How do you motivate employees without using $$$ (employee, 401k, average)
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How can you motivate employees that make very little money (and Sr. Mgmnt wants to keep it like that) to be the best they can be?
Can it be done in a positive way?
No! Why? Since, even if you buy them beers every day, when they get home and are faced with their tearful children wanting shoes, socks and underwear, then as he/she turns away from them, he/she is faced with their partner/spouse wanting money for the utility and the mortgage and the parking ticket with tears in his/her eyes. That beer or star next to their name has lost its glowing feeling....
lol
Advice: Give the employees stocks in the company. Give them health care, Groom them to move up the company ladder! Train them!! thru. apprenticeship programs or tuition reimbursment. You can get help with this from the government, IF it will lead to well-paid employment!!
I'd say it's difficult because most people work for money. If you expect low paying employees to be motivated 'because' you are eventually going to lose these people to better jobs/companies.
You will find you may get one or two stellar people, but the rest will be 'disgruntled', 'poor performers,' and generally not good workers.
Is management willing to spend any money on these people? I have worked at places so tight they squeaked and who refused to pony up a few raises to keep the people happy, but instead would have us stand around in 'ra ra' sessions talking about how great the company's profits are that year.
Stock in the company as there is no out of pocket expense and produces morale and pride because of the shareholder status versus low paid employee status. If need be, dilute shares to get these lower paid employees something to hold onto. Generally speaking, that may be as close as they ever get to becoming a business owner. You could always buy back the share(s) if you get to the point of finalizing your exit strategy as long as it is defensible and reasonable.
Tell them, in this economic environment we are all in, they should feel lucky to have a job. And then tell them, while they're feeling all good about their lucky plight, that there is going to be a 10% pay cut from all employees because the company is losing money. Just don't tell them it's because the boss bought a 50' boat to match his new vacation home in Bermuda.
I lived this once several years ago in a recession.
Tell them, in this economic environment we are all in, they should feel lucky to have a job. And then tell them, while they're feeling all good about their lucky plight, that there is going to be a 10% pay cut from all employees because the company is losing money. Just don't tell them it's because the boss bought a 50' boat to match his new vacation home in Bermuda.
I lived this once several years ago in a recession.
I am starting to wonder if negative motivation is really the only opp.
This is not something I am personally living with, just wondering.
Was at a McDonalds the other day, and you could tell the people just didnt care. Got me wondering how you can motivate people at jobs like this...
How can you motivate employees that make very little money (and Sr. Mgmnt wants to keep it like that) to be the best they can be?
Can it be done in a positive way?
Here's my question to you: since you brought it up, I wonder whether this is something you're attempting to do? (Hopefully not; I'd like to think that somewhere out there, someone actually cares about their workers--as opposed to finding yet one more way to screw them).
The problem is when you have a crappy job and they are paying you poorly there is no incentive to try harder. Also you have people willing to work for peanuts because they have no other choice. Why should companies pay better and actually reward good workers? They'd rather keep the profits. It's easier just to hire new drones every few months.
Here's my question to you: since you brought it up, I wonder whether this is something you're attempting to do? (Hopefully not; I'd like to think that somewhere out there, someone actually cares about their workers--as opposed to finding yet one more way to screw them).
I am thinking of going into an industry notorious for paying its employees low wages. wondering what i, as a front line manager, could do to motivate them to do their best.
Well, I know one way I did it was by empathizing with my co-workers. I was a supervisor over them and our main boss wanted a video to be finished by a certain deadline. There was NO point in the video other than my boss was upset that his wife was gone for a month and he wanted something to distract him, so he made us work on some sort of video project. His wife was back, but he still wanted it done and none of us really knew why. So, I said this to them: "Look, we all know there's no point in this video other than management wanting to prove that they have power. However, we are all in the same boat and we should all take charge and get this video done. Once it is done, then we can all relax and continue doing what we were doing to begin with. I'm going to do a lot of the editing as well, but I need your help."
To this day, I look at the arrogant managers/supervisors/etc and cringe at the way they treat employees. I treat people, even the ones I'm suppose to "reign" over, as co-workers and I would NEVER give a co-worker something that I would not do myself unless my boss told me to do it. It means I had to work harder than previous supervisors, but at the same time I had the respect of co-workers and most of them were willing to work harder b/c I didn't treat them like scum.
Other ways of boosting morale without raising pay: incentives. Many have mentioned stocks, tuition reimbursement, 401K, health/dental/vision, etc. I have worked at companies that threw parties or had white elephant christmases where employees would open surprise gifts from one another. I personally believe that allowing for more breaks and vacation time improves morale as well. In advertising the majority of the advertisements from my research that won awards were European companies (30 days of vacation a year on average). A friend of mine told me that the fashion company she worked for in America said, "Don't worry about designing. Just find out what's big in Europe and try to copy their designs." I know Google supposedly had some sort of special days or hours where employees were free to just roam around and be creative. They supposedly received better ideas this way.
So, I say more freedom, more empathy, more incentives, and just making sure they know that they are on an equal playing field can boost morale. I personally hate the crap that goes on with the head honchos on top hiding away from the hard working people on the bottom. Also, their arrogance is staggering! It's as though they forget that they hire people and not robots. Perhaps I would suck in the business world b/c I'm not as cut-throat, but I know my people mostly came into work on time and worked rather hard when I was supervisor because I treated them like they were on the same field as me. I wish more people would do this. It really does improve things.
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