The golden rule of employee motivation

The golden rule of employee motivation

What should we do if our employees are not enthusiastic about work and their morale is not high enough? The following is the golden rule of employee spiritual motivation that I compiled. Welcome to read it!

Golden Rule 1: Employees are "relatives"

Hewlett-Packard Company of the United States not only It has entered the ranks of the top 100 major companies in the world with its outstanding performance, and is also famous for its corporate spirit of respect and trust for people.

At HP, the laboratory supplies warehouse where electrical and mechanical parts are stored is fully open, allowing and even encouraging engineers to use them at work or at home. HP's point is: No matter what they do with the parts, they can always learn something by playing with them. The company does not have a work schedule, nor does it conduct attendance checks. Each employee can make flexible arrangements according to personal habits and circumstances. HP has always spared no expense in employee training, even if it involves losing personnel.

Bill Hewlett, founder of HP, said: "HP's success is mainly due to the purpose of 'valuing people', which is to believe from the bottom of their hearts that every employee wants to create something. I have always We believe that as long as employees are provided with the right environment, they can do better. "Based on this concept, HP pays special attention to and values ??everyone and recognizes their achievements, dignity and value.

In Panasonic Electric Company of Japan, one of the secrets of employing people is to believe in employees. Konosuke Matsushita often said: "Everyone has a working nature. If you don't let him work, he may feel relaxed and happy at first. But over time, he will be bored. The secret to motivating subordinates to work hard is trust. Subordinates, let them work autonomously. Of course, this does not mean being indifferent to your subordinates. As a manager, you still have to say what you should say, but you must pay attention to the way you say it to avoid hurting the self-esteem of your subordinates when criticizing. This is something I have learned from long-term practice. ”

Golden Rule 2: Employees are the “owners”

In the past, state-owned enterprises have always focused on “enhancing employees’ sense of ownership.” As a slogan to motivate employees. In fact, this also applies to foreign companies and domestic private companies, but the methods and means are different. Letting employees become "owners" is easier said than done. Once this is truly achieved, employees can maximize their potential.

In order to make employees the "owners", Agilent tries to avoid layoffs. During the company's most difficult times, they adopted measures to reduce expenses and reduce salaries for all employees. Agilent employees believe that their work contributes, their lives are valuable, and they are the "owners" of the company. Agilent educates employees not to view work as a responsibility, but as a dynamic behavior. Practice has proven that this kind of attracting and retaining talents is very effective. The turnover rate of current employees is very low and the success rate of recruiting new people is very high. Agilent has two specific experiences:

First, it constantly updates its talent retention system and grasps employees’ specific ideas in a timely manner. Each employee's ideas at each stage are different, and the motivation method should also be changed accordingly.

The second is to encourage and help employees learn second skills to cope with various changes. As the outside world changes, the nature of employees' work may change at any time. This requires effective encouragement of employees and the creation of conditions for trying different areas. Agilent respects every employee and is responsible for their personal development.

HP’s “neighbor table principle” also greatly enhances employees’ sense of ownership. The so-called "neighbor desk principle" encourages every employee to look at what the people around him are doing while working, whether they are encountering difficulties, and to think about whether there is a better way to help them solve the problem smoothly. HP has accurately grasped everyone's subtle psychology of wanting to highlight themselves, and has elevated everyone's active role to a higher level. The company also has a tradition that all the designer's designs are placed on the desk.

This way, any employee can come into the office at any time to mess around, or even criticize without fear. This approach greatly stimulates employees' sense of ownership. At HP, employees care about the company as much as they care about themselves.

L’Oréal China Branch strives to create a strong “family atmosphere” within the company. In addition to recruiting first-class talents, the China branch fully integrates young people into the entire company's business operation system. Successive presidents of L'Oreal have emphasized the need to create a "family atmosphere" within the company so that young people who are new to the company can become the "masters" of their homes as soon as possible. L'Oreal is unwilling to "bind" its employees with contracts, but instead finds ways to enhance the attractiveness of every position in the company. The person in charge of the company said: "It is absolutely regrettable if a promising and talented young man asks to resign. However, it is actually ourselves who should be reviewed, not him."

Golden Rule Three: Affirm Personal Dignity

Whether the personal dignity of enterprise employees can be truly affirmed often reflects the importance the enterprise attaches to human resources management. Which company puts the personal dignity of its employees first will be able to develop rapidly. The reason is simple, respecting others means respecting yourself.

Motorola has always taken "affirming human dignity" as its management philosophy and maintains constant respect for people. At Motorola, human dignity mainly includes:

(1) Harmonious working environment;

(2) Clear personal future;

(3) Openness Communication channels;

(4) Sufficient privacy space;

(5) Sufficient training opportunities;

(6) Peaceful resignation arrangements.

