Clay Staires: This is Clay Staires at Tulsa Business Leadership with Podcast number 21. Rewarding your employees through the lens of your culture. Again it’s Clay Staires Tulsa Business Leadership traveling around, working with entrepreneurs, working with managers, working with business speaker Tulsa owners across the country. This is a question that I get very often. It’s “how do I reward people?” Unfortunately with so many leaders will fall into this emotional leadership place. It can be such a trap where they are leading their company they’re leading their people through the lens of emotion rather than through the lens of their culture or their core values. business speaker Tulsa
As we set up the system of rewarding people we want to make sure that we set it up always tie everything back to the core values. This is why I am rewarding you. It’s not just because you came and you came to work today. I’m not rewarding you just because you were able to make that sale. I’m not rewarding you just because you were able to produce a certain outcome. The reason why I am rewarding you is because you are fulfilling one of the core values of our company. Once again if you’re not careful, we can reward just activity and reward production, which again I don’t know it’s altogether wrong but if there is not a connection, a direct connection to your core values in your company, then you will find over a long period of time a drift from your core values and a focus on whatever the reward is for. You’ll give me a 100 bucks if I do 10 of those bam, we will do 10 of those not because it fulfills a core value but simply because I got money if I completed the 10. business speaker Tulsa
We want to make sure once again when we set up a rewarding system that we set it up through the lens we tie it back to our core values. I want to give you four different steps on how to reward through the lens of your core values or through the lens of culture. I was just talking with one of my clients with Clay Staires Tulsa Business Leadership yesterday. We’re talking about how to put this reward system together. What I want to do is I want to make sure that I reward the attitude and behavior that I want to see. You have to reward the things that you want to see.
Again we talked a little bit about this little bit again in another podcast when we were talking about managing through the lens and talking about evaluating through the lens of culture. You have to inspect what you expect. When you are seeing the results the attitude and behavior that you want to see that’s when you need to point at it. That’s when you need to raise it up. That’s when you need to celebrate the activity and the behavior. You want to let people know this is the behavior that we’re looking for. You point at it, You hold it up. You have pictures of it up on the wall. Don’t make it a mystery of what it looks like to achieve the outcomes for the company. Make sure that everybody understand, so as you’re walking through the office as you see people with the right attitude and with the right production and the right behavior in your company you want to take the time as a manager, as a leader to reward it, to make sure that people see that. business speaker Tulsa
Number one how we going to reward this. First way that we can reward it is just privately. We’re going to do this one on one. We’re going to do it. It’s not in front of everybody else. It’s just a one on one. Maybe there is a some stuff you’ve been talking with this employee about. They’re trying to overcome some stuff. They’ve been trying to hit some some marks for them in the company. They hit the mark and you’re going fantastic. It’s kind of thing that’s just between you and them. You go over to them and you pat him on the back and you say: “fantastic man I noticed that you did this. I just want you to know that was great stuff. I really do appreciate what you just did congratulations on doing that, on accomplishing that on having this attitude that’s the attitude that we need more of here in the company”. You take the moment to reward on a private basis one on one. You take the moment to reward that. You’re going to say it to them. Again don’t just look at them and wink. “Hey, you know given the double pistols”. You want to actually say it out of your mouth. business speaker Tulsa
Another way remember this in talking about it. The way that leaders communicate we want to say it we want to ride it and we want to show it. We want to speak your appreciation. Want to make sure you write it down. That can be very powerful for you to write a short note or short card to somebody on a one on one private basis, to reward that activity to reward that attitude or that behavior that you are seeing. Then also show it. Definitely want to show them. Let them see your face. Let them see your smile. Let them see your appreciation. That’s one way that we can reward, it’s just a private, it’s just a one on one. Because sometimes if you make it to public you can freak some people out. All right “oh my gosh, I don’t want you to do that publicly”. In some cultures it can be some people interpret that as a negative thing to be praised in front of the rest of their co employees and co workers. business speaker Tulsa
The next way that we are going to reward people is through a Public Reward System. This is when you are walking through your companies. When you’re walking out on the floor. When you’re out on the manufacturing floor and you see somebody their actions, their behavior, their attitude, you see something that you want. That is exactly what we loved here at our company. That is an alignment with our core values. The encouragement we give from Clay Staires at Tulsa Business Leadership is in front of other people. Just take a second to say: “hey everybody I just want you to notice this is what I just saw Jimmy do, this is what I just saw Billy do, this is just what I saw Susie do. I saw them do this”. This is exactly in alignment with our core values. This is what we’ve been talking about in our weekly meetings. This is what I’ve been encouraging you to do. I just want everybody to know that I noticed it right here with Billy or Susie or whomever that is. I want everybody to know that I noticed it. Fantastic good job. You given that high five. You giving the fist pump. You give them that recognition in front of their fears. That is a wonderful way to reward people. Even if it embarrasses them in a little bit. You can reward them in front of others, in front of their peers. “Hey everybody look at this”. You’re pointing at it and you’re exposing that in front of everybody saying: “this is exactly what we’re looking for”.
Then also I strongly encourage companies to have either a quarterly or an annual rewards ceremony, where you’re able– you take a specific time where you are able to lavishly reward the people that are exemplifying your company core values. I think it’s unfortunate. Some companies in their core values they don’t have production in their core values. A lot of times people if they’re not careful, they can design core values to be all around just emotion and all around feelings. It’s not they missed the core values that have to do with action. At the end of the day everybody feels really good because that’s a core value but we’re missing the emphasis on production in getting things done.
This reward ceremony, again it all comes through the lens so at the beginning of the reward ceremony you talk about who you are as a company and why you are as a company. You throw up your core values. Everybody stands up and salutes the core values or however you may do it in your company, but its language that everybody knows. These are one two three four five core values. You emphasize that at the beginning of your reward ceremony to make sure that everyone knows this is what we are rewarding. We are rewarding our core values not just some disconnected acts of production.
There’s a common goal that people have been shooting for throughout the year throughout the quarter. We communicated that everybody’s known we’re going after these specific things. Then what we do is we make it. We want to make sure that reward ceremony that the rewards are something that the employees actually can appreciate. I’ve done that before were you’re handing out awards but when you hand it to the people you can just seeing their face that: “Okay, this is silly, this is stupid”. They don’t appreciate it. They don’t value the thing that you are rewarding.
You want to be really careful to make sure that the rewards that you are giving to people are actually items, are actually things that they will appreciate and that they will value so that they will continue to pursue them. If they have worked really really hard and at the end of the quarter at the end of the year if you say: “man I just got a paper certificate that I put together with a sharpie just about 10 minutes ago over on the table, but hey I splashed a little bit of color and aren’t I good artist”. They don’t see you putting value in this reward. They won’t value the reward. Next time when you ask them to meet certain metrics, certain goals they won’t do it as hard. They won’t work as hard because they don’t value the reward that you’re getting them. You want to make sure that it’s something that they will appreciate. It’s no fun getting some kind of reward that you don’t feel like anybody put any value in or any time or any thought into.
These are the three ways that I reward people in my companies, I own a clay stairs Tulsa business leadership. I own seven different companies right now, we’ve just picked one up this year here in 2016. Seven different companies, and each of these companies have a very similar reward system. We reward people through the lens of our core values.
In each of our companies production and results are one of our core values, to make sure that everybody stays on task. This is Clay Staires at Tulsa business leadership with podcast number 21 rewarding through the lens of your culture.
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Clay Staires