Not too long ago in our office we were having what you might call a “dry spell”, the kind where you just keep doing what you do each day, nothing is really wrong, but eventually everyone starts to feel get a bit of “cabin fever” because of the regular daily routine.
This can happen for many reasons, like an increase in business so you are doing what you do normally, but just more of it. Or possibly business has been slow and people get bored or maybe it is just the day-in-day-out regular routine has become dull.
The important issue is that it is recognized and something is done about before the staff starts suffering from apathy and management has bigger problems to deal with.
In our weekly office meetings we had been talking about doing something fun in the office and came up with a few good ideas, but it just seemed that we never took the time to implement them. Our idea was to do a “tropical theme” in the office because we had been having such dreary weather for a few months so we thought we could bring the sunshine to us. Just to let you know we like doing themes throughout the year and our patients love them, but we had not done one for awhile.
We wanted to do a couple of different raffles for our patients as this has always made for a fun time and great interaction. But two weeks had gone by and we had not done a thing, what was the problem? Finally at our office huddle we addressed the issue of our apathy and decided that we need to get ourselves going and “just do it” (thanks Nike), which we did.
We made and put up signs for our raffle, the tropical theme was in full bloom with parrots hanging from the ceiling, pink flamingos and Hawaiian leis. When the patients came in the next morning they were excited and why? Because we were excited, even though we were doing the same thing we were doing it with different flare. To tell the truth, the week was a bit hectic, but it did not get us down. At the end of the first day one of our staff members stated “today went well, our patients were excited and it was good.” That was worth a million dollars to me, to hear that the staff felt good and things were more exciting because of something simple that we were doing in our office for our patients.
Business owners and management personnel need to realize that the success of the business weighs heavily on those that work there, because they are the ones who interact 75% (if not more) of the time with your customers/patients/clients. Your staff needs to be happy and feel good about what they are doing and about what your business is doing for those you serve.
Does it take time to keep staff members motivated? Oh yes! it does, but the outcomes totally out-weigh the input that you need to do to keep things exciting and fresh for your staff. Remember “They Are The Key” and the investment is 10-fold.
For ideas and articles on “Motivation in the Workplace” we have an e-booklet download on our website home page for you. Enjoy! www.gotoppm.com
08/13/14
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