How to Motivate Employees in the Workplace

Supervising people involves more than telling them what to do. Effective supervision involves motivation from within the individual, not by externals.

1. Treat them as individuals, not merely as necessary cogs in a wheel. Remember their personal problems, find appropriate times to ask how they or their families are, how the big event went, whether the plumbing problem got fixed.

2. Acknowledge their contributions. Let them be confident that when you pass their suggestions and contributions up the chain of command you will acknowledge the members of your team as the source.

3. Back them up. When things go wrong, the buck stops at your desk. Do not deal with problems by telling your superiors how awful your supervisees are. Tell how you will go about preventing a re-occurrence.

4. Take time for them. When a supervisee comes to you, stop what you are doing, make eye contact. If you can't be interrupted, immediately set up a later time when you will be able to pay full attention to them. Otherwise people may feel that they are bothersome to you, and you may someday find yourself wondering why no one tells you what is happening in your own department.

5. Let them know that you see their potential and encourage their growth. Encourage learning. Help them to take on extra responsibility, but be available to offer support when they are in unfamiliar territory.

6. Explain why. Provide the information that will give both purpose to their activities and understanding of your requirements. Providing information only on a need-to-know basis may work for the CIA, but it does not build teams.

7. Don't micro-manage. Let them know the plans and the goals, that you trust them to do their best, and then let them have the freedom to make at least some of the decisions as to how to do what is needed. Morale and creativity nosedive when the flow of work is interrupted by a supervisor checking on progress every two minutes.

8. Let them work to their strengths. We all like to feel good about our work. If we can do something that we do well, we will feel proud. If you believe supervisees need to strengthen areas of weakness, have them work on these, too, but not exclusively.

9. Praise in public, correct in private. NOTHING undermines morale as effectively as public humiliation.

10. Set reasonable boundaries, and empower your supervisees to set theirs. Once set, respect them. This is not a challenge to your power, it is their right as human beings.

How to Be a Good Manager

How to become the boss everyone loves to praise, rather than the boss everyone loves to hate!

1. Acknowledge your staff.

When a member of staff does a job well, make sure you notice it, and acknowledge her or him for it. Don't let the opportunity to praise a piece of good work go by.

2. Never, ever, humiliate anyone on your staff team.

If you are annoyed with someone on your team, or they have done something wrong, make sure you keep your cool, especially in public. If you humiliate someone, he or she will hold a grudge against you, and their work will suffer too.

3. Create a culture where mistakes are OK.

If you don't make mistakes, chances are you are not stretching yourself. If your staff are allowed to feel that mistakes are part of reaching for new highs, rather than something to feel bad about, or shamed for, then they will take more risks on your behalf.

4. Remember personal details.

Take time to get to know your staff, who they are, who is important in their lives, etc. Be interested in them as people, not just as workers.

5. Don't hide behind your position.

Be human and friendly with your staff - that way you will all be able to support and encourage each other when things are tough.

6. Be approachable.

Allow your staff to feel that they can come and talk to you about sensitive issues, about inside- and outside-work difficulties, and that you will respect them, and not hold what they share against them.

7. Admit your mistakes.

If you get it wrong, say so. Managers don't have to be infallible! Your staff will respect you more if you are able to admit your mistakes, and then set about sorting out a solution.

8. Listen in such a way that your employees will talk to you.

Often people feel afraid of, or intimidated by, management. Make sure you show people that you are willing to listen to what they have to say, that they are important and worthy of your time.

9. Be clear in your requests.

It is your responsibility to ensure that people understand your requests - so communicate clearly, and ask if people have understood what you are asking for.

10. Treat everyone respectfully and courteously at all times.

Particularly when there is a problem! Everyone who works for you is a valuable human being who deserves respect. A manager is only as good as how she or he treats the people on her or his team.

Why do some Business managers reach the profit target more frequently than others? They do it because they maintain their
operation pointed in that direction - direction of profit earning. They never lose sight of the goal - to finish the year with a
profit.

