Supervision

Chapter 8: Inspiring
Employees to Better
Performance
 Employee Development
• There are two ways to motivate employees:
rewards and punishments.
• The best employee development is ongoing
and requires that you support and encourage
your employees’ initiative.
• The terms training and development can have
two distinctly different meanings.
• There are numerous reasons why developing
your employees is a good idea.
 Development Plan
• The career development plan is the heart and soul of
your efforts to develop your employees.
• All career development plans must contain at minimum
the following key elements:
– Specific learning goals.
– Resources required to achieve the designated
learning goals.
– Employee responsibilities and resources.
– Required date of completion for each learning goal.
– Standards for measuring the accomplishment of
learning goals.
Helping Employees
• As a manager,
your role is to
be alert to the
development
needs of your
employees and
to keep an eye
out for potential
development
opportunities.
 Helping Employees
• To develop your employees to meet the
coming challenges within your organization,
follow these steps:
– Meet with your employees about their careers.
– Discuss your employees’ strengths and
weaknesses.
– Assess where your employees are now.
– Create career development plans.
– Follow through on your agreements, and make
sure that your employees follow through on
theirs.
 Mentoring
• A mentor is most typically an individual
high up in the organization who isn’t
your boss.
• Mentors provide definite benefits to the
employees they mentor, and they further
benefit the organization.
• Recognizing the potential benefits for the
development of their employees, many
organizations have formalized the
mentoring process.
 Rewards
• You can develop employees by giving them
habits that will make them successful.
• If managers reward their employees at all, most
managers reward the wrong things.
• For an incentive program to have meaningful
and lasting effects, it must focus on
performance.
• Everyone, regardless of how smart, talented, or
productive they are, has the potential to be a
top performer.
 Performance
• Managers must focus on performance-based
measures to recognize and reward
employees.
• A well-thought-out and planned rewards
system is important to creating a motivated,
effective workforce.
• There are several simple guidelines for
setting up a system of low-cost rewards in
your organization.
 What Employees Want
• Bob Nelson’s
survey presents
the top ten most
important items
to employees.
– A “cash
reward” ranked
thirteenth in
importance to
employees.
 What Employees Want
• Instead of using threats and intimidation
to get things done, managers must create
environments that support their
employees and allow creativity to
flourish.
• Employees report that the most important
aspects at work today are primarily the
intangible aspects of the job that any
manager can easily provide.
 Motivating
• The simplest way to find out how to
motivate your employees is to ask them.
• Often managers assume that their
employees want only money.
• Plan to provide employees more of what
they value and stick with your approach
over time.
 Being Positive
• You’re more likely to lead your
employees to greater results by
focusing on their positive
accomplishments rather than by finding
fault.
• Years of psychological research have
clearly shown that positive
reinforcement works better than
negative reinforcement.
 Being Positive
• Reward your employees
for their small successes
as well as for their big
successes.
• Remember that praising
your employees’ progress
toward the goal is
perhaps even more
important than praising
them when they finally
reach it.
 Rewarding Employees
• Although money, in the form of a raise or bonus, may
be the most obvious choice it is not always the best
choice.
• Many managers have thrown lots of money into cash-
reward programs, these programs didn’t have the
positive effect on motivation expected.
• Because you know that money is not the most
effective motivation tool, you can focus on using tools
that are more effective—and the best forms of
recognition cost little or no money!
• Every employee needs to be recognized when they do
good work in their job.
 Employee Recognition
• In Bob Nelson’s book 1001 Ways to Reward
Employee he lists thousands of real-life positive
rewards, most of which cost little or nothing.
• The findings are prioritized in order of greatest
importance and includes:
– Support and Involvement.
– Personal Praise.
– Autonomy and Authority.
– Flexible Working Hours.
– Learning and Development.
• Use the proven recognition strategies to create the
most motivating work environment in which every
employee feels valued, trusted, and respected!
 Summary
•Developing and mentoring employees not
only gives them the skills they need to be
excellent at their current job but also
prepares them for future jobs in their
career. In addition to development, rewards
and praise also motivate employees. Using
these skills will increase the efficiency and
productivity of your staff as well as
improve employees’ morale.
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