On the issue of resignation, it especially reflects Motorola’s respect for its employees. The company tries its best to avoid layoffs. When layoffs are necessary, the candidates for layoffs will be selected based on the employee's performance, skills and length of service. For example, employees who have served the company for more than 10 years cannot be included in the layoff list without the approval of the chairman and president. When employees leave due to personal or company business needs, the company will also provide assistance such as arranging other jobs, helping to introduce outside jobs, issuing compensation and continuing to pay certain benefits and wages. Motorola's business philosophy of putting people first, respecting individuals, unleashing people's potential, and realizing the simultaneous development of personal value and the company has formed a cultural atmosphere of mutual respect between employees and the company, and created a good working environment.

Motorola believes that the basis of management is respect. At the beginning of the company's founding, a set of corporate systems and work styles were formed with the purpose of respecting people, and this idea was penetrated into all levels of corporate culture. Motorola believes that respect has at least four meanings:

(1) Affirming personal value;

(2) Giving special trust;

(3) Creating harmony Atmosphere;

(4) Meet specific requirements.

At Motorola, all rules and regulations, key initiatives, and major activities are extremely transparent. The company has set up a "Speak Up" mailbox where employees can make comments, suggestions or complaints on various matters. The company often holds general manager symposiums, where employees can communicate face-to-face with the general manager and discuss all specific issues. The company also specially designed a questionnaire on "affirming personal dignity":

(1) Is your job certain and fulfilling?

(2) Is your training appropriate and positive?

(3) How do you master specific work specifications?

(4) How do you understand your career future?

(5) Can you get the most timely feedback?

(6) Can you get the fairest treatment?

Golden Rule 4: Feel the joy of work

The essence of life is to find a kind of satisfaction. If you can channel this satisfaction into work, you will definitely get amazing results.

Shell Hong Kong regards its employees as valuable assets and always adheres to the "people-oriented" management philosophy. The company believes that to drive employees to perform at their best, they must be guided to find and feel satisfaction at work. To this end, the company has taken three major measures:

(1) Increase employee participation opportunities. In order to improve cost-effectiveness, the company often invites employees from different departments to participate in different working groups, and everyone has discussions together. Everyone is most familiar with their own work procedures and knows best how to control costs. This increase in participation opportunities effectively stimulates employees' expertise and potential.

(2) Stimulate employees’ creative potential. The company takes employees outdoors every year to try difficult activities such as high-altitude walking, shooting, pole climbing, etc., in order to improve employees' spirituality in adapting to changes in the outside world and cultivate their courage to accept challenges. The theme of the outdoor activities is: "Liberating the Inner Potential of Employees." The company firmly believes that everyone has potential and encourages employees to maximize their creativity.

(3) Design career plans for employees. The company believes that it is important to help employees maintain physical and mental balance. The company launched an employee development program, working with a consulting firm. This service scope includes four aspects: professional personal consulting; performance management consulting; retirement consulting; and healthy life consulting. All types of employees are taken care of, and expenses are fully paid for by the company. Employees can make an appointment by phone to meet with a counselor.

Nortel Networks Canada’s approach is: never let an employee hold one position until retirement. The company believes that to stimulate the enthusiasm of outstanding talents, simple material rewards are only a temporary solution. As time goes by and the material level of employees improves, the motivational effect of salary will gradually decrease. Therefore, companies pay more attention to helping employees design their career development plans when motivating employees. Nortel employees can get job rotation opportunities after working for two years, which effectively stimulates their potential.

BASF’s basic principle for motivating employees is: the work assigned to employees must be suitable for their work abilities. Different people have different working abilities, and different jobs also require people with different working abilities. Therefore, the task of business managers is to try to ensure that the assigned work is suitable for each employee's interests and abilities. In this regard, the company has adopted six methods:

(1) Exactly understand employee interests;

(2) Comprehensive analysis of employee capabilities;

(3 ) Develop work specifications in a timely manner;

(4) Objectively evaluate work performance;

(5) The system stores relevant data;

(6) Fairly recommend relevant talents .

Facts have proved that being comfortable at work is one of the magic weapons for making employees feel happy at work. Zou Huan from the Shanghai Representative Office of Fuji Photographic Equipment Co., Ltd. said it very well: “Everyone is excellent, the key is how to put them in the right position. Fish and meat are both good things, but they are burned together. It’s not necessarily delicious. Molded vegetables are very common, but roasted meat with molded vegetables can reflect the delicious taste of fusion. To a certain extent, the human resources manager should also play the role of a chef and pursue the maximum through complementary advantages. Effectiveness. ”

Golden Rule Five: Adopt Suggestions

Everyone has potential talents, but how to stimulate them requires managers to use their brains. Practice has proven that letting employees make suggestions is a good idea. In this regard, the most successful company is Toyota.

