Stewart Liff

Three approaches:
1. Manage yourself – i.e. look in the mirror and make sure you are not part of the problem. If you are, change your approach. If you are not, manage your attitude by staying positive and not letting your boss define you. Also, gather strength from your co-workers: in other words, work together to create a better atmosphere.
2.…[Read more]

Eric:Here is another way of looking at things: Organizations are perfectly designed to get the results that they get. That means the more your management systems are properly aligned to drive employee engagement (e.g. your structure, your technical systems, your decision-making and information systems, your people systems, your reward systems,…[Read more]

No doubt about it. Energized and engaged employees perform at a much higher level than employees who are turned off. There are many ways that supervisors can engage the employees. Here are just a few:
– treat them with respect and dignity (apply the golden rule) – say thank you when appropriate
– constantly communicate with them
– have reliable…[Read more]

First of all, the single most important thing is for supervisors to simply ay “thank you” for a job well done. Every employee survey indicates this.

Try “thank you” cards to reinforce excellent perfromance/behavior.
Secondly, ensure that there are reliable consequences for excellent, average and poor behavior. Employees really want fairness in…[Read more]

There are plusses and minuses to both approaches. The key point is that everything you write you need to be prepared to defend. I recommend providing the person with enough information to let him know what he did wrong and why action may be taken against him (including the who, what, where and when.) However, don’t go into so much detail that you…[Read more]

The key is frequent communication during the year so there are no surprises at the end of the year. At a minimum, the supervisor should hold quarterly if not monthly feedback sessions. I also recomend 1) using a report card since that makes things even clearer; and 2) for multi-encumbered jobs, posting everyone’s performance (although not by name)…[Read more]