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Thank goodness for cash…Right? WRONG!!
By: Dave Worman
11) Executive Recognition
This in my opinion is the secret weapon. And like any secret weapon,
timing is most critical. If this is used too often the value is
diminished. And if it is used only for special occasions and rare
achievements the value is escalated. We talked earlier about general
recognition and the positive impact that has on your people. That
will go up a few notches when it comes from an executive. Some
of the same vehicles can be used here such as memos and voice
mail. And to add yet another level of stimulation, have an executive
either personally call to congratulate someone (group) or even
show up in person to shake hands and express their appreciation.
What a great feeling it is to suddenly receive recognition from
a company executive for a job well done! We as managers are responsible
for getting executives more involved with our daily activities
and understanding the lasting motivation that goes along with
their recognition of employee accomplishments. If you are a company
executive, are you involved enough? If yes…Great! If no…Get
involved. If you are a manger or supervisor again your mission
is to make sure you get executive level staff to recognize your
employee's achievements. It's so easy to do and your return on
investment will be tremendous.
12) Social Gatherings
Getting together with co-workers away from the workplace will
in turn enhance the atmosphere back at the workplace. Scheduled
offsite events enhance bonding, which in turn helps team spirit,
which ultimately impacts your positive work environments. Does
your company have parties at Christmas or perhaps put together
a family picnic in the summer? If not, you should. The more you
know about who people really are the better chance you have to
push the right motivational buttons along the way. Plus these
types of events are simply flat out fun! Halloween costume parties,
picnic on July 4th, Memorial Day or Labor Day, and Christmas parties
are only some of the ideas that successfully bring people together
for an enjoyable time. Some others that I've used with equal success
are softball games (against other companies or among employees
depending on staff size), groups going putt-putt golfing or movie
madness. As you learn more about each other as people you will
find it easier to work together as a team on the job. And anyway,
what's wrong with a little fun? Nothing!
13) Casual Dress Day
This will apply more to the Business-to-Business world based on
the difference in normal dress codes from the Business-to-Consumer
arena. For those of you required to "dress business"
every day a casual day becomes a popular desire. Use holidays
as a springboard for casual dress days. Use holidays to create
theme color casual days such as red and green before Christmas
or red, white, and blue before July 4th, or black and orange prior
to Halloween. This will add to the impact you're trying to have
by calling a casual day in the first place. Establish pre-vacation
casual days for each individual employee to enjoy on the day before
his or her vacation.
Major sports events are a perfect opportunity for casual dress
days to support your local or favorite team with appropriate colors,
buttons, and logo wear.
Spontaneous casual days produce a lot of stimulation based on
the element of surprise. Announce a casual dress day for the following
workday "just because."
Use individual or team casual dress days as contest prizes or
awards for specific accomplishments. People will fight hard to
win the right to be casually different for a day. And to those
companies who have always hesitated to allow a casual dress day,
I encourage you to consider changing your position. Don't get
caught in the false theory of thought that says "If they
dress casually for a day their work performance will reflect casual
effort." Experience proves the opposite. The change from
the daily norm and the freedom sparked by casual clothing will
produce motivation for higher than normal performance in most
cases. Once again managers, it may fall on your shoulders to educate
company executives that casual dress days mean a great deal to
employees.
14) Time Off
In an industry where burnout and turnover are waiting to happen,
time off in my opinion is the biggest motivator in telemarketing
environments. Right away I know some of you just turned white
with panic or red with rage. When I talk about time off I am not
referring to huge chunks of time away from the office. During
recent consulting projects company executives contested that those
people are paid to be on the phone…why should I give them
time off? Fortunately, I was able to educate these executives
in how to utilize time off as an advantage to the employee and
the company creating a win-win situation. Once again in an industry
where burnout is very evident, time off becomes a very valuable
and desired commodity. Any amount of time. And those of you that
have spent time on the phone know this is true!
Implement contests that earn time off. People will compete for
15 minutes or ½ hour off just as hard as they will for
a cash reward. And in many cases, I have had people pick time
off over cash when given the choice. Put goals in place (padded
of course) and when these goals are reached by individuals, teams
or the entire staff, reward them with time off. Allow early dismissals,
late arrivals, and extended lunch periods or additional breaks.
Holidays are a perfect opportunity for a spontaneous gesture on
your part as managers. Jump in your time capsule for a few minutes
and go back to past holidays and the day of work prior to that
holiday vacation. Around ½ hour prior to shifts end, what
happens? Holiday excitement takes over and very little work gets
done, that's what. So many times I will let everyone go 15-20
minutes early. The motivational payback you get from this will
far outweigh the production you get in the last 15-20 minutes
of the day.
Time off can become one of your most valuable tools for motivation
if used properly and in the proper increments.
15) Outside Seminars
Outside seminars are a stimulating break and act as training above
and beyond that which comes from management. And isn't it amazing
that sometimes a suggestion of recommendation for improvement
that an employee hears someone other than management say is suddenly
the best idea since toilet paper. Even though you as their manager
have told them the exact same thing! Sometimes they need to hear
ideas from a neutral source as opposed to always from management.
Because outside seminars are not always cost efficient for most
people, consider on site seminars or workshops for your staff.
Once again, use outside seminars as a contest prize for one or
two people. Then set up a structured plan for those seminar attendees
to briefly recreate the seminar to the rest of your people when
they return. Now everyone gets educated for the price of one.
