Getting Your Workplace Revved…!

Creating a positive, high-energy workplace can be difficult. But, it’s oh so important!

It’s no secret that in these times of uncertainty, people are feeling stress on the job and off. And that impacts performance. Today, organizations must do all they can to keep spirits high, their employees performing at their peak. Finding ways to motivate your team … energize the work climate … renew enthusiasm and super-charge results is the path to greater happiness on the job … and stronger organizational results. Here’s how!

How Managers Can Embrace Fun in the Workplace
1. They facilitate interaction.
2. They encourage shop talk among employees.
3. They create focus groups and project teams.
4. They remove some of the barriers that separate departments and employees.
5. They acknowledge small accomplishments.
6. They encourage and reward action.
7. They are persistent: Create a climate that supports the principles of “be there,” “make their day,” “play,” and “choose your attitude.”
8. They give their employees choices. This lets employees feel a sense of control over their task and environment, which creates ownership and involvement because the task becomes personalized.
9. They change motivations.
10. They make the choice to live more joyfully, responsibly, and wholeheartedly.
11. They coach and are coachable.

Empower Your Staff
• The benefits of empowerment:
— For customers: faster responses, “playful” service, and involvement
— For staff: job satisfaction, more interaction, and “play” with customers

• The three steps of empowerment:

1. Keep employees informed/educated about organization’s vision, values, and performance.
2. Train employees with the skills they need so they can contribute to the organization’s goals.
3. Give employees the power to make decisions on behalf of customers.

• Do you get in the way of empowerment?
— Do you support efforts that promote the fun philosophy?
— Are there any areas that prevent empowerment?

• What rules and procedures need to be destroyed to allow empowerment?

• Types of empowerment
— Taking suggestions from employees
— Sharing information

Give People a Role
• Give everyone a key role. This gets them committed to action and the ability to involve their people in turn.
• Lower-level employees provide critical real-time information and ideas that directly affect operations and processes.
• Employees who are powerless behave like victims.

Bureaucracies and Barriers Stifle Action and Create Indifference
• Structural bureaucracies, such as complicated approval processes
• Policy barriers, such as inflexible or outdated personnel guidelines
• Practices that do not recognize risk-taking or innovation
• Lack of skills needed to participate effectively

Ways to Create Meaningful Involvement
• Let all employees devise their own action plan.
— Assess how their performance fits into the vision.
— Participate in identifying specifics to meet goals.
— Brainstorm barriers.
— Identify ways to prevent or overcome the barriers.

• Agree to a timetable with the team and individuals.

• Document the agreement