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gantthead blogs
by - Joe Wynne
From big workforce issues to interpersonal interactions, we'll look for the latest and most effective solutions.
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Motivating Through Worker Definition of Success
Continuing with the sporadic series on leadership in the downturn, it's time to look at another good idea for motivating workers when there is a lot of bad news around.
Jon Katzenbach studies great motivators in the workplace. He tells us that you should use your knowledge of the individual definition of success of your workers to motivate them. This is good news. When it is difficult to find "external" motivators (such as it is now in this bleak economic environment), you can focus on what each individual values. For example:
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Working toward a promotion
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Learning new skills
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Doing a high-quality job
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Interacting more with different stakeholders
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Doing more customer service, financial analysis, programming, and so on.
It's so easy to lump everyone together and make the same comments about how we all have to weather this storm together, but how many workers does this really motivate? Funny thing is, the same managers who use statements like this were never motivated by these statements when they were workers themselves.
Refocus your motivational tactics. Your workers will respond with improved performance. |
Leadership for Those Who Remain
After layoffs you want to maintain high morale and productivity for the remaining workforce, but it is not easy. Their collective head is spinning with all kind of emotions. They are not sure what jobs to do in all cases. What's worse, you may feel the same way.
In your project, the workers who are left will be taking their cues from you. Your tone and attention to the adjustment that the workers must face are crucial:
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Stress the fact that the layoffs were not a reflection of the performance of the workers who were laid off.
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Be available - and visible - to assist reprioritizing and rebalancing workloads among the new workers.
This article is for small businesses, but the ideas are also good for projects. |
Social Media: Cheap, Quick Training For Today's Projects
Now that we are aggressively cost-cutting and looking for ways to avoid additional expenses, training is an obvious area to reassess. An article by David Wilkins suggests there are three general approaches using social networking and other Web 2.0 technologies.
- Embedding social media inside online training so that learners can collaborate, discuss, etc. during training
- Making social media available to all learners so that they can discuss and comment on classes available in the organization
- Create communities designed to facilitate learning independent of any formal online training
This third option provides an inexpensive way to transfer knowledge and expertise, especially if there are no existing formal courses. Communities are also quick to put together to meet a tight deadline in your project. You still have to make sure it is managed properly in order to get the results you desire, and has been noted in a previous post, your training specialists may not have the expertise. Find an expert in using social networking in learning.
An update on my last post: Mass layoffs (those that involve at least 50 workers) increased more than 50% in January. The industry with the highest number of unemployment claims? Temporary Help Services. Have you lost temporary help? |
Your Surprising Role in Layoffs
There are still layoffs to come in many organizations. If you are involved as one who is conducting the meetings with individual employees, or if you have workers who will be laid off , you want to make sure that there are as few legal actions as possible resulting from those layoffs. Harsh, but true.
The question is: What is the best thing for you to do to make the best of the situation and not make any errors?
Take special legal training? Not the most important.
Take special management training? There is something more important.
Just be nice? That sounds pretty lame.
But it's correct! It turns out that if you treat employees with dignity and respect during the notifications and afterwards, they will be less likely to initiate a lawsuit. Happy, but true. |
The Key Phrase To Manage Negative Feelings in the Workplace
Here's the key phrase to trigger your memory when you are trying to remember how to dampen the impact of negative feelings in the workplace: ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.
Sure, it may seem obvious now that you know it, but it took brain scientists untold thousands of dollars to show through special brain imagery that when people put their feelings into words, it puts them at ease. The happy place turns out to be the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.
You can save your projects untold thousands of dollars in this horrible global economy which has begat highly stressful workplaces. Just enable workers to talk about their trials and tribulations. They don't have to talk to you, just to someone - your employee assistance program, each other, significant others, other workers in similar circumstances. Tell them it is important that they talk to someone. Explain it in a way that is consistent with your organizational culture, which probably means that you don't want to mention "ventrolateral prefrontal cortex" unless you're in the health care field. Maybe not even there. Just tell them it works. |
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| I hate asking for change. They always make a face. It's like asking them to donate a kidney. |
| - George Costanza |
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