16) Additional Responsibility
There are definitely employees in your organization that are begging
for and can handle additional responsibility. Don't cringe…I
don't mean everybody. But there are some. Our job as managers
is to identify who they are and if possible match responsibilities
to their strengths and desires. We're back to leadership roles.
Help with reports or form a scripting team that develops call
guides that must come through you for approval. If you're like
me there are probably many things on your plate as well as the
plates of other management members that you could use help with.
Why not begin to use some of the hidden talents of your telephone
professionals to help you accomplish some of these tasks? This
will provide triple stimulation, as the additional responsibility
is a natural stimulus to the person, that person is stimulated
in front of his or her peers, and the peers are stimulated to
want additional responsibility like their colleague. And now to
add the icing to the cake…by doing this you will also be
helping yourself determine potential future promotion.
17) Theme Contests
My belief in the power that contests have in telemarketing environments
is certainly no secret. So why do contests have such a positive
effect? Because they spark the competitive nature in people and
add fun at the same time. That is a winning combination, and contrary
to some unfortunate business opinions, what is wrong with a little
fun in the workplace? Nothing. Especially when productivity will
increase during a well-implemented contest. Over the years my
contests have produced up to 170% increase in performance but
equally as important helped maintain positive environments that
have reduced employee turnover by 400%.
Overall, the most successful contests seem to be those affiliated
with different themes. Rather than simply most sales wins, or
highest connect time is the winner, associate your contests with
different themes. Holiday, anniversaries, sports, and culture
are examples of ideas to base contests on. I have used dates such
as the July anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk to create
a contest breaking my TSR's into teams of astronauts attempting
to be the first to safely land on the moon. Sports, without a
doubt, provide the largest opportunity for a wide variety of contests.
Even culture can be used to create theme contests. My favorite
is using the '50s and '60s as a theme for a contest that I run
at least once a year.
The key to successful contests is variation and most of all creativity.
Contests create enthusiasm and enthusiasm is contagious. Use contests
to create an epidemic of enthusiasm in your call environments.
As it spreads, turnover will go down and performance will go up.
18) Stress Management
Stress, according to Webster is tension or strain. The telemarketing
industry is one that lends itself to an enormous mount of stress
based on the redundancy of the call activity.
There are many articles and books available on the subject. Make
this reference material available to your people. Make sure they
know it is available and encourage them to use it.
If possible, have an in-house seminar on stress management techniques.
So that production time is not lost, you might consider having
a brown bag luncheon with a guest speaker on this subject. Because
stress is an ongoing concern, anytime is a good time for a seminar
like this to take place.
Be as flexible as you can with breaks during the course of the
day. If possible, in your environment, don't have scheduled breaks
for two reasons: 1) how do we as managers know when the best time
is for our employees to take a break? and 2) when scheduled breaks
are in place, people have a tendency to not take a chance of cutting
into that break time so no more phone calls will be made for fear
of taking away break time.
The secret to stress management in your telemarketing arena is
this: If all the other steps to non-monetary motivation are active
in your environment, stress management will be less needed. It
will never go away, but it will be dramatically diminished.
We as managers must make sure our eyes and ears are open to recognize
when our people have reached negative stress levels. Don't think
things such as, "it will pass," or "They better
get it together." Make sure that you take the time to listen
to your people and understand what they are feeling. Only then
will you be able to potentially help resolve the issue at hand.
19) Pizza/Popcorn/Cookie Days
Just what we need, another reason to eat, right? Exactly right!
Every now and then pizza/popcorn/or cookie days will help break
up that everyday routine and help people stay motivated. Because
it is a natural tendency for people to get excited in anticipation
of something, structure some of these days in advance. Then buy
some pizzas or different cookies or even whip out some different
types of popcorn. As many of the other previous steps to non-monetary
motivation, this one is easy to implement and will add more ingredients
to that magic formula that will help your people enjoy where they
work.
20) Gags and Gimmicks
We already established that cash is not always the only motivator
and in many cases not the best one. Use different gimmicks as
awards to help inspire performance increases from your people.
Take a close look at the photo picturing many of the following
awards that I've created to recognize people's achievements. The
key to these awards is establishing the perception of priceless
value that is associated with them. They should be recognized
as status symbols in your environment. Here are some of my ideas:
These represent only a portion of the ideas that have been
and continue to be highly effective in my environments. Some of
these awards can be presented on a rotating plan. This way, only
one purchase is necessary. Others should be handed out on an ongoing
basis according to performance.
You can also use negative awards to create positive stimulation:
These create instant energy to improve as no one wants either
of these to be seen in their area for long. Don't be surprised
to see someone go from the dragon or ketchup to the raisin or
doughboy within a very short time.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was quoted as saying, "Nothing great
was ever accomplished without enthusiasm." Some of these
ideas will help you create the epidemic of enthusiasm that is
needed for maximum performance in telemarketing environments everywhere.
In an age where budgets are dropping while performance expectations
remain the same it becomes imperative that we find ways to maximize
the productivity of our people with the most cost efficient methods.
Remember, that motivation according to Webster is "something
from within, not without that prompts or invites an action."
Motivation comes from within our people. We as managers cannot
motivate our people. Our job is to create an atmosphere that promotes
self-motivation from our employees. Implementing any combination
of these 20 steps will help you with the constant challenge of
creating, and more importantly, maintaining that atmosphere in
your telemarketing environment.
--Dave Worman