Managers and supervisors need to challenge their employees to increase their motivation and performance.

Q: Why is challenge a motivator for employees – aren’t they looking for a comfortable easy job?

A: Let me answer it with a question – if I were to ask you and every listener to think back to the time in your career when you were the most energized, motivated and looked forward to coming to work every day, and when you felt that you accomplished the most, what comes to mind? Having asked this question to many groups that I speak to, the answer comes back the same – employees are the most energized when they face a challenging assignment. Something they were not sure they could handle and yet with perseverance and encouragement, they succeeded. So challenge is really a great motivator because it focuses on achievement.

Q: Doesn’t the challenging assignment cause stress and anxiety for most people?

A: Yes, think in terms of what an athlete goes through to become a top performer in their sport. They go through ever increasing challenges and push themselves through higher and higher levels of performance. Part of the motivation of being challenged is the fear that you might not succeed. This is what keeps people in the safe zone when what they really need to do is begin to feed off the fear and use it as fuel to succeed.

Q: Why don’t managers challenge their employees more often?

A: Many managers and leaders choose to play it safe. They put the same people in the same jobs day in and day out. What the manager is forgetting is that by doing that, they are causing employees to become stale and demotivated.

Q: Can their be too much challenge?

A: Yes, this is where you get a tough manager who never allows the employees to stand back and appreciate their accomplishments before pushing them to another level. The manager should have a vision and plan in mind for how to challenge each person in their workgroup to grow a few times during the year. Even top athletes get some down time in the off season.

Q: Are their any resources that managers can tap into through your website?

A: Yes, I encourage people to visit LeadershipWizard.com, sign up for my newsletter and perhaps send me an email to see how I can elevate the performance of the supervisors and managers in their organization to bring out higher performance across the organization. I also want to congratulate a group of managers and supervisors at EnWin who I have been working with for the past two years. They are graduating this Thursday – way to go guys!

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Part of the experience of being a manager is having to fire an employee. So this morning we will look at when a manager should consider firing an employee and how to do it with tact and professionalism. Please note that this is not professional legal advice. Readers are cautioned to seek legal counsel prior to terminating employees.

Q: When should an employee be fired?

A: We are not dealing here with a downsizing, or if the employee has broken the law in which
case the firing is more straight forward. We are dealing with a situation where the manager feels that the employee is unable to meet the requirements of the job.
Because hiring and selection is expensive and time consuming, managers need to be reasonably certain that the employee is not able to perform what is required of them and that the manager has ruled out other possible solutions.

Q: What things should the manager have tried first, before firing?

A: The manager should have ruled out the four major reasons that impact employee performance: The first factor is knowledge and skill – has the employee been adequately trained to perform the job? The second factor is Motivation – is the employee motivated to do what is being asked of them? For this one we use the Gun to the Head test – just figuratively of course! If the employee can do what is required some times and not others, then the problem is likely motivation. The third factor is where there are factors on the job that prevent the employee from performing and the fourth factor is a lack of fit with the job in terms of personality, mental or physical ability.

Q: Okay, so the manager needs to be sure they have covered everything else and if they have it’s time to fire?

A: It is a good bet that if everything has been ruled out, the employee would be better off and the company or organization would be better off without them.

Q: So what is the approach?

A: In terms of timing, it is best to fire someone closer to the beginning of the week and near the beginning of the day. This is so that the person can go and get the information they need about unemployment and develop a game plan to find new employment.

Q: Should the manager tell the person why they are being fired?

A: Usually the answer to this is no, unless the manager has good documentation for firing with cause. This is very rare. To make a case for cause, the manager has to show that the employee was warned that they may be fired and given adequate time to correct performance problems. There usually has to be a progression of consequences from a verbal warning to a written warning to suspension and finally discharge.

So the manager needs to notify the person that their employment is being terminated in writing. Any vacation pay owing needs to be paid and pay in lieu of notice is given.

The manager needs to make sure that they remain calm and ideally a second person should be
present to act as a witness.

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Q: How important is hiring as a skill managers should have?

A: Hiring is an important talent to have because anytime you are adding someone to the team, you are either making the team stronger, or making the team weaker. A hiring mistake can cause many hours of aggravation for the manager down the road and cause the new employee stress and unhappiness as well. It’s about increasing the probability of success. There is no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to hiring, because you are trying to predict future behavior and performance based on the past. Fortunately people don’t tend to change much.

Q: So what tips would you give managers to hire better?

A: Decide first of all, what are the must have and like to have qualities. Be realistic and make sure the qualities fit with the job you are filling. Then craft questions that allow the candidate to talk about real examples related to their past work experience. It is not good interviewing technique to ask people about what they will do. It is better to ask what they DID do.

Q: What kind of interview questions do you suggest?

A: Ask situational interviewing questions such as, “Tell me about a situation where you had to juggle multiple priorities and how you handled it?” or “Tell me about a situation where you had a conflict with your boss and how you handled it?” These are much better than asking, “Are you a team player?” or “Can you handle multiple priorities?”

Q: Any other suggestions for managers?

A: Take your time to make the best hiring decision. Hiring someone who does not fit the job requirements is a lose/lose. Never settle. Be creative where you look for candidates. For example a coffee shop owner decided to recruit students from a drama program at the college so they would act out positive customer service roles with customers.
We also offer a selection tool which is great to use on a finalist for a position before you conduct the final interview. It measures their ability to learn quickly, their motivators and their personality characteristics related to what the job requires. Send me an email or contact me through LeadershipWizard.com