Unfortunately, we have been in this situation over the last several years. Despite the wage freeze, my campus has been able to maintain a higher than average employee retention rate. My employee retention averages 6.7 years. As someone mentioned, we would all like a little more in our paycheck. Job satisfaction is so much more than the monetary benefits. People want to feel a sense of belonging, they want to feel appreciated and included. This begins with communication. Foster an environment where your employees feel valued. As campus leadership we know that our staff might not have a say in policies and procedures, but they need to feel their opinion is heard. Allow them the platform to discuss and engage when changes are made. Create a campus culture where they know they can approach leadership with an open door policy. Reward employees for a job well done. Simply creating a certificate of appreciation goes a long way to motivate employees. If you have more than one campus, colloborate with sister schools. Hold in-service trainings- allow them to share best practices. Empower managers on your team to speak/lecture during these trainings. You will quickly find that your staff is motivated by more than just money! Remember, we are in education for the outcomes, not the income.
This has been a challenge for my team as well. There have been little or no raises, and there deosnt seem to be much opportunity for either internal and/or external recognition. I tell them how wonderful I think they are, but it only goes so far. The team has gotten smaller, as positions have gotten eliminated. So now, most staff members are feeling more demotivated as there salary has stayed the same and they have taken on additional responsibilities and working harder.
Also, I know as the manager it is our job to motivate, inspire, and encourage....but just sometimes I wonder "who motivates the motivator?"
As a manager it becomes a little frustrating when you lead a successful team but are not allowed to reward them financially due to a pay freeze. I am a firm believer in always giving recognition to my team for a job well done and look for ways of celebrating our success as a team.
I completely agree and love the rubber duck game. We organized a social committee "Funsies" to do small special things throughout the year. We gave out homemade sugar cookies on National Cookie Day, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for everyone on National Peanut Butter Day, just to name a few things. These are fun and inexpensive. Our employees now look forward to the National "Whatever" Day that we celebrate at least twice a month. Even wearing hawaiian or bowling shirts on casual Fridays helped. Since we began these, our productivity has increased by 33%! There are so many great ideas that have a huge benefit.
We also are challenged with this dilemma. We are actively re-inventing ourselves to pull ourselves out of a downward tailspin, restabilize and re-orient towards a trajectory of renewal and growth. All of this requires of course a tremendous amount of courage, perseverance, vision, increased workload and a fair share of the chaos that comes with the whitewater of over-lapping, changing directions. All with no pay increases in sight. At the end of a particularly challenging and dark week, I am just starting to envision some not too expensive, but much needed facility upgrade activities that may help us to effect improvement in out surroundings and therefore our attitudes about our work place. A feng shui kind of antidote to the other layers of messiness that is inherent to change. Of course, these projects will include more time and energy, but maybe working together and in a way that is different than usual will have an uplifting impact.
Linda,
I think this is a good idea as you pointed out can bring an improvement in morale in a fairly inexpensive way.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I've enjoyed reading everyone's response. I once owned a small business with 11 employees. Sometimes when productivity was low due to a lack of drive from employees I would throw small carrots in front of them to intice them to work harder without $ being involved. Sometimes that might be giving them a deadline to meet and allowing them to get off work early on Friday if they could meet it, but paying them for the complete day. It would never cost me $, because the goal more than paid for the employees pay, even letting them off early. Its amazing what people can get done if they know there's a benefit in it for them.
I manage a part-time staff on the weekends, and my company does not give raises to part-time staff. Whenever I ask my staff to step up and be professional, they usually tell me "I'm not paid enough for what I have to put up with, I need a raise." I have a hard time figuring out how to respond to that.
