Every business is faced with the challenge of hiring Superstars. Last week, I focused on six ways to find your next superstar. Now comes the tough part, keeping them. Keeping them happy. Keeping them learning and growing. Keeping them motivated. Here are three successful tools to motivate and reward employees.
1. The “12 Questions”- Gallop surveyed tens of thousands of companies to determine why employees stay with a company long term. They determined that managing these 12 questions will drastically increase you retaining an employee. To get results from the 12 Questions, pass out the 12 Q’s to your staff. Have them answer the questions anonymously on a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being “Strongly Disagree” and 5 being “Strongly Agree.” The most important part is for the employee to state what needs to happen for it to be rated a 5 for all answers rated 4 and below. Collect the surveys and have the managers and supervisors score them and get an average score for each question. Then create a game plan for how you will be improving the average scores. The 12 Questions can be done monthly, quarterly, or yearly depending on low the initial scores are. Here are the 12 Questions:
1. Do I know what’s expected of me?
2. Do I have the materials & equipment I need to do my work?
3. Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best?
4. In the last 7 days have I received praise & recognition for good work?
5. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel that my work is important?
9. Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the past 6 months have I talked to someone about my progress?
12. Do I have the opportunity to learn and grow at work?
2. Employee Suggestions program- When I first began using the 12 Q’s, one of the lowest scores was question 7, “do my opinions seem to count?” Our game plan included creating an employee suggestion program. Keep a suggestion box in the employee lounge for staff to share their ideas. Make the criteria simple to encourage lots of great ideas. For us, the idea has to either provide a great service to our members or a way to save the company money. Review the suggestions weekly and have a small reward for all suggestions provided and personally thank them. Provide greater rewards for the suggestions that the company puts into action.
3. Eagles Soar while Ducks Quack- Ken Blanchard, author of several business and management books, talks about the difference between eagles and ducks. Eagles are leaders, people who soar above the rest. Ducks are the ones who complain and quack about what’s wrong with the world. It’s very easy for your members to catch staff doing wrong and complain about it. Do you give them the opportunity to catch people doing things right?
Years ago we had an “employee of the month” program. However, something didn’t seem right about a group of managers choosing one person, once a month to reward when we had hundreds of employees doing hundreds of good things every month. We created the “Eagle of the Moment” program. We installed “eagle nests” throughout the club where members could write the name of any employee who went above and beyond and describe their experience. For every eagle nomination the employee receives one Gainesville dollar. Then at the end of the month, the top 20 to 30 employees who truly go above and beyond their job go to dinner with myself and the owner of the club.
Hiring great employees is just the first step to great customer service, keeping them is the next. Great customer service doesn’t begin with how an employee treats a customer. It begins with how the company treats it employees.
Shawn Stewart is the Operations Manager at Gainesville Health and Fitness Center. Contact him at shawns@ghfc.com
