Article Contributed by Jessica Francisco
It was never a secret that the employees of your organization are one of your greatest assets. They are the foundation of the business. If not for them, the business wouldn’t be operating. It has always been a challenge for all managers and leaders of organization to ensure utmost performance of their personnel. Their performance dictates what the business can do and what they can offer to their customers. The way your employees carry out their work is one of the largest contributing factor for your business’ long term success. In this article, you’ll learn some ways on how you can motivate and boost the morale of your employees for them to perform better.
Below are the Top 5 ways that you could look into to uplift your employees’ work habits:
5. Coaching Programs
Nothing beats open communication. Talk to your employees religiously. Initiating a conversation with them will feed their need of self-significance. They will feel that they belong to the team, that they are important and that their actions are valued by you, being their boss or leader. Through this you’ll be able to identify the problem/s. Would they need more trainings or a lifestyle change perhaps? Address what needs to be changed and implement the solution you think would best eradicate the problem. Constant communication is an essential part of motivation.
4. Goal Setting/Direction
Ensure that your employees know what is expected from them. Often times employees work thinking that what they’re doing is enough but actually it isn’t. They need to know what your standard is for the word, “enough.” You need to set realistic goals for them to attain. Don’t set goals that are impossible for them to accomplish. Before setting goals for them, always make sure that they have what it takes and what they need to attain it. Equip them through guidance and coaching. The direction of their work is also important for them. Make sure that the work you give them is where they are good at. If not, the tendency is that they won’t perform as you expect them to.
3. Incentives Program
Reward your employees for the job well done. They need to feel that they are appreciated. Rewarding top performers will not only boost their morale and motivate them but will also challenge other employees to do the same. Always express your appreciation to what they’ve done for the company. Your actions speak more than your words. A tap on their shoulder or a handshake from you would let them feel they are valued and that they’re important in the company. Give them bonuses and additional goods like insurance, rice or food etc.
2. Compensation
Money has a huge factor in your employees’ performance. It can be compared to the fuel of the car; it is what makes them do their work. Money is their fuel. Employees definitely need proper compensation to fulfil themselves with their wants and needs in life. After all, it is one of the reasons, if not their primary reason, to work. Compensate them through car grants, insurance, health and wellness benefits, travel opportunities and professional training.
1. Lead in Front
The performance of your employees highly depends on your leadership. Being their leader, you should know how and what will motivate them. Be open-minded, accept your infirmities and admit your faults. Arguably the best type of leadership is leadership by example. Manifest what you want to see from your employees. Just as a child would emulate his/her parents, so too will your employees in hopes of becoming leaders someday.
About the Author
Jessica Francisco is a cheerful 25-year-old with an odd sense of fun. The least of her broad range of hobbies include swimming, hiking and listening to the music of Michael Jackson. Jessica is also one of the editors of Luke Roxas.
I made a list of signs to look for, as indicators that I might be boring someone. Just because a person isn’t actually walking away or changing the subject doesn’t mean that that person is genuinely engaged in a conversation. One challenge is that the more socially adept a person is, the better he or she is at hiding boredom. It’s a rare person, however, who can truly look fascinated while stifling a yawn.
Here are the factors I watch, when trying to figure out if I’m connecting with someone. These are utterly unscientific — I’m sure someone has made a proper study of this, but these are just my observations (mostly from noting how I behave when I’m bored and trying to hide it):
1. Repeated, perfunctory responses.
A person who says, “Oh really? Oh really? That’s interesting. Oh really?” is probably not too engaged. Or a person who keeps saying, “That’s hilarious.”
2. Simple questions.
People who are bored ask simple questions. “When did you move?” “Where did you go?” People who are interested ask more complicated questions that show curiosity, not mere politeness.
3. Interruption.
Although it sounds rude, interruption is actually a good sign, I think. It means a person is bursting to say something, and that shows interest. Similiarly…
4. Request for clarification.
A person who is sincerely interested in what you’re saying will need you to elaborate or to explain. “What does that term mean?” “When exactly did that happen?” “Back up and tell me what happened first” are the kinds of questions that show that someone is trying closely to follow what you’re saying.
