfaction is a culmination of numerous factors. It can be affected by compensation, bonuses, non-monetary benefits, company culture, opportunities for advancement, etc. When asked what benefits accompany a positive company culture, one respondent in the research industry said “weekly on-site massage therapist, weekly on-site counselor, sick rooms, a gym….” Another respondent asked for intangible benefits, such as dogs at work and workplace flexibility. While all companies may not be able to physically or financially achieve those exact benefits, it’s important to listen and to respond to employees’ needs that are practical and feasible. When you feel like your voice is heard, you feel more valued, thus strengthening your commitment to the organization.

Now, let’s say you’re not in the research industry. How do you know if your employees are satisfied with their current job, as well as the company as a whole? What do you look for? What, not to mention how, do you ask? How do you know if they’ll provide you with honest feedback? By having a clear understanding of employee perceptions, it offers you opportunities for performance improvement and new business idea generation. An employee perception survey helps you identify what motivates and constrains your employees, as well as the overall health of your organization. It provides employees with an avenue to contribute detailed, unfiltered feedback to a third-party, giving your organization actionable data to help determine where you want to go and how you’re going to get there.

To uncover how your employees really feel and to learn how our employee perception survey can help you KNOW MORE so you can DO MORE, contact Tweed-Weber, Inc. at  toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

* For the full article, click here: www.quirks.com/CorporateResearchReport

Is your organizational culture a good one?

Organizational culture is the unwritten and often unspoken assumptions on which all organizational decisions are made and action is taken. It is the result of demonstrated behavior over a period of time. In other words, it is behavior that has become organizational habit over the years. Organizations pursuing a true quality culture are finding that developing the long-term behavior consistent with that pursuit is more difficult than realized.

Management behaviors consistent with a quality culture include coaching, guiding, and facilitating an empowered work force toward organizational goals and objectives. In more traditionally managed organizations, management behavior involves goal attainment through the direction of others. Problem solving is largely seen as a management responsibility. The challenge many managers face today is demonstrating quality behavior in "moments of truth." Moments of truth are those daily situations that require immediate attention. Often times, our routine behavioral tendencies guide us to actions that can only be defined as disempowering. However, it is in these situations where we have the best opportunity to demonstrate our organization's respect for the ability of our employees to add value, and to have an empowered workforce.

Below are some things to remember when you are faced with moments of truth.

•Think before you act. "How can I involve and empower my people in this situation?"

•Seek first to understand; get all of the facts straight before moving forward.

•Your employees are watching your behavior; set a good example that is consistent with the message you want to send.

•You are not expected to have all the answers; respect the idea of teamwork in problem solving.

•Think of how you would like to be treated by your manager. Most times, this will hold true for how you manage your people.

If you are trying to ensure a culture of employee involvement and empowerment, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). Tweed-Weber can provide you with a tried and true method for obtaining employee feedback that can help you strengthen your organizational culture.

Employee Surveys = Involvement and Empowerment

Ongoing customer satisfaction is a result of a focused and well-managed process for continuous improvement. Design your products and services to meet or exceed customer expectations, and you'll enhance your ability to grow your market share. Design the processes that provide those products and services to be performed in the most effective, efficient, reliable, and consistent manner possible, and you’ll enhance your ability to meet your organizational strategies. Proactively involve and empower your people in the previously mentioned steps, and you have the elements for gaining and sustaining long-term competitive advantage.

Even in organizations where there is a demonstrated understanding of this logic, many efforts to succeed in implementing strategies to achieve a more empowered workforce fail. Many times, this failure can be attributed to a lack of understanding regarding the nature of empowerment and the four basic elements required for successful implementation.

Involvement and Empowerment

One of the foundational principles of continuous improvement is “respect for employees demonstrated by employee involvement and empowerment.” The goal of this principle is respect. It involves genuine respect and the understanding that employees have the ability, based on their knowledge and experience, to add value to the organization’s success. While most organizational leaders intellectually and emotionally buy-in to this principle, the positive results of involvement and empowerment are sometimes elusive. To help understand why this occurs, let’s look at how the words “involvement” and “empowerment” are defined and used in a business environment.

