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When the economy is wavering, budgets are tight, and performance is suffering from sagging employee morale, HR/compensation managers need to get particularly creative in their approach to motivating their charges. PFP has long recognized customer service and help desk managers as about the most budget-minded and innovative motivators around, and it's hard to imagine anyone in the average organization who has ever been expected to do more with less for longer than these professionals.
As a result, we thought you might be inspired by the following excerpts from a panel discussion at this year's Help Desklnstitute (Colorado Springs, Colo.; 800-248-5667; www.ThinkHDI.com) Annual Conference & Expo, "Sixty Ideas to Motivate, Reward, and Celebrate Your Team in Sixty Minutes." This year's panel included:
* Moderator Kirk Weisler of the Help Desk Institute.
* Art Coombs, president and CEO of KomBea Corp. (Orem, Utah; 801-235-1511; e-mail: [email protected]).
* Greg Cortopassi, president of Launch Your Dreams (Boulder, Colo.; 303-442-8088; e-mail: [email protected]).
* Julie Mohr, managing consultant, Alternative Resources Corp. (Davis, Calif.; 530-750-0240; e-mail: [email protected]).
* Mark Rosenberger, president of WOW! Performance Coaching, Inc. (San Diego; 858-578-7900; e-mail: [email protected]).
And while the panelists all offered useful ideas, members of the audience also suggested choice ways to give employees a low-cost lift. Selected highlights from the session:
Motivate:
* To make your communications with employees matter, don't stand over them at their desks or cubicles while talking to them-get on an equal footing, suggested Coombs. In support of this tip, Weisler cited research about patients speaking with their physicians. When their doctors sat down to talk to them eye-to-eye, patients felt that they had spoken with them longer than when their doctors stood-even though the conversations had lasted two minutes whether standing or sitting.
* "Spend 90% of your time...