What’s Important

No matter what an employee’s job title is or how important their work is perceived to be within the company, the only way that person will know that they are important to the company and that the job they are doing is important is by their manager or supervisor showing and telling them it is important.  We are all at the end of the day human beings who besides a paycheck, want to feel appreciated and connected to something good and something bigger than us.

One, just ONE way to make our employees feel important and that the work they do is important is to show interest in them as a person and in how they do their work………………………………………………………………………………………..

Here are 3 Tips to help your employees feel important and that the work they do is important:

1. Ask them to show you HOW they created that document, solved that problem, improved a Key Performance Indicator or safety score, improved that system/behavior/skill, cleaned that really dirty piece of equipment, etc.
2. Take a look at your employee’s work and then praise the good and work with him or her on the opportunities for improvement.

1. Under any circumstances, DO NOT ignore employees.  Employees will lose interest because they don’t feel you are interested in what they do, and they won’t believe that what they do is very important to the company because you aren’t showing them that you think it is important. In my world I have heard and learned through the 10 years owning our company that supervisors and managers tend to ignore employees because of messages they believe that are based upon feelings and assumptions.

The message believed by the supervisor/manager might be that:

1. they shouldn’t invest in the employee because they’re not that great of an employee;
2. leaving the employee alone is what that employee wants/desires;
3. the employee might mistake their interest as micromanaging.

The only way to combat these messages is to replace them with new ones.  Find new messages to believe based on facts, research and from your own growth and improvement journey.  Managing (Leading) yourself and changing yourself is the best way to manage (lead) other people.

The new better message replacing the above messages could be:

1. You should invest in your employees because instead of having a developed employee after 5 years, you may have the same not great employee after 5 years.
2. Engaging with employees in conversations about problem-solving, tips/hints and both positive and negative feedback (and for some also fun/personal topics) is what that employee wants/desires.
3. If I am intent on learning how to best lead my employees, micromanaging becomes a non-issue.

FREE Saltdogs season tickets

4 Tickets behind home plate still available for the following games:

• Wed 7/24/19 vs. Fargo-Moorhead @ 7:05pm
• Wed 7/31/19 vs. Sioux City @ 7:05pm
• Wed 8/28/19 vs. Cleburne @ 7:05pm

Happy Tuesday!