Involvement is the ongoing process of informing employees and gathering input from them. This process results in a workforce that continuously thinks of ways to improve performance and acts in a manner consistent with that thinking. Involvement takes the form of information-sharing and can be accomplished in a number of ways. It can be achieved in state-of-the-company meetings, informal group sessions, one-on-one discussions, the Intranet, etc. Whatever the method, the objective must be to provide employees with an ongoing understanding of what is happening within the organization (and why), and how their actions impact the success of the organization.

Empowerment is the ongoing process of providing anyone in an organization with the ability to address anything that stands in the way of doing the right thing at any given time. It means that an employee is given the ability to solve a problem or improve a condition. It means that, at no time, does an employee feel ‘trapped’ in a situation. If something is standing in the way of a quality result, the employee can contribute to correcting that situation. Successful empowerment can be achieved by addressing four basic elements or “tools.”

Four Basic Elements of Empowerment

Belief
Employees need to genuinely believe the company’s leadership sincerely intends for them to be empowered. An employee also needs to believe that he or she has the capability of performing in an empowered manner. Rarely will an organization experience successful empowerment if employees do not believe management is supportive of their individual ability to solve a problem or improve a condition.

Information
Employees need to have information regarding the results of their actions, as well as information relative to the processes they are performing. In order to determine the need to solve a problem or improve a condition, employees need to receive feedback on these measures. If employees are unaware of the conditions that surround them, the chances of developing empowered actions are minimal at best.

Skills
Employees need the skills necessary to act in an empowered manner. These skills fall into two areas; technical skills and interpersonal skills. Technical skills involve those skills specific to an employee’s job. Acting in an empowered manner requires that an employee be trained and consistently updated on the technical skills needed to perform in their area of responsibility. Interpersonal skills involve the skills required for an employee to effectively work with others when acting in an empowered manner. These skills include effective communication and respect for themselves and others, as well as understanding personal styles and how they affect individual and team performance.

Opportunity
This element involves providing employees with the time, tools, and resources necessary to act in an empowered manner. Expecting empowered actions while neglecting the required time, tools, and resources will result in employee frustration. Additionally, it is extremely important to provide employees with the process and guidelines for being empowered. Employees need to understand the steps they can take to solve a problem or improve a condition. Without clearly defined guidelines and processes, many well-intentioned empowerment initiatives bring unsatisfactory and, in some cases, disastrous results.

How involved and empowered do employees in your organization feel? 

There is one way to find out – ask them. Conduct an Employee Perception Survey. Putting in place an effective employee feedback program is the responsibility of strong and confident leaders. In order to develop an involved and empowered workforce, an organization’s leadership team must provide the necessary coaching, guidance, and facilitation to foster its development. Identifying the areas employees feel are in need of special attention and focus will help direct those development efforts.

If you are trying to ensure a culture of employee involvement and empowerment, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). Tweed-Weber can provide you with a proven method for obtaining employee feedback that can serve as the foundation for the elements of genuine employee engagement.

Fact or Fiction? The Guide to Becoming a True Myth Buster

Recently, I had a friend, let’s name her Anna, that was venting to me about work and how her employees are impossible to work with and have some sort of seniority complex. This, ultimately, was driving her to insanity. Not only was she becoming disgruntled, but those she worked with who had the same work ethic as Anna were starting to feel the same way. The morale on her floor was becoming toxic and the productivity level hampered. 

 

So what exactly does this six-letter word, morale, mean? Why is this important to the success of your business? Well, to state it briefly, morale is the confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline of a person or group at a particular time. Just from the definition, imagine if an employee’s confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline were on the brink. How would that impact the overall productivity of everyday tasks?

 

After hearing Anna’s story, and asking myself about the impact, I decided to surf around the web and see what caused low morale in the workplace and how you can essentially fix it. I stumbled across this interesting article from Kennesaw State University, adapted from Employee Retention Strategies, that doesn’t state the reasons for low morale, but gives eight myths that we assume would cause low morale. It was truly an eye-opener.

