If you have employees, a big part of your job is motivating them to work. You might use the carrot and the stick approach (in which you dangle the carrot over their heads to tempt them to move forward)… or you just use the stick approach (in which you beat them senselessly until the do the work)!

Okay, so you don’t literally use a carrot and stick to tempt or the "beat-them-with-the-stick approach" for harsher motivation, but you do need to motivate them and plenty of motivation falls into those categories.

Let’s look at two jobs I held during high school as great illustrations of these two types of motivations in action:

The first job was at a gas station. The owner would berate his employees by cursing at them and asking, "are you stupid?". He made us beg for our paycheck. He took money away whenever he felt that we weren’t working the way we should be. I realize now he broke several labor laws (although at the time I didn’t know any better and just accepted it).

The second job I had was at a small franchise fast food restaurant. (Smaller than McDonalds). The owner encouraged us to have fun and didn’t mind if we sat down on the job as long as everything got done. He rewarded us a with performance bonuses. He held a contest (which I won: I got to see Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in concert!). He encouraged employees to connect after hours.

The difference is like night and day. And if I knew then what I know now, I’d have left that first job in a heartbeat. It’s not a surprise that the gas station owner churned through employees while the restaurant owner had loyal employees.

And my two part-time high school experiences illustrate (perhaps hyperbolically) the real world. We have those bosses that tempt us to succeed and we have those bosses that seem to beat us mercilessly if we fail.

You might have employees now or you might be thinking about hiring some soon. Regardless, now is the perfect time for you to think about employee motivation and develop personal policies and best practices to create a great working environment:

* Your employees earned their pay. Don’t make them work extra hard to get that money.
* Your employees don’t always feel bought into the company so they don’t always work as hard as they could. But if you pay them for performance, they could be more likely to feel "bought in" and thus will work harder for you.
* Your employees spend at least one-third of their days at your workplace. So make sure that it is a place that is enjoyable to be at, that feels like a community. Care about your employees. You don’t have to get really personal to still show them that they are important to you.

Brought to by you by: Contemporary VA - Run your business instead of running in circles.

@ContemporaryVA on Twitter.  Follow the team to stay updated on business resources we deliver that cover strategies and tips, social media and more!

Remember back to your dating days? Perhaps you were seeing someone and decided to break it off and, in the midst of that tense discussion you pull out the infamous "it’s not you, it’s me".

In the classic TV show Seinfeld, George Costanza faces that age-old excuse:

The phrase "it’s not you, it’s me" really is an excuse. It’s an easy way to get out of a difficult conversation without having to give the real reason.

There are two places in business where this happens all too often:

When you’re reviewing an employee and when you’re firing them.

In both of these scenarios, employees deserve the "straight goods" and your business requires that you don’t give them "it’s not you, it’s me". In this blog we’ll talk about how to review employees. In the next blog we’ll talk about what to do when you have to drop the proverbial employment axe.

Reviewing employees: I’ve been on both sides of the table. I’ve reviewed others and I’ve been reviewed. Reviewing others is difficult – perhaps more difficult than being reviewed – because you have to tell someone the honest truth and then see them again every single day after.

In those situations, the truth can be hard to tell, and hard for the employee to take. So here are some ways to frame your conversation so that you don’t do irreparable damage to your professional relationship (and potentially to the job the employee is doing).

1. Make sure your review is specific. This will help you keep the conversation focused on particular tasks or actions rather than on generalities like "I’m not happy with your approach to work". Divide your review into the actions that an employee takes on a day-to-day basis and review them for that activity. If you use a performance scale, don’t make the scale 1/100 because that is way too broad. Use a 1/5 performance scale and make sure that you have outlined what each point is.

2. Make sure your review is well documented for both the good points and the bad points. It’s much easier to say "your performance has been unsatisfactory" when you can point to the various measurements and evidence that would suggest that. (Bonus tip: Make sure that they know what you’re measuring them on FIRST!)

3. Don’t try to get the bad stuff out of the way first so you end on a good note and don’t try to leave the bad stuff until the end or your employees will dread every review. Just deal with something as it comes up in your review, good or bad.

4. Since you expect great performance, help your employee know how to get "5/5" on every measurement. This takes a lot of pressure off of your delivering bad news because, when an employee gets a 4/5 you can follow up with "and here’s how you can achieve a 5/5 for next time"; and when the employee gets a 1/5 on something you just follow up with the same comment: "and here’s how you can get a 5/5 the next time". Give your employees constructive and actionable steps for every point of their review.

Reviews aren’t easy, especially if you will see your employees regularly. But if you keep the conversation pointed at measurable results and actionable future tasks, your review will go much more smoothly… because it IS them, not you!!

Contemporary VA

@ContemporaryVA on Twitter.  Follow us to stay updated with our many resources that include business, accounting and bookkeeping, social media, and much more!