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top 10 ways to motivate employees

18 Jul
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Top tips for getting the most out of your team startups.co.uk 15th July 2011

Staff morale is more difficult to measure than sales or margins, but is equally important. Unhappy employees are likely to be unproductive employees so the mental wellbeing and happiness of your staff is crucial for your business’ success. Not addressing this now could be expensive for your company later – either through an inefficient workforce or high staff turnover. However, fostering job satisfaction doesn’t have to cost the earth. Startups spoke to a panel of entrepreneurs to find out their top tips for motivating staff.

1) Treat everyone as an individual

Respect that different employees have different needs. “Every incentive doesn’t necessarily motivate every individual,” says Andrew Backhouse, national contract director at Timothy James, a 2010 winner of The Sunday Times 100 Best SMEs to work for. Get to know each member of staff and show you understand them by being flexible to their personal situations. For example, if an employee is in a long distance relationship, you may want to let them leave early on Friday afternoons. As a result, they’ll be more inclined to put extra hours in during the week to keep on top of their workload.

2) Praise good work and offer feedback

“We believe in public praise. When someone does a good job, we congratulate them in front of everyone,” says Bradley Placks, co-founder of MyResourcer. Regular feedback and encouragement makes employees feel positive – and that will be invested back in to your business. It is important to be genuine, so find something that has impressed you, even if it is as simple as an employee’s presentation, and let them know that they are doing it well. Following employee demand, some companies have introduced six monthly appraisals. This offers a good opportunity to encourage staff, clarify any issues, and re-establish with the employee their expectations of the company and your expectations of them.

3) Lead by example

A productive team needs a productive leader. As the top dog you need to embody the company’s brand yourself and be true to its ethics. However equally important is that employees see you putting in as much energy as them – if not more. “If you always slope off early on a Friday, these small messages have a huge impact on your staff, undermining any formal messages of motivation that you are trying to get across,” says Adrian Moorhouse, managing director of Lane4. “A good leader needs to lead by example, by role-modelling the behaviours that are expected of staff. Be excited by new challenges, show real enthusiasm for projects and demonstrate your love of the job. Positivity breeds positivity.”

4) Encourage people to take a break

Whilst an employee who doesn’t optimise their annual leave might seem like a good deal for your business, everyone needs to take a break in order to operate at their full potential. Approach people who haven’t used their holiday entitlement and encourage them to get away. This will also show employees that you care about their wellbeing. Similarly, some organisations allow employees a few days a year to engage with the community. Michelle Fuller and Chris Russell, co-founders of eDigitalResearch, run a Personal Development Week for their team. “Every employee gets the opportunity to expand their skill set or get stuck in at charity events, to help with their personal development.”

5) Offer benefits that boost morale (but don’t break the bank)

Sometimes it is the little things that count. While large organisations may be able to offer corporate holidays in sunny climes, a gesture as simple as having fruit delivered to the office each week can show employees that you care. Tailor benefits to your workforce. You could bring a masseuse in once a month to give each employee a 10 minute boost, organise a team activity afternoon or a barbeque. “Events don’t have to be expensive, just well-planned and thought out,” says Damian Milkins, CEO of Control Circle.

Where possible, invite staff to bring their partners as well. “Having a good relationship with people’s partners really helps,” says Simon Corbett, founder of Jargon PR. “All those times when people stay late, instead of getting home to an earful, they get a much more sympathetic response.”

6) Give ownership to your team

While new employees need clear instructions and guidance, once they are on the right track, let go of the reins. Leave them to be led by their own initiative and congratulate them for doing so. “Allow them to work well and without much input. It’s the little things that give ownership to teams and allow them to feel trusted and motivated,” says Dominic Monkhouse, managing director of PEER 1 Hosting and a former consultant for The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to work for. As well as inspiring self-confidence, this hands-off approach may allow employees to navigate your firm from a new perspective, potentially exposing inefficiencies, untapped opportunities and prospective innovations.

7) Run a ‘no blame’ culture

“When something goes wrong don’t blame the person; analyse the reasons and change whatever actually caused the issue in the first place – learn and improve,” says John Sollars, founder of Stinkyink.com. If you are always pointing the finger, employees will feel tense, which can restrict initiative and innovation. Even if an employee has committed a serious offence, take it as an opportunity to review your recruitment process. It may be that you are not asking the right questions at interview.

8) Communication is key

By keeping open lines of communication with employees and listening to their ideas, they will feel more connected to the progression of the business and thus more motivated to contribute to its future. As a director, it is easy to get distracted by your own objectives but in the present economic climate it is more important than ever that staff are kept informed about changes in circumstances – including how new legislation could affect the company. Henry Braithwaite, Operations Director of Market Makers, recommends twice weekly meetings “when the whole company comes together and shares the successes of the week and what is going on in the company as a whole” as well as an “open door policy” to the manager’s office. Simply showing employees that they are being listened to can be enough to boost morale.

