Motivation

In my work as a facilitator, I get a lot of questions about interpersonal relations between supervisors and employees. One question asked over and over is, "Given the lack of resources in this stressed economy, how does one find ways to motivate employees that do not involve financial resources?" I think it is key for supervisors to understand the first step to motivate employees is to find out something about them--what turns them on and what turns them off. We should then focus on doing as much as we can to turn them on and refrain from doing things that turn them off. Employees are motivated by praise, challenge, being in on decisions that affect them, as well as other forms of recognition that do not cost money. I invite other examples of actions supervisors can take to motivate employees.

Leadership

Last week I was facilitating a seminar for a group of new supervisors and one of them asked me, "Cal, if you were promoted from a position within your team to the position of supervisor, would you maintain the same social relationships with your friends that you now supervise?" I thought that was a very challenging question and had to think about it before giving an answer. I advised it would be unwise to maintain the same relationships because it might create a conflict of interest. Maintaining a close social relationship may create a morale problem because some of your employees may accuse you of favoritism.

Counseling Employees

I am Calvin Swartz, President of Progressive Success Corporation. I am a management consultant specializing in facilitating supervision, leadership, and management development seminars. I will be using my blog as a medium for exchanging views about techniques for solving supervisory and management problems related to interpersonal relations in the work place. This is the first one designed to get your comments and start a dialog about these relationships. In my seminars, I use unique names related to the issues to create interest and assist in describing the situations. I will be using these characters in future topics.
For many years, participants in my seminars have had the opportunity to ask me, "Cal, what would you do if...?" questions. In a recent seminar, a new supervisor, Ibee D. Nusuper asked, "Cal, what would you do if two people showed up late for work? I supervise 16 people in my new job. Last week, two of them showed up 1 hour late. To correct this problem, I called the whole team together because I wanted everyone to get the message I would not tolerate late arrivals. Did I do the right thing?"
"No, you did not do the right thing. Mass punish only aleinates those who did not break the rules. In the future you should first ensure that everyone is aware of the rules. Then when an individual breaks the rules, only deal with that person."
What advice would you offer Ibee? Was it appropriate to call the whole team together when only two people were late? Would your advice be different for other acts of misconduct? Please share your thoughts regarding this situation.