Keys to Motivating Employees

1
Keys to Motivating Employees

• Parcel Shipping and Distribution Forum 2006
• Wayne M. Teres
• Teres Consulting Inc.
• teresconsulting.com
• wayne_at_teresconsulting.com

2
Successful Motivation Programs

• Best of class warehouse operations have
  productive and motivated workers as a result of
  successfully implemented employee motivation
  programs

3
Why Invest the Time and Effort

• Lower costs and lower employee turnover
• Increased quality and productivity increases
  profits
• Low investment - High payback

4
How Motivating are Your
Programs

• Do your employees feel adequately recognized
• Do your employees get excited about the
  program rewards
• Do your employees have input into the
  rewards they receive
• Does your program drive the behaviors
  that you desire

5
Program Essentials

• Hire the right people Hire smart
• Hire for attitude dependable motivated people
• Southwest Airlines
• Enhance desired outcome of the organization
  motivate behavior to achieve corporate goals
• Provide interesting work
• If tasks themselves cannot be fulfilling team
  collaboration or membership in a committee can be
  used to create interest and value at work

6
Program Essentials

• Recognize employees are motivated by intangible
  rewards
• Make people feel good about their current and
  past accomplishment
• Create cost effective programs
• Provide visible feedback
• Build on past programs success

7
Program Essentials

• You get what you reward!
• Be sure you have clearly defined what you want to
  get then use rewards and recognition to move
  toward those goals

8
What is your Goal

• What outcome do you want
• Make sure it is a global goal
  not a local goal
• Example

9
Why Rewards Fail

• Excessive dependence on monetary
  rewards
• Lack of recognition value
• Entitlements
• Wrong things are rewarded
• Delay
• De-motivators

10
Excessive Dependence on Monetary Rewards

• Money is not the common denominator of
  achievement
• Money rewards are very costly often difficult to
  maintain and hard to take away
• When people are striving for money they will
  often take the shortest and fastest route to
  maximize their financial gain often sacrificing
  quality

11
Lack of Recognition Value

• Few organization realize the importance of
  recognition and appreciation
• Everyone wants to be recognized
• Most workers feel unrecognized
• Recognition is the most cost effective motivator
• Highly motivator organizations celebrate small
  successes

12
Entitlements

• Be careful with monetary rewards they become
  viewed as entitlements
• Thanksgiving turkey
• Mix up your programs to avoid the entitlement
  belief

13
Wrong Things are Rewarded

• Rewarding the wrong things occurs often
• Be careful what you ask for
• Productivity example
• Remember no matter what you say verbally or
  written in your manuals what you reward is what
  you get
• Ask yourself Do the rewards we are giving
  elicit the performance we want

14
Delay

• Research discloses Delay discounts any reward
• In most companies rewards do not occur promptly
• For example yearly profit sharing
• Build instant recognition into your program
• Rewards on the spot

15
De-motivators

• The most common is unfairness
• Be constantly aware of them
• Avoid the perception of unfairness
• Most de-motivators can be eliminated by involving
  your workers when designing your program

16
Proper Motivation Program Design

• Define the objectives of the program
• What do you want to achieve
• Decide how you will measure it
• Discover what motivates your workers
• Decide what the reward should be

17
Selling the Reward Recognition Program

• Getting top management commitment
• Communicating to the worker
• Involving the worker
• People fear the unknown

18
Communicating the Program to the Worker

• The Role of the Supervisor
• Can make or break a program
• Conditions
• Standards are based
• System is dynamic and will need to be changed
  no surprises
• When it will change
• If business conditions change

19
No Train No Gain!

• Training
• Greatest reason for failure
• Employees wont understand
• Methods
• Their Role
• What is expected of them
• Supervisors dont know what is expected of them

20
Quality Incentive Program

• Employee motivation program to increase Quality
  by reducing the following errors
• Inventory
• Shipping over short damaged or poor quality
• Paperwork
• Team based reward
• the entire warehouse gets the same reward