 

Myth One: People most often leave a company for more pay.

 

Shocking, right? We always think that people leave a company for a better opportunity, but according to exit interviews, people cite “leaving for more money” because it’s the easiest response. Even though it is the first response that comes to mind, people tend to begin to look for jobs elsewhere if they are unsatisfied with their job or the company in which they work. 

 

Myth Two: Incentive programs produce long-term profits and improve productivity and morale.

 

When we hear incentive, we automatically think what’s the prize going to be and how do I receive it? For our surveys we do for clients, we offer incentives to arouse interest in giving productive feedback for our clients so they can reach their objectives for the survey. For this purpose, incentives work extremely well, but for employees, not so much. An incentive-based structure is usually geared towards quantity, instead of quality. Employees start to care less about the work they do and more about what they can receive if they meet it in the allotted time given. According to the article, the real glue that creates employee commitment isn’t incentives, but in fact, it’s the chance to learn and grow, meaningful work, good supervisors, and respect and appreciation for a job well done. 

 

Myth Three: People don’t want more responsibility.

 

Responsibility. The word itself holds the weight of the world on its shoulders, but according to research, this weight is one that is welcomed, not dismissed. In any circumstance, especially in the business world, people are looking to grow and learn and develop new skills to help them advance their skills. It doesn’t have to be a job promotion to allow this, but broadening the scope of one’s job description will help garner more responsibility for that individual.

 

Myth Four: Loyalty is dead.

 

Surprisingly, even in our ever-changing society, this is just a myth. Today, people are gaining a better work-life balance, and employers are making this easier by giving better hours (or flex-time), dress code, responsibility, etc. Not only does this balance affect the employees, it also affects the customers. If an employee is able to make on-the-spot decisions about an issue a customer is having, it will keep the customer coming around for the long-term. 

 

Myth Five: Improving employee satisfaction is expensive.

 

Employee satisfaction is huge and goes hand-in-hand with customers and their loyalty to your company. According to research, satisfiers can’t be bought, so trinkets and prices or recognition programs aren’t always the way to go when trying to gain satisfaction. However, the main adhesive that keeps satisfaction high is communication, support, and good relationships throughout the company, especially with management. The good thing is these adhesives aren’t expensive to your company; they cost nothing!

 

Myth Six: Employee satisfaction is “fluff.”

 

Once again, satisfaction is huge to the success of a company, and if employees aren’t satisfied, then the turnover rate will be high and profitability will decline. Take a look at these five statistics, and see how important employee satisfaction really is:

•  In a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a strong link was found between employee retention and the quality of service as rated by companies’ customers.
• According to the American Society of Training and Development, organizations that invested the most in training had higher gross margins and income per employee.
• Various studies have found that the cost of replacing an employee who leaves has been estimated to be between 70 and 200 percent of that worker’s annual salary.
• The Council on Competiveness found that a 10 percent increase in education has a more positive impact on productivity than a 10 percent increase in work hours.
• The bottom line on the bottom line. Investing in people and learning the most effective management practices increases profits.

Myth Seven: Supervisors are the problem.

 

Today, supervisors are given more responsibility with employees and customers, but the amount of training given to supervisors for this added pressure is very minimal. How can you fix this? Teamwork; it is essential to any thriving business. All of the pieces to the puzzle have to be aligned just right so you can begin to see profit instead of loss.

 

Myth Eight: My company, industry, and people are different!

 

If I had a nickel for every time I heard this, I would be one rich gal. Most people want to believe that they, or their company, don’t apply to the stereotype. But, every research study that crossed various industries, settings, and economic conditions, produced the same results. So don’t ignore the outcomes, but instead embrace them for a better future!

 

Do you want to be the myth buster and uncover the truths behind your company? Look no further than to Tweed-Weber, Inc. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

About the author: Gretchen Koch has been with Tweed-Weber, Inc. since 2012 and serves as Operations Manager. She oversees office processes and provides quality control on all market research reports and strategic planning documents.

