Last week I said that management success is and 80/20 proposition—80% MAP and 20% employee support initiatives, which are the focus of today’s discussion.
Employee support generally falls in four categories and usually costs money, but considering the tough times companies are facing you need to find ways to substitute creativity for cash.
Technology
Tight budgets often prohibit adding new technology, but there are ways to work around the lack of funds, at least in part. Level with your people and honestly share the financial restrictions, then brainstorm with them to find solutions within the parameters with which you have to work.
Training
Training doesn’t have to go by the wayside just because the training budget was scrapped; it can still be done if you get everybody involved. Here are four things to do within your organization that cost little-to-nothing.
- Build a useful library, both hard copy and online, that includes classic and current information and runs the gamut from traditional to controversial to off-the-wall; include links to free, online classes offered by major universities, such as MIT. Encourage your people to study subjects that interest them, whether or not it directly applies to their expertise. This gives them the chance to broaden as well as deepen their skills.
- Choose “topics of the month” based on both need and interest and encourage free-wheeling discussions on a regular basis.
- Adapt scheduling so people can start to use, and become proficient in, the new skills about which they are reading and talking.
- Implement across training pairings and mentoring relationships
- Support brown-bag classes (better yet, buy lunch if you can) in which they can teach their skills to others. Add cross-working assignments whenever possible to ensure cross-training.
Career opportunities
Providing career opportunities is easier than you think—and also more difficult. It requires you to do everything in your power to help your people acquire the skills necessary for them to take the next step in their chosen career path—that’s the easy part.
The difficult part is doing it even though you know that the person will leave, whether your group or the company, in order to take that step.
Rewards
The tighter the economy the more difficult it becomes to provide financial rewards—or so it seems. Overcoming this challenge goes back to authenticity and honesty.
You start by explaining clearly exactly what your financial constraints are, both yours as a manager and the company’s. Your people aren’t stupid, they’ll know if what you say is true. In the thousands of people I’ve talked with over my 25 years as a recruiter I never found one that didn’t have a pretty good idea of what was going on in their company.
Once that’s done, get creative. Ask your people for ideas and involve them in finding creative ways to provide incentives with what you do have to spend—just don’t do anything that isn’t synergistic with your MAP.
Doing all this is the best gift you can give your people—and yourself.
If you’d like to talk more about it feel free to call me at 866.265.7267—no charge, no joke.
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