Encouragement + reward = happier staff

Having explored a number of actions last time, there are a number of other points you can consider to ensure that your team produces high-level results. Again, although these actions may be stated in their simplest form, it is imp-ortant to remember that they must be carried out in a professional manager if they are to be fully effective.

10 -  Run weekly meetings: Never run a meeting without an agenda and always keep to the schedule—especially the start time. A great way to run meetings is in two segments as follows: 

(a) Feedback on progress on key result areas, actions taken last week, actions scheduled this week and any issues to be resolved.

(b) Identify an issue you want to solve, such as client retention, and get the team to brainstorm 21 ways to make progress. Prioritise the top three and allocate actions for that week, while also ensuring that the notes from both are written up and recorded. 

11 - Invest in professional and personal development: One of the requirements we all have is to learn and develop—encourage this in your team. This could simply mean investing in a library and actively encouraging your team to take items regularly and go through them. Amazon is a great source for books and Nightingale Conant for audio prog-rammes or, alternatively, you can invest in in-house training programmes.

12 - Make contribution and service a part of your company culture: People have a need to make a difference in their community and generally people like to serve, while they also like to work with companies where service is a part of the culture. Find a community project where you can make a contribution with people each year—you can easily decide how and when. 

13 - Surprise people with something special: Close the doors at 4.00pm and take them down the pub for an hour or get a case of beer in, or give them tickets to the movies, or a music voucher. Do something they are not expecting—an emotional jackpot to acknowledge their contribution.

14 - Reward and recognise success: People love recognition; take time to think about how you will publicly recognise and reward people for the contribution they make.  This could simply be a specific recognition at a team meeting, or you could think bigger like plaques and awards. In addition, dinner for two is very inex-pensive but has a big impact on the recipient. 

15 - Spend one-to-one time with the ‘eagles’ and group time with the rest: Recognise that the demands will generally operate in the opposite direction—the lower performers are usually the ones demanding solutions to everything, while the high perf-ormers are getting on with things. Schedule time in your diary for the eagles and let the others know you will deal with their issues during group time, such as team meetings.

16 - Have open communications sys-tems: Create a culture where people know what is going on; there is nothing worse in a company than rumours or gossip around the water-cooler. This is particularly important in tough times and that is when it is more difficult.  I have found that if I am open and trust people, then generally I have been much better off. 

17 - Build trust—do what you say you are going to do: This is fundamental; we have all been involved in companies where the trust factor is low. Only commit to something you are resolved to carry out and where you have a feedback mechanism for your employees. 

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