Workplace 101: A Profiles Global Business Blog

Motivating employees can be one of your biggest challenges as an employer, but learning how to inspire your workforce is the key to a successful organization. Constant pressure to increase productivity, profitability and revenue growth can often overshadow the importance of how an unengaged workforce can negatively affect corporate performance.

This article will provide you with tips for motivating employees that will help your organization unlock human potential.  Whether you're an executive, a manager or a team leader, you too know that motivating employees is a must!

Nationwide studies have shown that up to 80% of employees are not motivated by their work. Now that's a staggering number! Take a look around your office; how many people seem actively motivated and engaged in what they are doing?

Many organizations continuously face the problems associated with decreased employee motivation including complacency, declining morale, and widespread discouragement in the workplace. If allowed to continue, these problems can reduce productivity, earnings and competitiveness in your business.

Motivating employees is crucial to the success of our rapidly changing workplaces. Motivated employees help organizations survive by being more productive. Effective managers need to understand what motivates each individual employee within the context of their job. Of all the functions a manager performs, motivating employees is arguably the most complex due to the fact that what motivates employees changes constantly.

Motivating employees will help you improve employee engagement in your workforce so that you can maintain a productive, successful business.

Some people would prefer a visit to the dentist rather than endure the annual performance review. If you’re one of them, then you might be anxious about your own assessment, about having to give a bad review to one of your employees, or about the marathon pace to complete the process from beginning to end.

Keep managers on track and employees productive

Times of change present many challenges for organizations, particularly for front-line managers whose people will be responsible for implementing the change. But equally challenging can be managing through trying or monotonous times. Pressure to perform is high, as are emotions, and everyone is expected to do more with less. The risk of manager derailment can be high.

Everyone knows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, the famous character in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, who defined stingy and had the coldest of hearts. This classic holiday tale is not only entertaining, but it is a parable that can teach us quite a bit about ourselves and how we conduct our personal and professional lives.

Onboarding costs for a smooth and sound transition

With employee turnover, organizations spend precious time, energy and money to refill empty job positions. As discussed in previous posts, these expenses include: initial costs due to a person leaving, lost productivity costs, recruitment costs and, finally, onboarding costs.

Content sourced from Leadership Charisma and Deiric McCann

Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson, and Mark Zuckerberg - all well-known business leaders who are globally acknowledged as charismatic leaders and for being extraordinarily successful in business. But what is the common factor that all these people have driving their outstanding success?

At the beginning of their careers, they all had a vision. They all understood the power of effective workplace communication throughout their organizations. No doubt that Zuckerberg's success could not have escalated as it did without a clear effective message spread throughout the company.

A clear, compelling corporate vision makes goal setting and planning possible. To make that vision attractive to those that must deliver and to make them want to engage with their part in its achievement, leaders must develop a more in-depth knowledge of his or her team.

Guest Post by Craig Juengling

The secret to delegating effectively lies in four components, each of which must be fulfilled to have successful outcomes. For today's leader, learning to delegate is crucial to expanding your reach and meeting the huge demands on your time. Success will remain elusive if you don't understand the art and science of delegation. This post is more on the science.

Contrary to the popular phrase “Ignorance is bliss,” it’s not – especially if you’re the manager of two workers who genuinely don’t get along. When 2 employees hate each other, their animosity can turn a healthy working environment into a cancer ward. Coworker conflict will always come up; you can’t be everyone’s best friend. But you need to be civil and able to work together. The longer the dislike endures, the more it’s likely hurting their productivity and that of those around them. Sooner or later, it needs to change and be remedied.

The military is the ultimate bureaucracy. It is the epitome of a broad, top-down organizational hierarchy with thousands of personnel across multiple locations and divisions as well as lots of room and experience between the generals and privates. Whether your workforce is the size of an army or is lean and flat, you can still benefit from emulating the best leadership principles of the US Armed Forces.

Sports history was made Saturday when Robert Griffin III, most commonly known as RG3, won the 77th Heisman Trophy as the Most Outstanding College Football Player in the U.S. for 2011.

In case you are catching up on your reading or just joining us, check out the hot topics in Leadership & Management.

Content sourced from Aberdeen Group

What is your organizations strategy for talent acquisition, are you more old-school only conducting basic interviews, or do you carry out background checks, use assessments and monitor results on an on-going basis? Whatever stage you are at, we are going to outline some simple steps to take your company to the next level with your talent acquisition strategy.

In September 2011, Aberdeen released a research report on “The Talent Acquisition Lifecycle,” from sourcing to onboarding. The report covers a wide variety of useful research findings and recommendations. It outlines the importance of the hiring process and how a strategic hiring process can lead to great successes including becoming and/or staying a ‘Best-in-Class’ organization.

The report created by Mollie Lombardi, research director at Aberdeen Group, goes on to cover measuring success, performance metrics, the role of assessments and much more.

Some managers inspire and motivate, but many fail miserably to engage their employees. The entertainment industry seems to have created the ultimate formula for the "bad manager" character, so why can't real managers understand how to be more effective? When employees choose to leave a position, it's often because of their manager or relationships with people in their working environment. People quit people, not jobs.

Handling employee stress in the workforce is no easy task. Some employees rise to the occasion while others cringe with fear or avoid the situation completely. This article will provide you with information that can help you develop a solid workforce that won't crack under pressure. Whether you're an executive, a manager or a team leader, the following information will be beneficial to you.

How much do you spend on recruiting and replacing an employee? It is estimated that most organizations spend between $4,000 and $40,000. Understandably, with such a large range, most managers have come to accept employee turnover as a normal business practice.

Guest post by Craig Juengling

I recently had the opportunity to attend a Disney Institute seminar which reflected on Disney’s approach to quality service. What a tremendous leaning experience and one that resonated with me and my own journey as a health care executive. Clearly, the late Walt Disney has done it better than anyone in the theme park/entertainment business and his culture of exceeding expectations lives on today.

Despite a negative economic environment and high unemployment rates, Woodmen of the World life insurance is thriving. The reason? High engagement levels among its employees.

Original content sourced from John Bradford of Profiles International

Did you know two thirds of US employers do no planning for their talent needs? The age old practices of the 1950s are no longer in effect. Everyone knows what high performance means, but what is your organization's universal definition of the term? Is it being highly focused, highly skilled or getting outstanding bottom-line results?

When the time comes to promote strong, capable individual contributors into their first role as a manager, how do you prepare them? Although their performance has been good and you’ve assessed that they are a fit for the job, leading others will be an adjustment for most. Don’t assume that an effective worker will automatically become an effective manager – especially if he’s to manage a group of his peers. Here are 10 leadership tips to help your first-time managers succeed and avoid failure: