The past decade has brought dramatic changes to the world's retail community! This is the toughest climate most retailers have ever faced! Keeping pace in today's fast-moving and unpredictable marketplace isn't easy.
Never has business been so challenging. Whether you call them power centers, factory outlets, off-price retailers, or mass merchandisers, shoppers perceive that they all deliver roughly the same thing: so-called good merchandise, one-stop shopping convenience, and a chance for customers to save a few bucks.
Employee motivation.. It's something all employers must focus on in order to get the most out their employees. For retail owners, whose employees are often part-time, the charge of motivating employees can be even more challenging. Part-time jobs attract a full range of workers ---- from students to retirees to people who may just want to earn extra cash and may not see the position as a career. How do you get the most out of this diverse group of employees who work a limited number of hours each week?
Most of us have a mental image of how an organization changes over time. For many of us it is a dated scenario in which top management emerges from a closed-door meeting with a new direction for the organization, which they announce to employees and which rolls down the organization like a waterfall with every person falling into line to adhere to the new marching orders.
With the changing nature of work today, managers have to adapt to new circumstances for recognizing employee performance. Employees are increasingly more empowered to make decisions and the workplace itself is being redefined to include telecommuting, flexible working hours and job sharing. Many organizations are also moving to decentralized operations in which an employee's manager may physically be located at a different facility or even a different state.
Although the concept of positive reinforcement and the related principle that you get what you reward are well-founded in the psychology literature, the effective use of positive reinforcement by practicing managers is uneven and often totally lacking in day-to-day business operations. My Ph.D. study explored the conditions that enable or inhibit the use by managers of non-monetary recognition (NMR).
The Study
A lot of otherwise exceptional recognition opportunities come undone at the point of delivery. Organizations devote time, money, and effort to recognizing employee achievement, yet when it comes to presenting the award, the potential to add meaning and impact goes unfulfilled. For example, a top engineer receives an achievement award for technical excellence, which is presented to him by the CEO at a quarterly managers' luncheon.
Today's article discusses gathering and implementing suggestions from your employees. This can be a valuable tool, not only for the obvious benefit of having many heads at your disposal, but also because it lends to employees feeling valuable and appreciated. Read on and enjoy! Only 41 percent of surveyed employees believe the typical company listens to employees' ideas.
The average American worker makes only one or two suggested per year; the average Japanese worker, however, submits hundreds of suggestions to his or her employer annually.
Recipe for Good Management: Allow Employees to Take Initiative What makes a good manager? There are all sorts of definitions about management that attempt to describe what a manager does. Some of my favorites include "getting things done through others," "being paid to make the difficult decisions," and "protecting one's people from the rest of the organization." Yet I believe a better definition might be found in focusing on what a manager does NOT do.
In most organizations, the CEO sets the tone for how people are treated. Are employees valued for what they do on a frequent, individual basis or are they treated in aggregate as a line item in the budget? Increasingly, the best CEOs are initiating actions that demonstrate their commitment to valuing their employees in a very hands-on manner.
The world of work has changed - fundamentally and forever - and so too have the employees who work within it. It used to be that most employers were able to offer their employees guaranteed employment. In exchange, employees gave their loyalty, involvement, and commitment to the company. However, times have changed, and this simple exchange between employer and employee is a thing of the past. Not only is guaranteed employment gone, but so too is employee loyalty. Managers today need new ways to get employees to do their best.
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