In 1951, Eiji Toyoda served as general manager of Toyota Motor Corporation. He implemented the suggestion system of "using your brains to innovate", which greatly aroused the enthusiasm of employees for their work. He first established the "Brain-based Innovation Committee" and formulated specific regulations. There are suggestion boxes and "suggestion discussion rooms" everywhere in the workshop. The scope of suggestions includes the invention and manufacturing of mechanical instruments, the improvement and improvement of operating procedures, and the evaluation and saving of material consumption. Leaders can not only hear opinions from the factory floor, but also keep abreast of the extent to which employees have mastered technical capabilities.

Employees use this system to find the joy of innovation, giving full play to their abilities and truly feeling great satisfaction.

In South Korea, most companies have “suggestion boxes”. For example, the five major consortiums in South Korea clearly stipulate that each company employee must put forward 2 to 6 suggestions every year, and each department must hold a suggestion presentation meeting every month. After review by a special committee, they will be divided into 10 grades. Once adopted, they will be given 3,000 yuan. up to 500,000 yuan in rewards. The Lexi Venus Foundation sets up the “Lexi Suggestion Award”, “Most Suggestions Award”, “Best Suggestion Award” and “Most Suggestions Department Award” every month, quarter and year every year. The Samsung Foundation implements a recommendation and recognition system, with a gold award of 2 million yuan, a silver award of 1 million yuan, and a bronze award of 500,000 yuan. The Daewoo Foundation has not only set up a small "suggestion box", but also established a "telephone suggestion system" to allow employees to immediately put forward ideas that come to mind over the phone, and arrange for full-time personnel to answer the phone and take notes. The Xianjing Foundation promises that if the suggestion is adopted, the company will provide funds and the proposer will operate independently to turn the suggestion into a living reality.

Due to the timely adoption of a large number of employees' suggestions, these companies maximize the talents of their employees and promote the healthy and steady development of the company.

Golden Rule Six: Tolerate Mistakes

As the first company in Japan to have spiritual values ??and a company song, Panasonic is very tolerant. When dealing with employees who have made serious mistakes, the company does not simply deal with them seriously, but gives them an opportunity to make up for their mistakes. This approach stabilizes employees’ thoughts and emotions and is indeed worth learning from. Konosuke Matsushita has a famous saying: "If you make an honest mistake, the company can forgive you and use it as a tuition fee. But if you deviate from the company's spiritual values, you will be severely criticized until you are fired."

A certain software company regards “dare to fail” as its corporate cultural philosophy. The company's managers believed that allowing smart people to create and embrace change meant allowing them to fail. First, change is bound to be accompanied by failure. Second, failure can also be a source of learning and progress. They often tell employees: It doesn't matter if you make mistakes. In their view, if employees care too much about mistakes and seek safety, they may lead to bigger mistakes. Not only that, they encourage employees to adopt a “can-fail” attitude at work. Most employees dare to face up to their "failures" on many occasions. The president of the company said: "Failure is a kind of dedication, but as long as the failure is smaller than the opponent, you will win. In fact, I gradually established this idea as I grew up. Failure is the mother of success. Without failure, There will be no success. In this sense, without the failure of employees, there will be no success of the entire company."

Golden Rule 7: Innovation Psychology

Success can give people a sense of accomplishment. . If employees are given the opportunity to innovate, they will have the desire to succeed. Motivating employees to succeed can make full use of employees' innovative psychology, which is a good medicine for company management. Business leaders must fully mobilize the enthusiasm of employees and ensure that their enthusiasm for work lasts for a long time.

IBM has implemented a unique system to encourage innovation. Those with successful experience in innovation will not only be awarded "IBM membership", but also provided with five years of innovation time and necessary material support. The main contents are:

(1) The right to choose ideas;

(2) The right to try adventures;

(3) The right to plan for the future;

(4) The right to obtain benefits.

This incentive mechanism not only satisfies innovators' pursuit of success, but also allows them to receive effective rewards; at the same time, it is also the most economical means of investment in innovation.

According to relevant surveys, among today’s high-tech enterprises or companies focusing on intellectual services, the top ten effective motivating factors are:

(1) Outstanding career achievements;

(2) Harmonious social relationships;

(3) Passionate life emotions;

(4) Generous personal benefits;

(5) Full leadership trust;

(6) Excellent working conditions;

(7) Harmonious family atmosphere;

　 (8) Sufficient promotion opportunities;

(9) Timely verbal encouragement;

(10) Special love experience.

