Keeping your team motivated in times of uncertainty

It’s important to appreciate that what people fear most is the unknown. Consequently, they will not be motivated if they’re feeling scared or suspicious about the current climate and what it could lead to. For this reason, keeping everyone informed is key. Let your staff know what you are doing and what plans you have in place. Discuss your plan B and communicate to your team how that plan will involve making sure everyone is aligned and knows what they’re doing and then engage them by getting their ideas and input. Forward thinking companies will also have plans C and D thought out, so inform everyone that these exist to show that you have planned how you will take more control and carry out damage limitation, should the need arise. Revisit this on a regular basis so that everyone feels reassured that you have everything under control.

It’s the management team’s duty to keep everyone focussed and encourage open communication. Additionally, organisations should be aware that younger members of staff who have joined the workforce since 2003 may not have ever worked through difficult markets and may therefore find themselves in an unfamiliar, and perhaps scary, situation. Mentoring and buddy schemes are a great way of overcoming these issues and can allow employees to share knowledge and experiences to hopefully diffuse any worries that may be present. Combine this with training and coaching to arm your staff with the skills they need to work effectively, if they don’t have the knowledge in place to succeed in their role, their motivation and confidence levels will remain low.

We asked some of our specialist trainers for their top tips too.

Does the Apprentice provide any useful learning for managers?

I recently came across a poll on the CMI website that asked participants “Does the Apprentice provide any useful learning for managers?” interestingly currently 62% agree that it does.

Our coverage over series touched upon various do’s and don’t we can learn from the contestants, from sales techniques, to presentation skills and general business acumen. What we also saw across the series was the impact that the project manager could have on their team and subsequently impact on their success in the task. It was evident which of the candidates had management experience and those who had the technical expertise for that task but don’t necessarily have the leadership experience to manage their team effectively.

We like to call these people the ‘accidental manager’ – These are team members who have been promoted or have defaulted into the management role because they are the most experienced or most successful in the team. Yet they haven’t been given the tools to lead effectively and what results is disengaged and less effective teams. Research shows that line managers have a 60% impact on their team’s performance and we saw this first hand throughout the Apprentice series.

We asked the CMI what they thought…

Navigating Change as a First Line Manager

As the fragile economy begins to mend, recruitment companies need to adapt to new business realities.  This means embracing constant change in order to build new capabilities that are more effective and innovative – and deliver higher performance. Our world is highly competitive – never more so – it’s technology is constantly evolving, customers, internal and external, are constantly changing their expectations and attracting and retaining the best talent is ever more competitive.

This puts an enormous pressure on front line managers and leaders – in other words billing managers.  Not only do they have to translate the organisation’s vision of growth into reality, develop and engage their people, contribute to their peer group as a member of the management team but also interact with clients and candidates exceeding, not just meeting, their dynamic expectations.

One of the risks is, there’s so much change taking place within our businesses that we don’t have a chance to properly imbed it, in other words it doesn’t have time to ‘freeze’.  Layers upon layers of ‘unfrozen’ change create slush.  The responsibility to make sense of this chaos falls into the hands of front line managers.  This can be like trying to successfully navigate through high volume sets of white water rapids, while keeping up team spirit and camaraderie, in the face of unfamiliar and unpredictable challenges.  Definitely enough to keep your heart pumping!

Are they equipped for the job? 

A boost in morale

What’s the most important issue for managers and HR at the moment? Budgets? Recruitment? Performance? Whatever it is, there is something that needs some urgent attention if recent surveys are to be believed; and that is staff morale.

The CIPD found that out of 2,144 employees surveyed job satisfaction has dropped to lowest ever level – to a net score* of +35 compared to +46 during the depths of recession this time last year. It also found that 40% of staff had their pay frozen, a further 7% had their pay cut and almost half said their company had experienced or was planning redundancies. A study by chrysaliscourses.co.uk supported these findings, with over a third of workers saying that they felt their hard work was ‘completely unappreciated’ and 3 in 10 feeling ‘completely unchallenged’ by their jobs. A fifth said that they felt no loyalty to their organisation as a result.

The changing faces of recruitment

We featured in Recruiter Daily last week – our article focussed on how recruitment agencies have had to change their approach following the recession and what they will be required to do in the recovery. To see the article in full click here.

 In the meantime here is a summary:  

The rules of engagement are changing

You may have seen me quoted in Recruiter talking about the key issues that recruiters must focus on for 2010. So here is a run down of those issues and what we need to be doing!

Extreme economic conditions have left recruitment leaders with smaller, stronger teams but anticipated growth, albeit minimal at first, will mean they need to attract the best talent out there to join them.  These new teams will face greater challenges than ever before. So what are the main challenges leaders/managers will face in 2010? How can we help and resource our people as leaders?

This burning issue should be high on the agenda in our boardrooms right now.  Whilst each individual company needs to thrash out the specifics, three overriding themes will be common to us all.

How to motivate your team in 2010

  

We’re all hoping for a brighter 2010 after the tough year that was 2009 is now behind us. It is vital to fully engage your people and motivation plays a major part. Motivation is key during a recession, but it’s absolutely critical in a recovery. Why? We’re not out of the woods yet – many companies are still facing difficulties and they need to have hard working and motivated teams to ensure they make it through them. On other hand, as market conditions do start to improve, so will the jobs market – and unless they’re happy and well motivated, those people that you’ve retained over the past year will be plotting their move. So what should you be doing to motivate your team?