Archive for February, 2010
Simplicity, Clarity, Singleness: Goals for Bloggers to Achieve
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Every day I receive an email with motivational quote from HeartMath and I’ve saved many of them because they resonated at a particular time in my life. Last week, I received this one and it seemed totally appropriate for bloggers, so let me share it with you:
“Simplicity, clarity, singleness: these are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy.”
—– Richard Halloway
As I originally wrote for The Bloggers’ Bulletin, these are the attributes that bloggers strive for in their writing. I know that I do. Sometimes I find myself including too much information in a post. And I especially think that trying to stuff a post with key words so the search engines can find you can ruin a post – from the readers’ perspective.
This applies to large businesses, too, that have the resources to research the information needs of their customers. Maybe the words customers use are not the words the company is using in its advertising and promotional materials — and this includes blogs. What is great about blogging by companies is that they can generate immediate feedback from customers, if you hit their hot buttons — or key words.
Whether you are writing for yourself or your employer, ask yourself these questions: Are the key words really relevant to your content? Are you writing for your readers with simplicity and clarity? Are you articulating one key idea in the post that is easy for the readers to understand? Is the idea likely to stir comments from readers?
It’s easy to get discouraged when a brilliantly written blog (in your view) falls flat with readers. Let’s all keep at it with a will to getting better and enthusiasm for our ideas. I will leave you with another quote that I hope will make your blogging a happy and productive experience.
“Begin growing from where you are – not from where others think you ought to be by now.”
—— Steven Douglas Lawrence
Should Google Tamper With its Brand for the Olympics?
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Have you noticed – how could you miss it – that the familiar Google logo is nowhere to be seen on the search engine’s landing page? Instead, a soft green Google logo, with a sports figure matching the day’s events at the Winter Olympics, has replaced the colorful one that about a billion searchers see each day.
If you’re a sports fan, you may love it. But a lot of people actually hate it (OK, maybe my friend is not representative of the universe). They want the familiar Google. And, remember, not everyone is a sports fan.
But there is a larger issue here: should a company tamper with its brand identity when it is the category leader? That’s putting it mildly for Google. Yet, we’ve seen damage inflicted on companies that tied their brand to a celebrity and/or a particular sport when things turned sour (read Accenture and Tiger Woods).
On the other hand, the Olympics generate a tremendous amount of excitement and pride in the athletes and their countries. That can provide a “halo” effect for a company like Google.
So, what do you think?
11 Tips to Improve Employee Motivation, Employee Satisfaction & Employee Retention
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Praise promotes employee motivation
The idea for this article came from a conversation I just had with a friend who works for one of the largest companies and best-known brands in the world. Yet the company sucks at employee motivation. If they haven’t got it figured out, then heaven’s knows many other companies are still in the dark, too, about what kinds of things motivate employees and that lead to employee satisfaction and retention.
He gave me a couple of examples that were almost laughable.The company held an off-site to reward their biggest producers. Yet, the budget didn’t include money for lunch, which had to come out of the pockets of the attendees. Come on. Not even a sandwich and a soda? The advertised “atta-boy” program devolved into here are your numbers for next year, with the implied threat that you won’t be at next year’s pep rally or even the company if you don’t come up big. Not much of a motivator.
I’m not naïve. A salary increase or bonus are great motivators. Yet, most of the tips I’m about to suggest cost little or no money to implement. It all comes down to employee communication: saying what you mean and meaning what you say in clear, concise language. Here goes:
1. Clear job descriptions. This may seem like a surprising first tip. It sure is motivating to know what your job is. If people don’t know what they’re expected to do, how can they achieve exceptional performance?
2. Chain of command. One of the Big Four accounting firms did a survey a number of years ago and 75% of the employees didn’t know who they reported to. Tough to give a pat on the back when you don’t whose backs you have.
3. Ask employees what they need. Duh. Hey, do you have all the tools you need to do your job? What do you need? How can I help?
4. Give immediate feedback. This is one of my favorites. People are desperate to know how they are doing. Forget the annual performance review; it’s a dinosaur. Discuss a specific instance where the employee did well or where he needs to improve.
5. Praise outstanding performance. This couldn’t be simpler and it costs nothing. If an employee exceeds standards, let her know. Send an email to everyone in her group. Make it easy for others to find out without having to navigate the company’s over-stuffed intranet.
6. Enlist employees as brand advocates. If you haven’t already, take the muzzle off your employees and let them represent themselves and their company on social media. (See my post 7 Steps to Making Your Employees Brand Ambassadors)
7. Make employees part of the solution. Somewhere, someone in the company knows how to fix something that’s wrong. Remember, that decisions should be delegated to the people who have the facts – and that’s not always those at the top of the company.
8. Encourage collaboration. It’s a real bummer when divisions are pitted against each other to compete for business. This was almost the downfall of one of the major money center banks. Assemble the best client service team, no matter where the players reside in the company. They will be highly motivated to get the business as collaborators and not competitors.
9. Sponsor friendly competitions. No, this isn’t a contradiction. People do love to compete. So sponsor a competition for new ideas within a profit center and reward the winner with a prize, like dinner for two at a four-star restaurant. Or, have each employee submit a video to compete for best-in-class product demonstration.
10. Hold town hall meetings. Gather individual communities of employees, give them an update on the company and their group, and encourage conversation about how you can all work together to achieve greatness.
11. Get the CEO talking. The CEO (see my post CEO as Chief Communications Officer) can do more for employee engagement than anyone in the company. Communicate often with how the company is doing, your role in contributing to our success, and how you will be rewarded. Golden.
Within companies of any size, there are communities that are defined by the organization chart but many more that form organically. Be sure to communicate the things that will motivate that community like praise for a job well done. It will pay big dividends in employee motivation, satisfaction and retention of your star players.
Make More Money Through Employee Engagement
Posted by: | CommentsYet another study finds that effective employee engagement drives financial performance. So let’s keep hammering home that two-way communication with employees is key to a company’s success. It isn’t just something touch-feely that can be dispensed with when times are bad. Shouldn’t employees just be happy they have a job? No. Engaging your employees during a recession and making them part of the solution can be a measurable competitive advantage. Benefits consulting firm Watson Wyatt (now Towers Watson) makes the case in its study, “Capitalizing on Effective Communication: How Courage, Innovation and Discipline Drive Business Results in Challenging Times”. Here is what they learned.
Key Findings
- Effective employee communication is a leading indicator of financial performance and a driver of employee engagement. Companies that are highly effective communicators had 47% higher total returns to shareholders over the last five years compared with firms that the least effective communicators.
- Despite all of the organizational and beneficial changes employers have been making in response to challenging economic conditions, only 14% of the survey participants are explaining the terms of the new Employee Value Proposition (EVP)* to their employees.
- The best invest in helping leaders and managers communicate with employees. While only three out of 10 organizations are training managers to deal openly with resistance to change, highly effective communicators are more than three times as likely to do this as the least effective communicators.
- Despite the increased use of social media, companies are still struggling to measure the return on their investment in these tools. Highly effective communicators are more likely than the least effective communicators to report their social media tools are cost-effective (37% vs. 14%).
- Measurement is critical. Companies that are less effective communicators are three times as likely as highly effective communicators to report having no formal measurements of communication effectiveness.
Makes sense to me.
*The term Employee Value Proposition EVP or “employment deal” broadly refers to what employees can expect from the company and what the employer expects from the employee.