Create an Employee "Think Tank"

The saying, “perception is reality” is never more true when observing employees of an organization relative to how they perform and interact with each other on a daily basis. Having a clear and common understanding of employee perceptions offers enormous opportunities for ideas and improvement in the future. Have you ever wondered how to implement an employee survey to help foster high regard and recognition for employees’ thoughts and opinions, and to help them feel like a valuable part of the team? We can help.  

 

There are different types of employee surveys that help to obtain feedback, and the goal of each of those surveys depends on the questions you want to ask.

 

Employee Climate Survey

 

The typical survey we conduct for our clients is an online Employee Perception Survey, also called a “climate survey.” For this kind of employee feedback initiative, you are trying to understand how employees feel about working at the organization. The following categories are normally used as a basis for asking questions:

• Job perception
• Work environment
• Opportunities for involvement and work improvement
• Management support
• Compensation and career advancement
• Education and training
• Overall understanding of (your organization)

Conducting a climate survey is essential in your efforts to identify areas for internal improvement. Retaining employees is a huge issue for most organizations today, and doing all that you can to create a work environment that fosters respect, teamwork, and loyalty is not only the right thing to do, but a smart one as well. A high level of employee retention positively impacts the bottom line.

 

Employee Think Tank Survey

 

Another type of survey that is gaining speed with our clients is an “Employee Think Tank” survey. For this kind of feedback initiative, you are trying to tap into the minds of your employees by asking more strategic questions that could identify potential opportunities for the company based on what they see and experience at work. The following are some questions to ask employees in this type of survey (just to name a few):

• In our current strategic plan, XYZ actions are described as critical elements for reaching our long-term growth plan. Which one do you feel is most critical to our growth in the future, and why?
• What specific factors do you believe influence customers’ purchasing decisions relative to the products/services we offer?
• What are the top three things you believe customers need most from us? 
• What is one idea you have for making it more convenient for customers to do business with us?
• If there is one area in which you feel we have lost the most ground over the past two years, what would that be, and why?
• What factors do you believe stand in the way of our overall growth?
• What customer service/support activity do you think we should offer to satisfy customer needs/demands, but currently we do not provide?
• Overall, what should we STOP doing or offering because you feel it adds little to no value at all to customers?
• If you became President of our organization tomorrow, what’s the one thing you would do immediately to increase sales, and why?

You would be surprised and thrilled with the depth of thinking and feedback these kinds of questions spark in employees (especially those employees in positions that have direct contact with customers and the marketplace). Because they view the organization from different angles, they provide a holistic snapshot that you can feel confident covers all bases within your operations. Implementing an Employee Think Tank survey will help you see things through a different lens that will help ensure you are not missing the obvious when developing strategies and planning for future growth.

 

How much insight, knowledge, and wisdom is being untapped within your organization? An Employee Think Tank survey will help you find out. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). 

Assessing a High Performance Team

Teamwork in business has become one of the hottest subjects in business and supervision literature. Everywhere you look, there is another article on self-directed teams, self-managing teams, cross-functional teams, project teams, quality improvement teams, and of course, management teams. The primary reason for this is simple.

 

It appears that baby boomers and other people born after World War II like being part of a team. Where their parents relied on themselves, their own skills, their own motivation, and their own ability to get the job done, later generations look to their peers for the support, motivation, and assistance to achieve work-related objectives. Whereas those people born prior to 1946 (the year traditionally used to mark the beginning of the baby boom) generally want to be told what to do and simply allowed to do it, the people born after 1946 want to be involved in as many aspects of their business lives as possible. They want to participate. They want to be “in on things.” They want to know why they are doing the work they are doing. They want to feel they are contributing to a “greater good.” They want to feel they are part of a team.

 

This emerging reality causes us to focus on two fundamental questions:

1. What is the difference between a group of people and a team?
2. What is the difference between a team and a “high performance” team?

The key difference between a group of people and a team is a team is a group of people pulling together in the same direction and dependent on each other for their common success. 