5. Imbalance of talking time.
I suspect that many people fondly suppose that they usually do eighty percent of the talking in a conversation because people find them fascinating. Sometimes, it’s true, a discussion involves a huge download of information desired by the listener; that’s a very satisfying kind of conversation. In general, though, people who are interested in a subject have things to say themselves; they want to add their own opinions, information, and experiences. If they aren’t doing that, they probably just want the conversation to end faster.
6. Body position.
People with a good connection generally turn fully to face each other. A person who is partially turned away isn’t fully embracing the conversation. I pay special attention to body position when I’m in a meeting and trying to show (or feign) interest: I sit forward in my chair, instead of lounging back, and keep my attention obviously focused on whoever is speaking, instead of looking down at papers, gazing into space, or checking my phone.
Along the same lines, if you’re a speaker trying to figure out if an audience is interested in what you’re saying:
7. Audience posture.
Back in 1885, Sir Francis Galton wrote a paper in 1885 called “The Measurement of Fidget.” He determined that people slouch and lean when bored, so a speaker can measure the boredom of an audience by seeing how far from vertically upright they are. Also, attentive people fidget less; bored people fidget more. An audience that’s upright and still is interested, while an audience that’s horizontal and squirmy is bored.
I often remind myself of La Rochefoucauld’s observation, “We are always bored by those whom we bore.” Perhaps unfortunately, I don’t believe it’s always true, but it’s often true: If I’m bored, there’s a good chance the other person may be bored, too. Time to find a different subject.
The next time I had to work with someone who was mean to me, I was stuck. I really liked the job, and since he was an equal-opportunity offender, I knew his wrath wasn’t personal. Others avoided him, but I sat down and asked how we could work better together. My directness shocked him into better behavior from that point on.
In August, there was a flurry of press coverage around what the American Psychological Association deemed as an increase in “workplace incivility,” or a form of organizational deviance characterized by behaviors that violate respectful workplace norms – aka rudeness.
Weber Shandwick and Powell Tate’s Civility in America 2011 poll reported 43 percent of Americans as saying they’ve experienced incivility at work, and 38 percent as believing that the workplace is increasingly disrespectful. Sixty-seven percent of respondents cited a critical need for civility training.
Civility training? Is that a little extreme? Not necessarily, as the workplace is undeniably rough these days. Employees are doing the jobs of two, sometimes three people, and the environment is harried, stressful, and constantly changing. Many haven’t received pay raises in a few years. Unfortunately, employees are increasingly likely to take out their angst on each other.
I recently had the chance to chat with Bob Sutton, a professor of management at Stanford University and the author of “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.” Bob assured me that he’d seen in his research that going through life angry causes long-term physical and mental problems, and that ridding oneself of dysfunctional conflict is a must.
Bob explained that many difficult relationships are the result of a vicious cycle of offense and revenge, or one person trying to one-up the other. He suggested that we stop trying to win, or get back at the other person for behaving this way. We must not take the situation personally and look at it as another workplace problem we need to solve.
The most effective way to do this is to listen to the other person and put yourself in her shoes. Determine what’s meaningful to her and help her find ways to get it. If things have escalated to the point where every interaction is painful, take her to lunch and address the conflict proactively. Tell her that the relationship isn’t going as well as you’d like, and ask what you can do to improve things.
Despite how hard you try, some difficult people will persist in their negative behavior. If you constantly feel personally attacked and it starts to take a toll on your well-being, look for ways to get out of the situation. As Bob said, some people are so toxic they’re not worth it.
Alexandra Levit is a career and workplace expert at the Intuit Quickbase Blog , a daily source for advice on how to be exceptional at your job. You can follow her on Twitter at @alevit.
An interesting observation that comes to notice as one studies the Qur’an, is that the stories of the Prophets of Allah (peace be upon them) and the details of their Da’wah endeavors toward their recipient nations are repeated in excerpts throughout the Qur’an.
Some chapters or Surahs might contain details of some events in the Prophets’ (peace be upon them) lives, while other descriptions and dialogue between them and the people of their nation whom they called toward monotheism, are found in other chapters.
One common factor that I have noticed about the Prophets’ (peace be upon them) Da’wah is that, most of the time, it is centered around first calling the elite, rich and powerful people of society toward the monotheistic message of Allah.
Why target the affluent and powerful people of society first in Da’wah?
