Motivating employees through communication and recognition strategies

Business Management

Many workers need to know their work will be rewarded to be motivated to perform. Although the pay scale may be fairly inflexible for the security personnel, there are many tools available other than wage increases. For example, incentives, employee recognition and praise for good performance might be ways to improve morale. For incentives, recognition and praise to work, they should not be given to everyone because this approach could actually demotivate those that have worked hard. Instead, rewards, incentive and praise need to be allocated fairly to those workers that really deserve them. Also, communicating a sense of purpose might help the employees to become more interested in their work. In this example, the workers serve a vital function for national security and should be made to feel important for their role in this effort.

Careful explanations should also be given for why individual tasks are necessary.

Question #2

Employees have a tendency to behave negatively when there is lack of communication and uncertainty. Further, employees make up their own versions of reality when they don't know what is going to happen, inventing scenarios that may even be worse than planned actions. Therefore, the best option for management in the Dot.com company is to hold a company-wide meeting to tell the employees the truth. To restore trust, management should encourage employees to ask questions and to communicate openly during the meeting without fear of reprisal. Employees that are being kept will be happier and perform better. and, workers that are going to lose their jobs will have adequate time to find alternative employment.

Question #4

The managing director should not automatically assume that fear caused by Sept. 11th is the reason behind the high employee absenteeism. There could be many other possibilities. First, the director should conduct a confidential employee survey to assess the underlying causes of the absences. Next, the director should hold a meeting with employees to summarize and share the results with the employees and to let them know that the issues will be taken seriously. During this meeting, the director should solicit suggestions for improvement. After evaluating the ideas, the manager needs to develop and communicate an action plan for change. Future meetings and surveys should attempt to measure how well the employees believe the action plan is working. This should be a continuous process with modifications made on an as needed basis.