Melina Murray

What motivates your employees?  Do you know?  Do you ask?

I often ask friends and acquaintances if they love what they do. Some say yes, some say no, and some look at me like I have 2 heads. Whatever the answer, I ask “why?”.  For those who love what they do, I want to know what makes it great. For those who say no, I want to know why they stay.  Below is a sampling of the responses I get.

• I am get to take on projects that challenge me.
• My company pays well above the industry standard, I make a lot of money.
• I can work remotely.
• My company pays 100% of my health benefits.
• My boss encourages me to think up new projects, suggest improvements.
• I work with an awesome team.
• I can leave early to take care of personal stuff whenever I need to.
• While I tend to work long hours sometimes, the company takes care of meals and has a couch where I can take a nap.  Plus, at the end of a major project, my manager takes us all out to celebrate.
• We have a great training/education program.
• Our company really pays attention to hiring, so I work with a ton of cool people.

As you can see, the responses vary wildly. 

The ones who say “yes” are generally the ones who are able to learn, grow, do “cool things”.  These are the employees who enjoy coming into work each day, contributing and making a difference.

Those who say “no” (but are staying) are generally the ones who are motivated by the finances or benefits. Are these employees engaged?  Perhaps not in the same way as those who say “yes”, but if the work they produce is meeting the needs of the company, then it equals out.  For the short term at least.

 What this all comes down to is knowing what makes a difference to your employees and providing the flexibility, programs and structure to meet their needs.

Sometimes I read an article about a company and think, “Brilliant!! Phenomenal!  Every CEO and HR leader should read this and follow suit!“.Today was one of those days.  Thanks to Twitter, I came across this article from Harvard Business Publishing, Why Zappos Pays Its Employees To Quit- And You Should Too.  It is well worth a read, but can be summed up by the last paragraph: 

Companies don’t engage emotionally with their customers—people do. If you want to create a memorable company, you have to fill your company with memorable people. How are you making sure that you’re filling your organization with the right people? And how much are you willing to pay to find out?          

When you have terminations, how do you generally tell the remaining employees?  Is it kept quiet, letting people “figure it out”?  Do you gather immediate co-workers/subordinates and share the information immediately?  Do you hold impromptu staff meetings to disseminate the information?Recently, I heard the story of a termination at a large company.  A well respected, long term Vice President went into a meeting with the new head of the organization and never came back.  Staff were called into a meeting in groups of seniority to be told “X is no longer with us.”  That is it. No other information, no questions were allowed.  But the time the third wave of people were ready to go in, everyone knew and the rumor mill was full of confusion and panic.  Since then, bitterness has continued to stew.  Communication from the top is non-existent and the staff is still in a state of shock, months later. While, in general, it is not appropriate or wise to disclose the reasons for a termination, not allowing any questions or following up with staff after such a major change is a sure-fire way to breed discontent and lower productivity.  The first reaction to news like this is typically, “Why?” and “What does this mean for me?”.  As mentioned above, the “why” is something to be handled carefully. But the “What does this mean for me?” can be handled as simply as saying “You position will remain the same, no other changes are planned.  Thank you for all your patience and your continued contributions during this transition period.”.   

Someone I know has a close, but not direct, family member who was recently and surprisingly diagnosed with terminal cancer and has perhaps months to live. She was devastated, yet committed to helping out and supporting the rest of her family in any way possible through the initial emergency, surgery and diagnosis. Consequently, she showed up late to work a few times, and took some personal calls during “work time”. Her supervisor (large company) pulled her aside one day, fully aware of the circumstances, and told her the infractions were not acceptable and that her personal problems had no place at work.

My response was “want help finding a new job?”. She has since left the company.

Was she getting her work done? Yes. Was someone else burdened with picking up her work? No. Was her quality slipping? No, she was receiving positive feedback consistently. There was no reason to chastise this woman other than the fact she was not strictly working from 8 to 5.

What this did do was to deflate her morale and make her feel like the company didn’t care. And, like I said, she is no longer with this company.

Blogging is a prevalent form of communication today. There are so many different people, topics and ideas out in cyberspace. When the topic of a company or corporate blog comes up, the question I most often hear is “why”? “What is the value”? “What do we get out of it”?

My answer is that it depends on what you want.

Some companies use blogs to promote build a reputation of thought leadership. In these cases the contributors most often post about topics directly related to the industry, current issues, and the company’s products/mission.

Some companies use the blog as a way to stay in contact with their community, inviting customers, employees, and guests to write posts and/or comment on ideas and products.

Other companies use their corporate blog as a way to announce new products, ideas, welcome clients, etc. Like a personal, but public, bulletin board.

And, of course, a blog can be used as a recruiting tool. Whether positioning your company as a thought leader, talking about cool new products, and/or posting job openings. All these ideas help expand not only your company brand, but reach out to potential hires. Think of that talented, passive candidate who may be attracted by a post to learn more about your company.

I read an excellent description of corporate blogging via the Liz Ryan Digest from Graco’s lead blogger. (posted here with the author’s permission)

I am actually the lead corporate blogger for Graco Children’s Products and we’ve had a lot of success with it so far. How you define success truly depends on what you are trying to accomplish. At the heart of corporate blogging, it’s really about the conversation you want to engage in with your audience. Blogs aren’t publishing mediums and they also aren’t the only/most important part of a social media strategy. For us, it’s about having a relationship with our target audience (parents) who are actively participating in the online space- we are just a part of that now. It’s about going to your audience where they already are instead of expecting them to come to you. Engage and participate – authentically, and your success will come from that. I recently spoke at the BlogHer Business conference in NYC presenting the Graco case study on successful blogger outreach. You can check out the panel here http://blip.tv/file/813495/ and here http://blip.tv/file/813680/. Social media has been the most fun I’ve had since starting my marketing career over 8 years ago. Good luck and
have fun with it!

Lindsay Lebresco

http://blog.gracobaby.com
Public Relations and Social Media Manager, Graco Children’s Products-a Newell Rubbermaid company

There are various considerations prior to setting up a company blog. From purpose/intent, to guidelines (including legal protections), to deciding who writes, and more.

For other articles, information and guidelines on Corporate Blogging, feel free to visit the links below:

• Corporate Blogging- How the Pros Do It
• How To Create the Perfect Company Blog
• Should You Start a Business Blog?
• The Process of Starting a Corporate Blog