21
Quality Incentive Program

• Calculating the Reward
• Determine current status and what quality errors
  cost
• Identify the savings by improvement
• Decide what percent to share with the warehouse

22
Quality Incentive Program

• Benefit
• Customer/Employees/Company wins
• Advantages
• Ease of administration
• Promotes teamwork
• Encourages teamwork

23
Safety Program

• Employee program to reduce work accidents
• Accidents increase insurance and lost days
• Measurement
• Number of days without an incident
• Program - Safety bingo
• Every worker receives a bingo card
• Each day without an accident a number is drawn
• Prizes increase in value as number of days
  without an accident increases

24
Safety Program

• Additional Rewards Safety Milestone say 100
  days without an incident
• On the 100th day pizza celebration
• Supervisors and Managers unfurling banners and
  streaming confetti to celebrate
• A celebration that was not forgotten
• A memorable event
• Celebrate milestones

25
Gainsharing Programs

• Gainsharing programs are group incentive programs
  that reward employees when targets like cost
  reduction are met usually in a percentage split
• These kinds of programs are self-funding

26
Gainsharing Key Features

• Typically paid out in dollars
• Programs have no effect on base pay or individual
  performance appraisal
• Should have inclusion of financial quality or
  productivity measure that
  the individual has control of
• Programs should be based on improvements achieved

27
Gainsharing Benefits

• Can help organization achieve objectives
• Can be a method of introducing pay bonuses
  (rather than salary) to employees
• May promote commitment to goals
• Low cost
• Self funding

28
Gainsharing Challenges

• Formulas and calculations may be difficult to
  create and understand
• Eventually reach a point in diminishing returns
• Could distract people from less measured goals
  not rewarded by the system
• Requires a shift toward team oriented management
  style

29
Pitfalls that Can Cause Failure

• Lack of commitment from
  top management
• Poor communication with employees
• Doing To rather that With
• Installed on poor work methods
• Doing it too quickly

30
Pitfalls that Can Cause Failure

• Lack of Supervisory support and involvement
• Blindly copying another companys plan
• Poor worker acceptance
• Focusing on productivity and omitting quality
• Failure to seek outside assistance when necessary
• Dont be afraid to get help
• You dont know what you dont know

31
Top 7 Ways to Motivate a Worker

• Personally thank them for doing in a good job
  one on one verbally in writing or both. Make
  sure it is timely and sincere.
• Take time to meet with the employee and listen to
  them Theirs no substitute for face time when
  building relationships
• Provide regular specific feedback about their
  performance
• Encourage new ideas and initiative

32
Top 7 Ways to Motivate a Worker

• Involve employees in decisions
  that affect them
• Recognize reward and promote people based on
  their performance. Deal with low and marginal
  performers so they improve or leave.
• Celebrate successes!

33
5 Ways to Keep Your Program
Exciting

• Charts and Displays
• You can not have enough
• When using money issue separate checks
• Team competition
• Champion celebrate success
• Celebrate milestones
• Tee shirts and other recognition

34
Low Cost Motivational Rewards

• Pot luck lunch
• Gift certificates
• Post names of winners in warehouse
• Achievement certificates
• Write up winners in company newsletter
• T-shirts
• Free lunch
• Gas cards

35
Low Cost Motivational Rewards

• Sporting event tickets
• Coupons for gifts
• Employee chooses reward
• Wash the employees car
• Give the person a two hour lunch
• Extra time off
• Write a letter of praise

36
In Summary

• What gets measured get done
• What gets measured and fed back
  gets done well
• What gets measured fed back and rewarded gets
  done repeatedly!
• Make common sense common practice
• Practice recognizing your workers
  and their achievements
• Design your program to elicit the behaviors
  that drive your goals
• Do not confuse simple with simple minded

37
Resources

• Hire Tough Manage Easy
• Mel Kleiman
• The Goal
• Eli Goldratt
• 1001 Ways to Reward
• Bob Nelson

38
Thank You

• Wayne M. Teres
• Teres Consulting Inc.
• teresconsulting.com
• wayne_at_teresconsulting.com
• 508-872-4922