 

The distinction between a team and a high performance team is not so easily drawn. In order for a team to be properly described as high performance, it must possess seven characteristics. These characteristics are: 

1. A mission that motivates 
2. Common goals 
3. Mastery of the fundamentals 
4. A communications system 
5. Trust 
6. A need for continuous improvement and the ability to correct course
7. A task/social mix

When all seven of these characteristics are present, the performance level of a team increases significantly. It moves from average performance to high performance, and its members enjoy the corresponding benefits. Let’s take an in-depth look at each of these characteristics and the role they play in team building efforts.

 

A mission that motivates

A mission raises people above the day-to-day tasks that make up the bulk of what we call work. This is no less important when attempting to focus a team than when attempting to lead individuals. In order for a team to rise above the average, it must have a focus that is above the average. High performance teams have a clearly defined mission. They are able to look beyond the immediately visible and see the future. Most importantly, it is a future that is worth the extra effort required if the team is to distinguish itself through its performance.

 

Common goals

While a mission is the first characteristic of a high performance team, it alone is not enough to unite the individuals who comprise the team. Somewhere along the path to exceptional performance, that mission must be converted into specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-based goals – goals that can be seen and touched.

 

Organizations invest a considerable amount of time, effort, and energy in establishing strategic goals, annual performance plans, and budgets. Once established, these goals should be measured on a regular basis. If you learn about and pay attention to these planning functions, you should be able to connect the vision of your mission with your actions as team members.

 

Mastery of the fundamentals

Once a team has a mission that motivates its performance and goals to direct its activity, it is essential the individuals who comprise the team have the skills necessary to successfully achieve the first two characteristics. Average teams have ability. High performance teams master the fundamentals. They know the basic skills of their work so well their execution of those basics is instinctive.

 

A communications system

On closer examination, however, you would find the main reason people feel communication is a problem is there is often no real agreement as to what they should be meeting or talking about. The business world does not suffer from a lack of communication, but rather from unfocused communication. Everyone is talking; we just are not talking about the same things.

 

High performance teams do not just communicate, they agree as to what the communication should center around. They have a system for communication.

 

Trust

Whenever two or more people work together, the question of trust is bound to be raised.

 

High performance team members understand there are three different kinds of trust that must exist if true trust is to exist. Those three kinds of trust are:

1. Disclosure trust is the trust that exists when any member of a team believes he or she can say absolutely anything to any other team member without fear of being criticized, ridiculed, or talked about behind his or her back.
2. Contractual trust is knowing when someone makes a commitment to you, they have every intention of keeping that commitment – at the time it is made.
3. Informational trust is the ability to trust what a person says to you is, to the best of that person’s knowledge, true, complete, and accurate.

A need for continuous improvement and the ability to correct course

All teams perform at some level. High performance teams perform at a level consistently above the average team. One reason is they are never satisfied with their present level, whatever it might be. They consistently strive for continuous improvement as a natural part of their day-to-day activities. Course correction is the ability to realize you are going down the wrong path and having the courage to change direction. This is often easier said than done because it sometimes requires an admission that an earlier decision was wrong.

 

A task/social mix

The final characteristic of high performance teams may seem trivial at first, but upon closer examination you will find it is actually the result of the presence of the first six elements. This seventh characteristic is a task/social mix. Sometimes referred to as the “beer and pizza syndrome,” task/social mix is the ability of team members to enjoy and appreciate each other’s company on a personal, as well as a professional basis. It is the ability to grow and improve from simply being together, regardless of the setting.

 

As you invest your energies in building a high performance team, it is essential you understand the role each of these characteristics plays in your efforts. All are required if you are to build a truly high performance team. Most importantly, you, as a member of your team, must constantly and objectively evaluate your team’s progress toward them. The status of being a high performance team does not come without effort. The results, however, are clearly worth the work.

 

Everyone enjoys being part of a winning team. Research shows that winning teams demonstrate certain characteristics and patterns of behavior. By assessing how frequently and effectively your team demonstrates these characteristics, you will be able to make improvements that are necessary to become a truly high performance team. For more information on how to embark upon a High Performance Team Assessment, call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).