“Al-Mala” is a word used often in the Qur’an to refer to the affluent and powerful nobles, rulers and chieftains who were approached directly by Allah’s messengers with invitation toward the Haqq. In Arabic, the root of this word, “ma-la-a”, means “to fill to the brim or to reach the maximum limit of something”. In other words, Mala refers to the richest people of the nation.
“Al Mutrafeen” is another word used in the Qur’an to describe the well-off recipients of the Prophets’ (peace be upon them) message. The root of this Arabic word, “ta-ra-fa”, means “to live a pleasant, plentiful, luxurious and easy life”.
In any era, it was mostly these affluent people, the society’s “elite”, who would be the foremost in not just receiving, but also rejecting, the Prophets’ (peace be upon them) invitation toward Haqq.
Wealth yields economic power and authority in the land:
The wealthy people of any nation set its social trends in motion, have a say in communal decision-making, and initiate and catalyze paradigm shifts in thinking. Notice the rich and famous adopting a certain ritual, habit or lifestyle, and the poor and illiterate will eventually follow suit and try to ape their actions.
That is the primary reason why Allah’s Prophets (peace be upon them) approached the affluent, powerful people first in Da’wah, because they knew that if the leaders accept the invitation, it would not be long before the entire tribe or nation did the same.
Wealthy people move around in cliques:
So why did most of the wealthy recipients reject Allah’s message?
The question that arises then, is that why did most of the powerful and elite recipients of Allah’s message, such as Pharaoh, Haman, Qaroon and the able-bodied, prosperous nation of ’Aad, reject the message brought by Allah’s Prophets (peace be upon them)?
There are several reasons for this rejection, which become apparent via the dialogue between them and the Prophets that is quoted throughout the Qur’an. The particular verse below makes it clear why the wealthy rejected the message of Allah’s Prophets (peace be upon them):
“And when Our Clear Verses are recited to them, those who disbelieve (the rich and strong among the pagans of Quraish who live a life of luxury) say to those who believe (the weak, poor companions of Prophet Muhammad who have a hard life): “Which of the two groups (i.e. believers or disbelievers) is best in (point of) position and as regards station (place of council for consultation).” (Qur’an: 19:73)
Their powerful position in society as compared to the more vulnerable, economically weaker one of the Prophets (peace be upon them) would delude them into thinking that their beliefs, creed and religious rituals were correct and didn’t need to be changed.
Wealth and power, in other words, became the “yardstick” by which they judged the truthfulness of a person’s message.
Next, since neediness and poverty makes a person more humble toward other human beings and more inclined toward turning to Allah, it was mostly the poor people of any nation who would be the first to accept Prophets’ (peace be upon them) invitation toward monotheism.
This became an issue of prestige or honor for the chiefs and leaders when the message was presented to them:
The chiefs who the disbelieved among his people said: “We see you but a man like ourselves, nor do we see any follow you but the meanest among us and they (too) followed you without thinking. And we do not see in you any merit above us, in fact we think you are liars.” (Qur’an 11:27)
They said: “Shall we believe in you, when the meanest (of the people) follow you?” (Qur’an: 26:111)
Thus it becomes obvious that the trial of being very rich is that wealthy people tend to consider only affluence and the social status of another as the primary determining factor in establishing that person’s truthfulness or authenticity.
They do not look at what someone is saying; rather, only at what he owns, how much power and influence he commands in society, and what kind of people he hangs out with, in order to accept or reject his message or invitation. Any sincere person who fails to come up to their superficial, measurable standards of wealth and social prestige is promptly rejected and further, is accused of being a liar!
Thus, the Qur’an teaches us that wealth, power and social prestige – blessings that almost everyone desires in life – can become a Fitnah or trial of faith if it starts to stand in the way of a person’s embracing Islam completely and acting upon the Deen of Allah. When a person has wealth, he starts to think with certainty that he must be on the right path and that Allah is pleased with him. Moreover, wealth can make a person look down upon and deride those righteous people who are sincere to Allah’s cause but who belong to a lower socioeconomic class.
While we should pray to Allah to grant us His blessings in both worlds, we should also seek refuge with Him from the trials and tests associated with these blessings.
Source: Saudi Gazette
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Have you ever been really happy? Have you ever tasted the fruit of pure happiness? Have you ever completed a task with that feeling of YES! I gave it my all. I’m really happy and proud with what I’ve done. Have you ever had that inner glow and outer radiation?
But was it happiness?
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