With so many different aspects of practice/office management for your business, one can have a hard time knowing what should come first in order to keep things running well. I recently read a great article on the Forbes website titled “The Open Secret to Motivating Employees” (link listed below for full article) which asked the following question of business owners; “Could a 5 minute interaction with an employee increase your weekly production?” What do you think, could spending 5 minutes with an employee improve their overall production at work for the week? You may be surprised but the answer in most cases is yes.
I am sure your question as was mine, what type of interaction needed to take place in that 5 minutes in order to make a difference to that employee that they would want to produce more? There are three major factors that will influence employees and make them what to buy into and produce more for their company.
1. Task significance – Everyone needs to know what the need of the company is and how is it that they can help achieve the goal in order to make the company they work for successful. This must be individualized for each employee so that they can see what it is that they can do to help achieve this. Knowing how their job has a meaningful, positive impact on others (those they serve, i.e., customers, other employees or their boss) makes employees happier and more productive. They see and understand their purpose.
2. Face-to-face interactions – When employees are told directly, not by e-mail, memo or a phone call what it is that they (personally) do that contributes to the success of the company it make a tremendous impact on how they feel and that translates into what they do, which is higher job performance.
3. Employers need to create ways that reinforce employees’ awareness of whom they are serving and the benefits that they personally are providing customers, co-workers, their boss or the company as a whole. Collect and tell inspiring customer stories, take pictures of happy customers, show them the profit and loss report when things are improving. Whatever you can think of that will show your employees what they contribute to the overall success of the business will make a big difference to how they function and desire to produce more.
Five minutes really is not that much time, even if you have 100 employees it only comes to approximately 8 1/2 hours for a weeks worth of interaction with the most important assets you have for your company, isn’t it worth the investment?
“Investing in employees is the single most important investment that a company can make.” -Brian Smith, Managing Partner, Blackfoot River Brewing Company, Helena, MT
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