MISSISSIPPI SHRMMotivating Your Employees

Sunday, May 12, 13

MotivationWhat motivates your employees? While this may sound like a simple

question to answer it is, unfortunately, not so. Many businesses allocate a portion of the yearly budget for nothing else but motivating their employees. Many businesses, on the other hand, do not feel that spending money to motivate an employee who is already being paid is

necessary. Regardless of which is right, wrong, or if there is even a right/wrong factor in play, the bottom line is that we are all motivated by something. It was recently stated by someone that “I work so that I have the means to do the other things in life I want to do”. To some

degree this might hold a bit of truth for all of us.

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Employees sometimes feel

like they are ghosts.

Do we even see them?

Sunday, May 12, 13

Productivity Suffers

How much is lost due to watching the clock ready to go home?

It’s only 8:15!

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MANAGER MADNESSSpend $50 and increase productivity!

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Let us begin with a warning and get the negative out of the way before we move on to the positive. Should you decide to invest not only company funds but your own time and energy into a motivational endeavor it is important to secure commitment from the

key players who will be participating. One of the worst things that can happen when

attempting to motivate employees is to have them say “oh, here they go again” because they’ve seen the company start/stop/stop/

stop/start/start/start, etc. etc. etc. and they’ve lost faith. Make them expect the unexpected.

Sunday, May 12, 13

This is what Manager Madness Fridays is all about. Instead of having

a weekly “event” that is the same thing each week done by the same

person(s), Manager Madness involves all managers causing each week to be

owned by a different manager. In doing so it creates manager

interaction, causes managers to work together, and creates interactions between employees and managers who would not normally interact.

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This is how it works:

Choose a project manager (usually one but no more than two managers) who will be responsible for making sure

that something is done each week. Next, decide the duration of the motivational campaign and how much

money you want to spend ($10/$20/$25/$50) – or decide if you want to do it indefinitely and decide on what day of the

week you want to use and assign a different manager to each week.

(You could have Manager Madness Mondays to start off the week or randomly choose a different day of the week each

week to keep the employees on the watch.) Let the manager choose from a list or create his/her own thing to do for the week. (Caution here – make sure the project

leader reviews the game to ensure it is appropriate.) Then, have fun!

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Movie Night – Make it a movie night. Buy a gift certificate from the local theatre and a local restaurant. Then, enter all employees (minus managers) into a drawing. Draw a name – the winner gets dinner and a movie.

Sunday, May 12, 13

Make sure the events work for your office setup.

If all of your employees work outside the office then you might want to choose something done completely by email.

In the end, make sure that it is FUN for your employees.

Remember, you want to MOTIVATE!

A Few Suggestions:

Sunday, May 12, 13

BINGO – Buy bingo cards. Scan the cards (color if possible) so that they can be used again. Print out the copies, cut them, and paste them to a poster. Periodically throughout the day pull numbers until someone gets BINGO. You can have two winners ($25/each) or five ($10/each.)

Sunday, May 12, 13

Mystery Manager – Collect facts about a manager but find some facts that are the same for more than one manager. (Example: I work with marketing could mean the Marketing Manager plus his/her manager.) Send out the clues via email. (To make it really fun create a mystery manager email address so that they can’t tell who sent the email!) At the end of the day the person who guesses correctly wins. Have a drawing if more than one guessed correctly.

Sunday, May 12, 13

Where in the Office is (item)? – Choose an item in the office. (Perhaps the CEO’s paperweight, perhaps a No Smoking Sign from the reception area, perhaps……..you get the picture!) Take the item to various places around the office and take pictures. Then, send the pictures out via email periodically throughout the day. Let employees guess the location and the winner is the person who guesses the most correctly. As always, if more than one winner, do a drawing.

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Your Company History - Ask a series of questions about your company. (Examples are: When was your company founded? When did you move into your current location? What is the full name of the owner of your company? How many people work for your company?) Allow the employees to answer the questions and then choose a winner from the person who answered the most correctly. If a tie – as usual – do a drawing. This will serve the purpose of having a motivational game but also serve to teach employee’s information that they may/might not know/remember about your company.

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MOTIVATE

IN THE END

Sunday, May 12, 13

Acknowledgements:

Visit MSSHRM at http://www.msshrm.org

Information taken from HRtoWHO by Kyle Jones @ http://kylemjones.com.

Sunday, May 12, 13