This manual Gives suggestions which should enable an owner-manager to zero in on profit earning. It points out that you have to
keep educated, make timely decisions, and take action. In effect you must control the actions of your organization rather than
being controlled by them.

Topnotch Performance in golfing, shooting, and fishing requires knowledge, training, and endurance.

Likewise in Small businesses, year-end profit comes to the owner-manager who tries for topnotch performance. You attain profit
making targets by knowing your performance, by practicing the craft of making timely, balanced decisions and by controlling the
company's activities.

Adapt the Tips in this manual to your situation. They should allow you to call the shots to keep your business headed in the ideal
direction - toward profit earning.

First Rule of Gain Making: Know Your Small Business. The Time-honored truth"Knowledge is power" is especially pertinent to this
owner-manager of a small business. To keep your business pointed toward profit you need to keep yourself well informed about it.
You must know how the company is doing before you can improve its operation. You must know its weak points before you can correct
them. Some of the information you need you pick up from day-to-day personal monitoring, but records should be your principal
source of advice about gains, costs, and earnings.

Know Your Profit. The profit and loss statement (or income Statement) prepared regularly each month or each quarter from your
accountant is one of the most essential indicators of your company's worth and health. You should be certain that this statement
contains all the facts you will need for assessing your gain. This announcement must pinpoint each earnings and price area. By way
of instance, it should demonstrate the gain and loss for each of your products and product lines as well as the gain and loss for
your entire operation.

It is a great Idea to have your profit and loss statement prepared that it shows every single product for the current period, for
the identical period this past year, and for the current year-to-date. For example, a P&L announcement for the month of November
would reveal income and expenses for the current month, for November last year, and prices for the eleven months of this current
calendar year. Many businesses publish their annual reports with a few previous decades so stockholders can compare earnings.

Comparison is The key to utilizing your P&L announcement. If your accountant is not already furnishing figures which you may
compare, you need to discuss the possibility of having them provided.

Financial Ratios out of the balance sheet also help you to know whether your profit is what it should be. For example, the
proportion of net worth (return on investment ratio) reveals what the business earned on the equity capital invested.

Know Your Costs. An owner-manager ought to know costs in detail. Following that, you can compare your price figures as a
percentage of earnings (operating ratio). Be certain that your costs are itemized so that you can put your fingers on those that
seem to be climbing or falling according to your experience and the price figures of your own industry. When prices are itemized,
you can spot the offender when the general figure is higher than what you'd budgeted. Take advertising costs for example. It's
possible to catch the offender if you split out your advertising expenditures by product lines and from media. In addition, a
thorough check of inquiry yields from advertising will help to avoid unsuccessful publications.

In knowing your Prices, remember that the formula for gain is: Profit equals Sales minus Costs.

Know Your Product Markup. Be certain That the pricing of your goods provides a markup adequate to the kind of profit you expect to
attain. You must keep constantly informed on pricing because you have to adjust for increasing costs and at precisely the exact
same time keep costs competitive. Knowledge on your markup also helps you to run close outs with your eyes open. Continuing to
make something which just a few clients want is a powerful merchandising tool just once you use it on purpose - for example, to
hold or attract buyers for additional high markup solutions. Don't be afraid to shed a loser from your line.

Garbage-In, Garbage-Out. An Owner-manager should not fudge the documents. The acronym GIGO the computer industry uses is accurate
with manually stored records as well as with machine-processed ones. If an owner-manager allows"garbage" to enter the records, the
reports will contain"garbage" Reports need not be extensive but they must be accurate.

Look For Trends. Try to not look at one month's earnings or Profit image alone. The figures on your operating statements are
significant only when you put the picture in the right framework - which is, look in the characters in the context of what has
happened and what is likely to happen. In that fashion, you catch a downward trend before it gets out of hand.

You should also Concern yourself with the figures behind the dollars - for instance, the number Of units sold or the number of
orders. Insist on cost-per-unit figures. The Fluctuation of this cost-per-unit can be much more meaningful than just looking At
the dollar figures . Another idea would be to exhibit these comparative Figures on graphs so that important trends can be seen
easily.

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