|
|
|
|
Ten Ways to Energize Your Staff By Terry Bragg Where is your staff’s energy level? Do they come to work excited and raring to go? Or are they just putting in their time, dragging along, or burnt out? Every organization experiences the blahs at times. Use these tips to re-energize yourself and your staff. 1. Celebrate. Don’t wait for some really big accomplishment to celebrate. Have mini celebrations to keep the enthusiasm and excitement level high. Celebrate milestones. Celebrate relationships. Celebrate special events or days. If you have trouble with this idea, hire a few party animals to guide you through the process. Celebrations bring people together and help build working relationships. 2. Recognize and reward. Reward behaviors and accomplishments you want repeated. Show appreciation to your staff. Recognition and rewards do not have to cost a lot of money. The best rewards are usually inexpensive and creative. Show you care about your staff by showing your appreciation for the work they do. 3. Communicate. Let people know what’s going on—both good news and disturbing news. Give the reasoning behind decisions and plans. Be open and honest with people about how the organization is doing. Remember that communication is two-way. So listen to your staff. Really listen with the intent to understand their situation, ideas, and problems. Move from a monologue to a dialogue. 4. Practice safe stress. There are two kinds of stress: good stress and bad stress. Good stress helps you achieve peak performance by keeping you sharp mentally and physically. Bad stress drains energy, creates health problems, and damages performance. In the extreme, bad stress leads to burn-out—a common condition in the modern workplace. People get stressed out when they feel they are under pressure and cannot control their situation. Fight bad stress by learning effective stress management techniques. 5. Develop a sense of humor. No, you don’t have to be a comedian. You do need to lighten up and find ways to have fun at work. Plenty of studies show that people who have fun at work out perform grumps. The best humor is situational humor where a group finds humor in the same experience. Caution: Make sure you avoid put-down humor and discriminatory humor. 6. Breakdown barriers. Ask your staff what prevents them from doing a better job. Ask about the obstacles they encounter at work. Then try to remove those barriers. Assist your staff by making their jobs easier. Barriers often involve the "white spaces" in organizations. These are the spaces between departments and groups that seem insurmountable in getting support or cooperation. 7. Promote a sense of pride. Show your staff that they can be proud of their work and proud of their organization. If you are proud of them, they will be proud of themselves. 8. Create a shared vision. What’s your higher purpose at work? What’s your vision of what you’re trying to accomplish? How does your work fit into the bigger picture? Create a shared vision by discussing your vision and listening to the visions of your staff. Create a shared vision that drives people to achieve a higher purpose together. 9. Be congruent with your values. Walk your talk. Make sure your work, work ethic, and values match. Make sure the work your staff does matches their values. For example, if you claim that you value life balance, then don’t require people to work sixty hour weeks. 10. Watch your attitude. Workers perform the way their supervisors expect them to perform. If the supervisor thinks a worker is a slouch, then the worker tends to be a slouch. If the supervisor thinks a worker is a peak performer, then the work usually lives up to that expectation. The attitude of the immediate supervisor has a tremendous impact on the attitude of a worker. Make sure your attitude is positive. When you or your staff needs an energy boost, use these tips to get you out of the doldrums. Terry Bragg and Peacemakers Training offers a variety of tools for promoting, maintaining, and recognizing excellence in your workplace. We also offer tools for helping you achieve and maintain personal excellence. To learn more about these tools, click here: Tools for Workplace and Personal Excellence To find out more about Terry's book, 31 Days to High Self-Esteem, click here: 31 Days to High Self-Esteem To learn more about onsite seminars and workshops for improving interpersonal relationships, resolving conflict, and promoting and maintaining excellence in your workplace, click here: Seminars & Workshops ©2001 All rights reserved Terry Bragg•Peacemakers Training Terry Bragg runs a company called Peacemakers Training in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is the author of the book 31 Days to High Self-Esteem. He works with organizations to create a workplace where people want to work, and with managers who want their people to work together better. If you want your organization or your people to have more energy, more trust, more respect, and more meaning, please contact him at: Peacemakers Training Subscribe to our Free |
|