 Spring
Clean:
Spruce up your office. Clear out the junk, Change the pictures on the walls.
Bring in some fresh flowers. Clean out your desk. Re-arrange the furniture.
Re-organise the storage area. Purge the files. Buy a new piece of furniture.
Add some colour. Wash or re paint some walls.
Involve the whole team.
Be
Friendly:
How friendly is your workplace?
Look at the way your signs and policies are written. Are they authoritarian
and controlling or are they polite and informative? Change all of your
negative signs into positive ones. For example, "Do not leave the
lights on" could become "Please turn the lights off when you
leave." Your staff see these signs every day and they influence the
way they think about your business. Treat them as adults not children.
How about spending some time with the troops.
Pick one of the most unpopular or low status areas of the company and go
and spend a day working with them.
You might learn something about the problems they have doing their work.
You might understand how your policies and decisions look from their point
of view. You might get to know some of your "valuable assets" a
little better. You might help them to understand your decisions. You might
help them to become more like business people - to be focused on their
customers. You might raise their morale.
I know, you'd love to do it but you're just too busy.
Offer
internal guarantees:
By now, everyone knows they have internal customers and internal suppliers.
With any luck, people in your business also know the only reason they get
paid is to add value to satisfy their internal customers. But how to make
the concept of satisfying the internal customer more than hype?
An internal guarantee is a promise by an internal supplier to do something
for the internal customer if he fails to deliver the goods or services
according to the agreed standard.
The internal guarantee might be money. One group of executives agreed to
pay the others $100 if they were late for a meeting. The CEO was late,
paid up and was never late again.
Or it might be fanciful - like putting on morning tea or singing a song.
Whatever it is, the internal guarantee should be painful to the supplier
and pleasant for the customer. And it should be promised in writing.
Initiate
voluntary "early bird" coffee-and doughnut sessions at 1am
on Wednesdays and Fridays - one, an open-ended problem-solving session;
the other, training topics recommended by members (and taught by the
members and/or outsiders).
Put
up a display in the foyer for "bright lights ". List all the good news,
good deeds and good ideas for this month.
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Being
around negative people is stressful. Create a Positive Zone in the
staff room where people are not allowed to whinge, complain or make
negative comments. Put calming pictures and inspirational posters and
quotes on the wall.
Reward
Effort Every month, choose an outstanding employee and let them send
up to $50.00 worth of flowers to anyone they like, at the company’s
expense.
Meetings
- ho hum: Brighten up an otherwise humdrum (regular) meeting by serving
munchies and drinks (non-alcoholic) - muffins, croissants, cookies
and ice-cream - whatever you fancy. The change will lift energy and
stimulate creativity.
Have
people fill out "dream sheets" with personal goals for the next
90, 180, 365 days; informally review the goals with them every six weeks
(focus on training commitments, voluntary growth assignments, for example).
Encourage
your staff to use their computer e-mail system to "tattle" on
co-workers caught doing a good deed. When someone goes out of their way
to help customers or other staff tell people to send out an "I caught
so-and-so" message to all workers. Not only will word of the good
deed be communicated to all employees, but the employees who are reported
on will be energised by the positive attention from their co-workers.
Play
Musical Chairs:
Each day offer someone the chance to work in another of section of the
business for the day.
Make it spontaneous. It will break the routine for that person and the
host section, and each will learn something.
Too hard to do?
It's no worse than if they were off sick for the day.
Do
something extra for a staff member who has been working hard or long hours
on a special project.
Perhaps you could treat them to dinner out with their partner or you could
give them a lottery ticket with a thank you note.
Every
Month, choose an outstanding employee and let them send up to $50.00 worth
of flowers to anyone they like, at the company's expense.
Go
and video some customers
• What do they say about your company?
• What are their problems?
• What new things could you do that would add value to them?
Show the video to the staff. And don't just do this once. Make it a regular
event.
Close
the place early one day. Invite in some plain talking demanding customers
and ask them a few key questions in front of all staff. Then allow staff
to ask questions. End with a few drinks and let staff mingle with the customers.
Turn
your lunchrooms and staff lounges into dens of creativity
Put in whiteboards for brainstorming sessions.
Subscribe to magazines from a wide variety of sources (not just those related
to your industry).
Buy books on creativity and biographies about inventors, artists and other
creative people.
Put up displays about innovations in your company and other organisations.
Put up signs telling people what your most critical issues are at present
and offer prizes to people who can suggest solutions.
Hold contests among teams for the most useful innovation.
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Jazz
up the workplace:
Remember when you were a kid, how exciting it was to have your room redecorated
or changed in some way?
The same old environment at work gets boring. Then work becomes boring.
Then people become boring.
Get everyone together. Get ideas to change the workplace. Push for bold,
daring, crazy, colourful ideas and then - this is the magic part - do something!
Even if you disagree with the ideas, let's do something.
If people don't like it, you can always do something
else.
Changing the workplace won't cause the world to end.
It may wake someone up.
Getting
Customers to Return:
Regularly recognise employees who have gone the extra mile in serving your
customers. Write tip the example for your company newsletter. If there
is no newsletter, write it up with a photo of the employee and post it
in a special place of honour.
Hold regular meetings for employees who have the most contact with your
customers and ask them:
"What questions do our customers most often ask about our product or service
? "
SOME
NEWSLETTER IDEAS
Here are some article ideas for your internal or customer newsletter.
1) Feature a day in the life of an employee. Describe what the person does-
and how his or her work ties into the organisation's goals. Also, use quotes
from employees, managers or customers about the featured employee.
2) Keep people up-to-date on late-breaking company and industry news. Share
financial information such as quarterly revenues with employees.
3) Interview long-time employees or managers. Have them discuss how things
have changed - and link the changes to the organisation's strategy and
industry developments.
4) Show how the functions of each department affect the others. Follow
a typical customer going through all the channels. You'll reinforce the
importance of teamwork.
Profile customers. Describe how a customer problem was solved. Use quotes
from the customer and the employee problem-solver. Or, include testimonials
of satisfied customers.
Smarten
The Place Up
Stop work early on Friday and give everyone a chance to change their workspace.
This might include cleaning up, re-arranging furniture - or even offices.
The area could be repainted or just given a face-lift through posters,
plants and pictures.
Remember: A change is as good as a rest.
Let's
Hear It:
Get your staff to write you a list of their successes each month. Then
congratulate them in person and tell others about them.
Also, get them to write which projects they're working on but haven't completed.
Then sit down with them, coach them and help them to get them done.
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