Comfori

Have you ever wondered why many “managers” do not get the most out of their employees? The answer is simpler than you think.

As a leader in an organization, your utmost responsibility is to provide your employees with a working environment that positively charged with motivation. Yet most managers do not particularly recognize this simple duty. Many managers tend to be promoted to a supervisory role due to their technical competence rather than people-management skills. As such, managers’ influence on the workforce is not always positive. The solution to this is in a few good words— literally speaking!

From the moment we are born, we instinctively recognize and respond to emotions. Even as infants, we react to positive facial expressions and warm voices with innocent laughter. Similarly, tears flow at the sign of the negative opposite. This pattern, though concealed with adult behavioral-masks, continues throughout our lives. We are emotional creatures, and these emotions function as a significant driver in our decision-making and execution process. When we feel good, we do well. When we feel bad… well, you get the point.

As a leader, your most important function is people management. That does not necessarily mean being “nice” all the time. However, it does mean showing positive emotions towards positive behavior. Often in our childhood, we were rewarded when we performed a desired behavior. These rewards clearly did not start with monetary compensation at that point, as that concept did not mean much to us then. Instead, the positive behavior was acknowledged and rewarded with a smile and a few good words, which insured you repeated that particular behavior. This is the effect of positive feedback.

According to research by the Corporate Leadership Council, a group that conducts research through several high profile organizations, providing positive feedback to your employees is categorized as an A-Level Driver, affecting performance with a value higher than 30 percent. The CLC also identified that while 89 percent of employees believe positive feedback to be their biggest motivator, only 39 percent seem to get any feedback at all.

Source: HumanResourcesIQ

CONVERSATION

The more things change, the more they stay the same. As the internet, and in particular, social media technologies become increasingly prevalent and pervasive, we have become comfortable creating and sharing content in new and seemingly unpredictable ways. For businesses seeking to thrive in this increasingly social environment, adapting to technological and socio-cultural changes may seem to be a daunting task. What appears to be at first complex becomes clearer, however, when we realise that the human values which underpin our use of social media – community, reciprocity, a desire for meaningful relationships – are fundamental drivers of human behaviour.

IF HR professionals are to maximise the human potential of employees, they must look to refine their business model to embody these core values. These core human values of connectedness is what is driving the underlying trend which has driven the rise of social networking and Internet cultures, and it is one which HR professionals must apply to the businesses they manage.

HR professionals are in a position to influence both the structure and culture of their organisations. Whether they believe this to be an operational or strategic matter is up to the individual – but regardless of the approaches taken, technology must be recognised as being primarily for the usage by humans, and secondarily about wires and circuits.

The current hierarchical models of business are built around principles from the previous centuries, particularly those of the Industrial Revolution. Companies are structured and their operational models are like machines, designed for efficiency to meet specific objectives. Employees are divided up into silos or ‘black box’ units which don’t communicate with one another, because according to traditional economic philosophy this helps them function more efficiently. While these rigid structures are efficient they don’t allow much flexibility. In an increasingly dynamic business landscape, flexibility and agility is a necessity, not an optional extra. Historical, rigid organisational structures will not have the flexibility to thrive or even survive in the future.

Social business; a new era

Instead, we should think of how we can build social businesses, working cultures which can transform how employees work and interact with each other to drive better business outcomes. If we look at current technology trends and the core human values discussed earlier, we can gain insight into how best to proceed. The success of social media technologies like Facebook and Twitter suggest that humans crave interpersonal connection; we want to be part of something larger, which is why we use such technologies to share content, engage in dialogue, and develop new relationships. Professional networking tools such as LinkedIn, and certain usage of Facebook and Twitter such as in critical disaster events, provide examples of how these activities are not simply frivolous – they can be harnessed by the business world and reap great benefits for those involved.

A social business, then, is a community rather than a factory or a machine. It brings employees together in clusters rather than separating them into silos. By encouraging collaboration and co-operation, it gives employees the freedom and means to work in the manner and with the people best suited to them – not according to the rigid procedures enforced in traditional top-down business models. While this may seem a terrifying prospect to managers, they need to understand that the most productive outcomes arise when employees know their actions matter, not only to their personal performance ratings, but also to the broader business community of which they’re a part.