Among these ten motivating factors, outstanding career achievements rank first. Therefore, it is also wise to arrange difficult tasks appropriately. In fact, people are generally not satisfied with a fixed and simple labor.

Golden Rule Eight: Shame

Domino’s Pizza Company once opened a branch in New England, and business was very prosperous. However, due to the shortage of dough, the company's supply guarantee of "delivery within 30 minutes" was in vain, and it ultimately broke the trust of consumers. For this reason, the regional manager bought 1,000 black gauze for all employees to wear as a sign of condolence. He cleverly used the "shame mentality" to motivate employees and successfully achieved the goal of preventing similar phenomena from happening.

Using the "shame mentality" to motivate is actually "flawless management" in crisis management. Japanese companies particularly advocate "defect-free management" and have achieved good results. As one senior Toyota executive put it: "We should not overemphasize 'total quality management,' because at best it can reduce defects to 10. If we produce 4 million cars, there will be 400,000 people buy a defective car, which will definitely become the biggest crisis between production and users. But if we implement 'defect-free management', this phenomenon will be completely eliminated."

Now, the far-leading Japanese companies have gradually shifted from "total quality management" to "defect-free management", which is an innovation in production management in the world. Compared with the American corporate world, this management method of Japanese companies is more than 15 years ahead.

Golden Rule 9: Conventional methods to maintain morale

Needless to say, everyone is lazy. To keep employees' morale high, they must work relentlessly. Practice has proven that the following methods can effectively maintain employee morale:

(1) Say hello. Saying hello to your employees frequently can greatly increase your rapport with your employees.

(2) Heart-to-heart talk. Talk to employees frequently to understand the situation and solicit opinions.

(3) Praise. Employees with outstanding performance should be praised, and employees who work hard should also be appropriately encouraged.

(4) Training. Conduct targeted new knowledge training frequently to enhance the professional skills of each salesperson.

(5) Assessment. Establish an appraisal department to evaluate the performance of all employees as a reference for rewards and promotions.

(6) Promotion. For those employees whose business is mature, they should be promoted in a timely manner.

(7) Au pair. Allow salespeople to switch jobs within the company to stimulate their new energy.

(8) Charging. Provide various job rotation opportunities to enrich employees' work experience and eliminate their burnout.

(9) Orientation. Help employees establish personal development goals based on corporate goals and connect employee development with corporate development. Continuously provide them with new jobs, creative opportunities and a competitive environment to enhance their confidence in themselves. In short, we should pursue higher performance and reach higher goals together with our employees.

(10) Unification. Employees often have different ages and education levels, and differences in attitudes and values ??resulting from this should be avoided.

Employees' attitude, professional knowledge, job skills, and health status should be used as criteria for promotion. At the same time, don’t rush to completely deny an employee’s ability to work just because he or she has poor adaptability.

Golden Rule 10: Special methods to maintain morale

Relevant experts have found through research that smiling from the heart often can significantly improve a person's physiological state and greatly improve a person's health. Mental outlook, thereby stimulating work enthusiasm and creating higher efficiency.

In Ohio, USA, there was a subsidiary of a steel and civil distillation company that was not doing well for a time. The head office appointed Daniel as the general manager of the subsidiary, and the face of the company quickly changed dramatically. It turned out that Daniel posted slogans everywhere in the factory: "Please share your smile with everyone around you." He also changed the factory emblem into a smiling face. Usually, Daniel always has a cheerful face, greets the workers with a smile, and asks for their opinions with a smile. He can name all the 2,000 workers in the factory. Infected by his smile, the employees' work enthusiasm has greatly improved. Three years later, the factory did not increase any investment, but its production efficiency increased by 30%.

Mark’s management philosophy of “increasing the joyful atmosphere” is similar to Daniel’s “smile management”. Mark is the owner of a public relations company in Seattle, USA. In order to add some joy to the company, he adopted some simple but effective methods: closing the company for one day every quarter and taking all employees to watch movies; employees turned off their pagers four times a year and set their phones to voicemail. Go to enjoy open-air concerts; provide a variety of fruits and drinks at the weekly luncheon attended by all employees; allow employees to dress casually, but only have a uniform dress code when receiving customers.

Psychologist Herzberg proposed the "two-factor theory" to scientifically clarify the two major factors that motivate employees: Hygiene factors are preventive maintenance factors that can eliminate employee dissatisfaction. Emotions to maintain their enthusiasm; motivating factors can stimulate the spirit of employees, guide them to perform their best, and enhance their enterprising spirit, sense of responsibility, sense of accomplishment, etc.

We have reason to believe that motivation methods are more important than pure material benefits. In the past, if you were used to using money to win people's hearts, it is recommended that you switch to spiritual motivation methods, which will be much more effective. ;