Court decisions on Seller of Travel Responsibilities by Zigmund Sepanski
Cruise-A-Thon, Florida

How to Evaluate & Motivate Employees
By Zigmund Sepanski
American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Value of Multi-level Assessment Instruments
By Zigmund Sepanski
AmCham Journal

Role of Human Resources in Developing Countries
By Zigmund Sepanski
AmCham Journal

Do You Really Want Leaders?
By Zigmund Sepanski
AmCham Journal

Most Training is a Waste of Money
By Zigmund Sepanski
American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Time Management for Home Based Agents
By Zigmund Sepanski
Travel Trade Magazine

In last months' issue we left off at the beginning of the employee retention and motivation discussion. Obviously you want to retain good employees and let go of the non-performers. However, in too many instances the non-performers are actually good employees who are not properly trained or properly motivated by the company.

This is one area where goals and goal performance appraisals have a significant impact. Unfortunately, most managers review their personnel once a year, which is not enough. The human resource department should teach managers how to review employees and should develop a company-specific goal setting and review to be used on a quarterly basis.

This process is used to MOTIVATE employees and show them where they are good and where they need to improve. A goal setting review should address at least the following points:

1. What do you see as your major responsibilities?
2. Identify three areas where you perform well
3. Discuss three areas where you need to improve
4. Lets loot at three goals that you need and want to work towards.

The goals must be quantifiable and measurable. For example, "answer the phone better" is not a goal. It does not have specific instructions and quantifiable criteria. A goal would be: "will answer the phone in three rings or less and say 'good morning, ABC company, this is (your name), how can I help you?"

Another example would be a customer satisfaction goal given to a soft drink delivery driver. A bad goal would be: "If you see that one of our customers is dissatisfied customer s be more friendly next time."

A good goal would be: "Next time you see a dissatisfied customer apologize to him (even if it is not our company's fault), help to solve the problem and even offer the client a soft drink. If you can't resolve the problem yourself then reassure the client that you will contact someone within the next few hours who can. Then follow up.

Together with goal analysis goes an objective performance appraisal. Human Resources (HR) responsibility here is to develop a document that can be used by all departments that fits your country's reality. Questions must be specific, lead to positive action and must not be skipped by the interviewing manager.

The HR professional should also train department managers to avoid the halo effect.  This happens when a manager sees one person as one of his best employees and consistently gives high remarks.  On the other hand, he may see some individuals as his poorest employees and, no matter what they do, he gives them consistently low remarks.  That is why you must develop questions to be specific and cover one activity and time dimension.

A question such as, “Is the employee a good sales-development employee?” is a bad question.  While, “What three things has the employee done in new client development in the last 50 days?” is a much better question.

Now, let us talk about motivation.  Do you agree that money is the biggest motivator for an employee?  Surprise!  It is not.  It is the biggest motivator for attracting employees but not the biggest motivator for employee retention and motivation once he or she is part of the company.

Surveys done on thousands of employees indicate that other factors are more important than money.  The highlighted box on the opposite page contains a brief survey you can take yourself so that you can determine what motivates your employees.  It is suggested that you have this or similar tests given to managers to see what they think motivates their employees.  Then, give the test directly to employees and have them return it anonymously.  Your managers may be surprised.

  (PowerBusiness will gladly fax a localized translation of the test if you fax your request to WaWa 30-03-11, Attn: PowerBusiness.  Tel: 630-4055; Fax: 300-311.)

  We gave this test to hundreds of employees in Central Europe and it is interesting to see how the last 45 years of indoctrination affects responses. 

One very interesting point was the getting awards question.  In many of our clients’ surveys, employees rated this extremely low.  We all know that this point is quite high on Western lists.  After focus group discussion, it was discovered that many employees equate this to the old system and in their words, one week you got an award and had your picture on a poster, the next week your accomplishment was a threat to someone and you found yourself never heard from again.

The key to motivation is an individual approach.  A pat on the back and a thank you does tremendous things for people.  Of course, you do not do that just for good work which is only expected; you do that for exceptional work.  Many people do not know that good is the enemy of excellent.

A side comment relative to this topic involves the many Western HR executives who get frustrated with the lack of decision-making ability displayed by line managers or employees.

One must remember that over the past 45 years certain habits were very strongly ingrained.  These habits include decision avoidance, commitment obfuscation, problem non-solution and finally the nie syndrome.  You were taught NOT to make decisions because you could challenge authority if you learned decision-making.

Now, Westerners come to Central Europe and want to change this 45-year old habit overnight.  It will require patience and creative approaches to allow the pent-up creativity which is there in droves to emerge.



© 1995 - 2010 Zigmund Sepanski AKA Zygmunt Szczepanski