Maintaining Harmony and Building Staff Morale

“Harmony would lose its attractiveness if it did not leave a background of discord.”

“No one likes discord but it provides opportunities to see clearer.”

Asian Proverb-

Maintaining Harmony and Building Staff Morale

Finding out what your employees want and finding a way to give it to them is a cornerstone to success. It

is an opportunity to address your ability as a COACH.

Motivation

• Motivated employees make your job easier.

• Motivation is getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

• Give them a reason

• You, the supervisor are the motivator

• Your actions set the tone, trend and tempo of the process

• Carrot and the stick approach

• Whip or club approach

• Dictatorial

• Today supervisors must be empathic,

communicative and trusting of employees.

• Create a positive and caring workplace

Understanding Motivation

• People are motivated by their unmet needs and those needs differ from person to person.

• Morale and attitude of staff is important for the department.

• Motivate your staff through self-esteem.• Motivate your staff by validation,

information, and participation.• Motivate your staff with rewards.

• Provide staff with flexibility and choice (include them in decision making)

• Provide staff with support.

• Encourage staff to set their own goals and objectives.

• Show staff how their tasks relate to personal and institutions goals.

• Have a flexible management style.

Identify your managerial role in the motivational process.

Find out what’s in it for them.

(h)

Motivation falls into 2 categories

1. Maintainers• ---salary and fringe benefits

• ---organizational policies

• ---working conditions

• ---job security

• ---supervisor

2. Motivators• ---achievement

• ---recognition

• ---job position

• ---responsibility

• ---advancement

Clearing Up Common Myths About Employee Motivation.

• Cultivating a culture of harmony depends on you.

• There are four basic principles for directors to remember.

1. Motivating employees start with motivating yourself.

• It’s amazing how, if you hate your job, it seems like everyone else does too. If you are very stressed out, it seems like everyone else is too. Enthusiasm is contagious. If you’re enthusiastic about your job, it’s much easier for others to be also.

• Bottom-line: What can you do to motivate yourself?

2. As a team always work to align goals and mission of the department with the

goals of employees.

• Employees can be all fired up about their work and be working very hard. However, if the results of their work does not contribute to the goals of the department, then the department suffers.

• Bottom-line: It is critical that managers and directors know what they want from their staff.

3. Key to supporting the motivation of your employees is understanding what motivates

them individually.

• Each person is motivated by different things. Whatever steps you take to support the motivation of your employees, they should first include finding out what really motivates them.

• Bottom line: Know your staff!

4. Recognizing that supporting your employees motivation is a process,

not a task.

• Colleges and universities change all the time, as do people. Indeed, it is an ongoing process to sustain an environment where each employee can strongly motivate themselves.

• Bottom line: If you look at sustaining employee’s motivation as an ongoing process, then you have to be equally as motivated as a manager.

Key Steps To Motivation

• 1. Briefly write down the motivational factors that sustain you.

• Key Point: This little bit of “motivational planning” can give you a strong perspective on how to think about supporting the motivation of your employees.

• 2. Make a list of three to five points that motivates each of your employees.

• Key point: Take some time alone to write down how you will modify your approaches with each employee to ensure their motivational factors are met.

• 3. Reward success soon after you see it.

• Key point: Often the shorter the time between an employee’s action and your reward for that behavior, the clearer it is to the employee that you prefer that performance.

Other Steps to Try:

• Have one-on-one meetings with each employee.

• Cultivate strong skills in delegation.

• Establish goals that are SMARTER.

• Celebrate achievements.

• Clearly convey how employee results contribute to departmental & ultimately college results.

Harmony is when all the parts fit