How do you motivate your employees?

Motivating your employees has become this days one of the biggest problem in all companies; what techniques do we have to use to keep our employees happy?
As we all know, there are 2 types of incentives: financial and non-financial

The most common financial incentive is the salary system - we all have the basic salary and we can add other elements like meal tickets, transport allowance, house rent allowance etc.
One of the principal financial incentives are bonuses - individual or collective. But from my own experience and from the talks I had with other colleagues the happiness from this bonuses won't last long because when we talk about money, we all want more 😀😁
A real problem with the individual performance is how to eliminate the feeling of discrimination, because there will always be someone that thinks that he should have  more than his colleagues. To avoid this problem we have to have a strong list of KPI's for each department, each job.
Other incentives can be: retirement bonuses, commission or other extra earnings like educations facilities, medical and car allowance. Also profit sharing for all employees can be a motivating.

When you talk of non-financial incentives, this is the part where the HR people can be creative.

According to your company profile and your type of employees you can use: recognition. For this to be positively embraced, you have to know who's your employee leader/mentor and he can be the one who gives the feedback. There are studies that shows that the feedback that comes from the leader/ stakeholder is more effective than the feedback from HR or others. Dinner with THE BOSS is a motivator factor that shows your employee that their work is valued, that you care about them.
Recently I read an article about a firm from UK where the turnover rate is under 0.5% and the answer at the question:"Why do you love working here?", the common answer was: "Our boss knows who we are, knows our family". So..get to know your employees! 
Another motivator factor is the work conditions. Invest in the offices, in what other little things you can put in your office to make your employees happy - massage chair, a nice area where you can relax and have your meal.
Events also for your employees family, can give them a reason to stay in the company. They can be a little expensive but if it grows the performance it's totally worth it (Easter / Christmas Party, food fest, open doors day).
Training and development -  for the young generation, a big part of their needs is the opportunity to develop themselves.Investing in training gives the benefit of improving their work and keep them happy.

But what can you do new in this field? I've tried to find out what other HR departments are doing and I managed to see some good ideas like:

• a company in automotive industry supports their employees in development of their hobbies: one of the employees knits baby clothes so the company made it public inside their organizations but also on LinkedIn page. The same company declared March - the women month and shared on LinkedIn page the female employees and the importance for the organizations(more info here.)  
• Also they made their employees ambassadors of the organization publicly because the idea that we hide our employees because we are afraid they will be stolen by our competitors doesn't exists and they are celebrating their  employees and the work they do for the company (Example A and Example B )
• another company made an inside library and every month each of the employees makes a list with what books they want and the company buys them.
• Endava has a week of training and events for all the employees in all their offices.
• Delphi Technologies has a annual party for the employees and their family
• Amazon - almost every week they are promoting their employees on LinkedIn

What do you do to make your employees happy? What new things do you have in your company?

About onboarding

We often hear about on-boarding in HR field and what strategies we have to use that our on-boarding process to be useful.

What is on-boarding?

There are a lot of definitions but the most simple is that on-boarding is bringing the new hire in to your organization.

We all know how hard is nowadays to find and to keep a good candidate. The first step in retention is On-boarding. 

When this process starts?

In my opinion the on-boarding process starts when your candidate becomes your new employee (when he agrees with your offer). In this moment you have to give him the access to some information regarding your company's values, culture and regulations.  There are company that have a "new hire map" that includes some brochures with information like: the history of the company, the internal regulations, the values, also an organizational chart with pictures. Others company have an internal portal where he can find all the information he needs.  But don't forget to have prepared the desk of your new employee! The biggest mistake that we can do is to not be prepared for him because this is the first step in losing him. Make sure that in his first day he has his desk, his computer, telephone waiting for him.

Another step is: the tour of your organization. In his first day, you can make a tour with your new employee and present him the departments, where is the lunch area etc. Don't forget, prior to this to introduce him in your organization- you can use an email where you present him, his credentials etc.

In this process you have include also the CEO and the manager of the department because they are the ones that can convey the mission and the values of the organization. Also make sure that the manager of the new employee makes time for a 1 on 1 meeting with the new hire to tell him what are his tasks, what expectations he has and especially ensure you that he feels part of the team.

But every organization is different, so you have to find your unique welcome process!!

After this it is necessary to follow up the process, with an 1 on 1 meeting with the HR to see what is his point of view, how he sees the company, is he happy in his team, has he managed to hit his KPI's? After this meeting you can make a strategy in keeping him or in improve his work and his expectations.

This process can last up to 12 month, this depends on your organization.

What gives back this process to your organization?

⇪ It can be a part of your retention strategy. An article from www.humanresourcestoday.com relates that the average cost of on-boarding a new employee according to urbanbound.com includes:

• 22% - the average employee turnover rate for the first 45 days
• 46% - the average employee turnover rate for the first 18 months

⇪ Promotes your company
⇪ Increases your employee engagement

⇪ It is part of your recruitment strategy. It can attracts new talents in your organizations

⇪ Increases communication in the team and between departments

Do you have an on - boarding process? What do you do regarding this step in HR field?

Dealing with difficult employees

Every day, the HR department has this wonderful challenge: dealing with difficult employees and we have to find the best solution and strategy to make them be part of the team.

How do we do that? Well, we don't have a magic wand that help us to get rid of daily problems, but we have some instruments that can help us to find the solution to our little problem. 

The first step is to understand that we all are different and for you to know how to deal with a difficult employee is to know them. In every organizations we have a lot of behaviors:

The overly ambitions       The dramatic one
The hilarious one                                The quiet one
                    The cynical one                                   The overly talking

Another important step is to not ignore the problem. It is easy to ignore a problem but if you let it resolve by itself it might became bigger and if at beginning it involves one person or two after it evolves it might involve much more.  An entire angry department doesn't sound that great.

After you find out what the problem is you have to take and give feedback. This means that you might have found only one side of the problem and that not give you the solution. Have a 1 on 1 meeting with the employee, find out why he is behaving like that and after have a meeting with the department manager and his colleagues. Take the feedback from all persons involved and don't forget to give back your feedback. It is important for this meetings to have an ending conclusion which is  also communicated to your difficult employee.

Keep it professional - don't forget it is a business problem not a personal one. We all know that is difficult to let your personal side away but at work we have to do it.

Stick to your HR policy - if you have a HR policy you have to stick to it because you might create confusion and also you might leave the impression that you apply them discretionary. This thing get us to another step: be consistent in your decisions, in your procedures, don't change them in the middle of the game.
One of the most important thing, in my opinion is LISTEN. Listen your difficult people, see what's bothers them. Why is he being so difficult. It may be a little thing and you can solve it quickly.

How are you dealing with your special employees? What are you doing to get them be part of the team?