In a social business, information flows more freely. Having the wrong information or taking too long to find it can not only dishearten the individuals who make up any business, but also slow down overall operations or in some cases derail them entirely. It may appear somewhat counterintuitive, but replacing linear bureaucratic processes with loose networks of information sharing allows information to be transferred between individuals much more efficiently. It means that the people who need information can get in touch with the people who have it, faster and more intuitively than before.

Finally, social businesses dispel with the rigid hierarchies which characterised earlier models. In the internet-mediated communities of today, everyone has an equal voice and an equal chance to be heard. Value judgements about this aside, we are living in an age where being able to speak up and be heard is considered one of our inalienable rights – and if organisations are not going to embrace it, their employees will find recourse in social media and online. This has implications for everything from corporate image and branding to the hiring and procurement processes: as the emphasis on transparent and flexible working environments grows, it will become increasingly important for HR executives to be able to demonstrate such attributes to potential employees and job-seekers.

Users in control

Most of us already know this at some level; but there is some apprehension when it comes to restructuring. First of all, restructuring an organisation is an immense task, one which can take up significant resources and time across the board. Continuous attempts at restructuring are not only prone to failure, they can generate even more inefficiencies due to policy discrepancies and general employee fatigue. However, the problem with this model of restructuring is deeper than just time and effort. In reference to the earlier analogy of a machine, restructuring is like taking the machine apart to perform a different function, but finding after the machine has been rebuilt that the requirements have shifted and another restructure is required. If we are to build social businesses, we must recognise that cohesive social networks and relationships are not instituted from the top down. Rather, they are created by the users or employees themselves.

What HR professionals can do is open the internal communication channels for such networks. They can work alongside IT executives to make available to the business the technological tools and channels which are already changing how we relate to our friends and families. They can also advise the C-Suite on the tangible benefits – adaptability, productivity, employee retention – of social business, and help fashion sustainable strategies to ensure the longevity of such ventures. Finally, they can communicate directly with their employees to ascertain what measures are in fact most likely to succeed.

We now understand businesses to be less like machines than living organisms. It is the connections between employees, the cells of the organisms, which determine whether it thrives or perishes. If we give our employees the tools to develop these channels of information and expertise, we stand the best chance of success for the future.

Source: HRM Asia

CONVERSATION

You just have too much on your plate, and chances are, your employees do as well. You suspect that you could all be making better use of your time, completing more projects and achieving more goals. You want to be more productive and help your team be more productive, but you aren’t sure where to start.

If this sounds familiar, you are far from alone in your confusion. Even the most successful and highly accomplished people have difficulty pinpointing whythey are so productive. The intuitive answer – that they are born predisposed to having the intelligence, creativity and willpower to get the job done – is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach more of their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do. Here are five scientifically-tested strategies that successful people use that are proven to help you reach your goals and make the most of your time.

1. Get specific: When setting a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Meet with every member of my team once a week” is a better goal than “meet more often with my team,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, tink about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you’ll “communicate more” is too vague – be clear and precise. “At our meeting, I’ll ask about each project we are currently working on” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, or whether or you’ve actually done it.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals: Given how busy most of us are, it’s not surprising that we often miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice those opportunities. Did you really have no time to work on that assignment today? Was there no chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of opportunities before they slip through your fingers.
To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “At 3pm today, I’ll stop whatever I’m doing and work on that report.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your productivity by roughly 300%.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go: Achieving any goal requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress. If no one else is looking over your shoulder, then you’ll need to monitor yourself, because if you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently – weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

4. Be a realistic optimist: Belief in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal or complete your project. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you unprepared for the journey ahead, significantly increasing the odds of failure. Express confidence in your employees, while always being honest with them about the challenges they’ll face.

5. Focus on getting better rather than being good: Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, personality and physical aptitudes are fixed – that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.
Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong – abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your full potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride and appreciate the journey as much as the destination. Along those lines, telling your employees that you expect them to make a few mistakes as they learn is, ironically, the surest way to elicit their very best performance.

Source: HRM Today