Avionics News December 2013 - 54

series

BUSINESS BASICS
B Y

G R E G

L A S L O

Drained Down
Avoid Demotivating a Perfectly Good Employee

F

or 15 years, Abe was happy at
work. He had received timely
promotions, exciting side projects, solid performance appraisals, and
the trust and respect of his immediate
supervisors.
Until the new boss arrived, then
everything quickly changed.
Within a few months, the new guy
imposed his own reporting procedures,
updated goals and strict marching
orders that took the wind out of Abe's
sails. It showed. His appraisals plummeted, project work disappeared, and
for the first time, he was pegged as a
troublemaker. His "career position"
started to feel like a prison sentence,
and he emotionally quit weeks before
he finally tendered his resignation.
Something clearly broke. A previously positive, dedicated employee
lost the will to continue a productive
trend, and all ambition was sucked
clean out of him.
Unfortunately, this happens often,
according to experts. The single most
important factor in employee engagement is the worker's relationship with
the boss, according to Victor Lipman
of Howling Wolf Management
Training. And apparently, those relationships are wanting. A survey this
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december

2013

year by Dale Carnegie Training indicated three in four employees feel
disengaged, and they're more than two
times likely to leave for equitable pay
than those who still have hope.

The single most
important factor in
employee engagement is
the worker's relationship
with the boss ...
The message for shop owners
and management team leaders is
simple: Whatever you do, first do
no harm. It's uncomfortably easy to
demotivate even the best employees and drain the emotional energy
they need to succeed in their jobs.
Below are 10 easy ways to demotivate your employees, so pay attention
and avoid falling into these traps.
1. Reward poor performance.
It's a management maxim: That which
is rewarded will be repeated. But if
you're not recognizing results that
matter, you will get results that frus-

trate hard workers. According to a
study in the Harvard Business Review,
a plant that offered monthly rewards
for on-time attendance actually caused
reduced productivity among good
employees and higher absenteeism
among lackluster ones, who figured
they would be disqualified for being
late.
Showing favoritism and ignoring
bad actors has a similarly chilling
effect. The first demonstrates that
high achievement isn't the path to
recognition - it's brown-nosing, selfpromotion or marrying the boss's
kid - and the second requires good
employees to suffer for the missteps of
co-workers you avoid. That goes double if you institute sweeping policy
changes that punish everyone for the
crimes of the unfocused, lazy or inept.
2. Withhold feedback. A compliment, thank-you note or reward for
great work makes a big difference
to employee motivation, while radio
silence from the boss makes people
wonder why they even try. In other
words, don't wait until an annual review
to praise - or correct. Employees want
to know where they stand and where
they can improve all year.
Avionics News December 2013

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