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contests, departmental competitions, or other organized events to increase employee involvement and interaction. Ask employees for their buy-in on the type of incentives they value; they may want an extra vacation day or time to volunteer at a favorite charity.

      Support for change can’t be acquired without involving employees, so you need to ensure that you give employees the opportunity to be involved in the decision-making process. Some simple ways to include employees follow:

      ✔ Asking employees for their opinions on various matters of importance to the department

      ✔ Inviting employees to actively participate in setting objectives and revising goals for the department

      ✔ Establishing task forces made up of employees whose objective is to identify better ways to work

      

I worked with an organization whose employees are highly engaged in achieving the firm’s goals on a daily basis. They do this through “huddles.” During the first 10 to 15 minutes of every morning’s work group, each employee-owner describes his or her number one priority for that day and any barriers he or she faces in achieving that priority. Everyone in the huddle votes on the top priority and then the group’s manager passes the agreed-upon top priority to the next level up which has a second-level huddle that immediately follows the first huddle. At the second-level huddle, the process repeats, along with a review of the previous day’s metrics. The manager groups can choose to resolve any or all the barriers that arise and then they, too, vote on the number one priority to be passed on to the executive team for its meeting, which is up next. On Fridays, all groups take a break from their normal “meeting rhythm,” as they call it, and ask for “IQs,” that is, ideas or questions, that every employee has for achieving that quarter’s overarching goals. As a result, the organization was perhaps the best I’ve ever experienced at systematically achieving its quarterly goals, quarter after quarter!

Increasing Employee Autonomy, Flexibility, and Support

      If you’re effective at getting employees to take more initiative, you have to provide them greater autonomy, flexibility, and support to help them succeed. All employees need to have a say in how they do their work to make it more meaningful. After you enlist your employees to make suggestions and improvements, you need to encourage them to run with their ideas, take responsibility, and champion those ideas to completion. Allow employees to approach anyone they need for help, give them the authority to make decisions or use resources, and permit them to take the actions that are necessary to get the work done.

      In my research on employee preferences at work, “autonomy and authority” and “flexibility of working hours” were two of the top motivators for today’s employees. To the extent that you, the manager, or the organization is able to provide those motivators for employees, their morale and performance will be positively – and significantly – impacted, and they’ll do their best work possible.

       Giving employees autonomy

      No one likes to be micromanaged. The vast majority of employees would prefer to determine how they work best. In other words, they’d prefer to be assigned a task and allowed the freedom to develop a work plan that suits them. As a manager then, focus on the end result and allow your employees to put their own imprint on the job – to decide how best to achieve the result. Take it a step further by allowing employees to pick and choose the projects and responsibilities they can work on as a reward for having previously done a great job.

      

Here is where truly knowing your employees becomes important: Understanding their strengths and weaknesses allows you to properly assign projects and tasks, making suggestions for assignments that you know the employee would likely value and helping that employee develop new skills in the process.

       Allowing flexible work schedules

      Based on my research, the majority of employees cite increased flexibility in employee work schedules as a top motivator. Furthermore, depending upon the type of work, a flexible schedule can also increase the efficiency of getting the work done.

      Technology has opened up new possibilities for how employees work. Gone are the days when communication was limited to fax and phone lines or face-to-face meetings. These days, some businesses operate entirely on a virtual platform with employees scattered throughout the country or world. Although not every company is able to operate this way, a large percentage of jobs can be done outside the traditional 9 to 5 office schedule. As a result, in recent years, many companies have experimented with flexible schedules or telecommuting options. Consider these statistics:

      ✔ Forty percent of current workers work remotely.

      ✔ Eighty-six percent of employees today report that they wish they had more time to spend with their families.

      ✔ In the last five years, nearly 30 percent of workers have voluntarily made career changes that resulted in a salary reduction in an effort to lead a more balanced life.

      ✔ Almost 50 percent of employees value the option of flexible or work- from-home hours.

      ✔ Fifty-four percent of employees appreciate the option to leave work early to tend to family or child issues.

      ✔ A large percentage of workers would take a reduction in pay if doing so allowed them to have more time for personal interests or to spend more time with family.

      Having a sense of balance between the personal and professional parts of their lives is very important to today’s employees. Your company can help employees achieve greater flexibility and greater balance by implementing policies that promote life outside of the workplace. Here are some suggestions:

      ✔ Letting employees work alternate hours (arriving early and leaving early or vice versa)

      ✔ Offering four-day work weeks, in which longer hours are worked on fewer days

      ✔ Letting employees telecommute and work from remote locations

      ✔ Offering job-sharing options, where two or more employees split a job

      ✔ Allowing an employee to leave work early or to take time off to compensate for extra hours worked

      Many companies have found that offering employees the options of working a flexible schedule or telecommuting increases morale and productivity. For some employees, the attraction is less time spent each week in a car and savings on gas or mileage. Others may enjoy reducing childcare expenses or simply having the opportunity to spend more time with their children. Whatever the motivation, employees appreciate the option of being able to have some control over their own schedules and, as a result, feel as though the company has their best interests in mind.

      

I once managed a work group that experimented with having employees work from home on certain projects. Those who worked at home logged their hours and were available as needed to discuss work issues. Not counting the commute time that was saved, employees were found to be twice as efficient in what work they accomplished. With less socializing and fewer interruptions, the employees were better able to focus on the work at hand. I’ve heard of similar findings in other studies conducted since then.

       Providing managerial accessibility and support

      When employees are encouraged to have more autonomy, independence, and flexibility in their jobs, they need your support; however, in one survey conducted by Gallup, 66 percent of respondents said their managers had asked them to get involved in decision-making, but only 14 percent felt they’d been empowered to make those decisions.

      In most cases, giving employees the autonomy and authority to act in the best interests of the organization and offering words of encouragement and praise along the way works wonders. Encouraging employees to pursue their ideas and supporting them in that process are also important for yielding positive results in the workplace.

      Here are some guidelines for building rapport with and supporting your employees:

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