9) Be flexible

Whilst all companies need employment agreements in place to set standards, be prepared to be flexible to reasonable requests for additional leave. Respect that your employees have personal lives to balance with their work commitments and don’t put additional pressure on them when, for example, they have to pick up their children, take care of a sick relative or leave early for a washing machine to be delivered. To avoid completely forfeiting their labour, assist employees with flexible working by helping them to receive their work e-mails on their smartphone or home computer. If you want to be particularly generous, IT company acs365 recommends offering staff additional leave on their birthday. “As part of your commitment to acknowledging the importance of work-life balance, a paid day off is the best present you can provide to staff. This type of initiative helps to create a positive work culture, improving and uplifting staff morale,” a spokesperson says.

10) Get the little things right

Sometimes getting the little things right is more influential than an occasional grand gesture. It is easy to underestimate the importance of basic essentials for a positive working environment. These may include well-maintained toilets, basic kitchen facilities and filtered tap water – conveniences that don’t cost the earth. “It is often possible to quickly fix many of the day-to-day gripes that bother your employees. Listen to what your employees are saying about their workplace and concentrate on these first,” says Laetitia Monereau, head of HR at Simply Business. “You need not spend a vast sum of money improving your staff morale.”

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The Hidden Secrets of finding great employees

17 Mar

Carly Chynoweth Published: 13 March 2011 The Sunday Times

Few interviewers who ask job candidates to paint them a picture of their abilities and experience mean it literally. Dominic Monkhouse, Peer 1 Hosting’s managing director, is the exception.

Once candidates have made it through the initial 30-minute telephone interview, they are invited to the web hosting firm’s office and handed a piece of paper and some coloured pencils. “I sit them down and say ‘you have 10 minutes to draw a picture of something that inspires you’.”Some interviews can take an unusual turn – to office golf

He doesn’t expect anyone to produce a Van Gogh — he can only recall one person who has shown the least bit of artistic talent — but asking candidates to talk about what they drew gives a much better sense of who they are than simply asking them questions about their CV, he said. Even a simple refusal, as happened with one senior candidate, is helpful: “If he thought that was daft, he would never have fitted in.”

For the next step the candidate has to accompany Monkhouse and a couple of his team members to the “golf course”, where he can get a sense of how competitive they are and whether they can cope under pressure as their chips skid across the office carpet and into another room.

He also uses more formal interviews and psychometric testing, but candidates who do not get along well with the team are not offered jobs, no matter how well they test.

Even traditional interviews may have more to them than meets the eye, according to Alex Linley, founding director of Capp, the organisational psychologists. He is called in when employers want someone to analyse not only what people say but how they say it. Whether the candidate knows who Linley is and what he is doing depends on the client.

“The key focus is to enable [employers] to identify people’s engagement and capabilities in what they say,” he said. “We get a good read for their natural strengths and preferences in how they answer questions.

“If people naturally have strength in an area, they typically would be able to respond faster and with a more graphic answer, and they would be more energetic and engaged when they gave it. By contrast, if it wasn’t a natural strength it might take them longer to find that answer. In terms of body language things such as leaning forward, more use of hand gestures and movement can be indicators of confidence and knowledge.”

Some candidates, hearing that the interviewer is looking for energy, say, will try to look enthusiastic and energetic on every answer, but it is obvious when this happens. “We would not expect anyone to demonstrate energy across all the questions we asked,” he said.

Hazel Carter, the founder of Carter Corson, an organisational psychology business, said she was once told to show balls by climbing on to a table in a hotel lobby and singing a nursery rhyme. She refused. This went down well, as the interviewer saw her willingness to stand up to him as a good indicator of ballsiness.

There are three key problems with this type of gimmick: it may so irritate the candidate that he or she decides not to accept the job (Carter did take it); it may not be any help in finding the right person; and, finally, it could break the law.

“There are quite strict laws on what is seen as a fair assessment and once you deviate from that you could be on quite sticky ground,” she said. “Unless you can show you know what you want to mea- sure, how you are measuring it and that it is relevant to the job, you could be in trouble.”

This does not mean all creative approaches to assessment are out. For example, Carter works with a big company that takes candidates out to dinner the evening before they undergo an intensive assessment. While there, they are plied with wine to see how they maintain their business presence in social situations.

On one occasion a candidate, not realising that the dinner was part of the test, got drunk and made off-colour remarks. At the assessment the next morning, he was told to go home.

While unusual, this sort of approach could be fair as long as the recruiter could show that the job required people to be able to entertain clients without behaving inappropriately, Carter said.

Pitfalls of the bizarre

There are a number of pitfalls to consider when using unorthodox interview techniques, said Lisa Mayhew at Berwin Leighton Paisner, the law firm. “Unusual assessment arrangements shouldn’t detract from the importance of basing decisions about whether to recruit somebody for a business role solely on job-related criteria and not, for example, on grounds of race, age, sex, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, religion or nationality.” Avoid remarks about a candidate’s appearance and steer clear of “clumsy” humour, which can offend people, and ensure you make objective notes about candidates — remember that they are entitled to see them. Unfairly treated candidates can bring discrimination complaints against individuals as well companies, Mayhew said.

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Offering a grand to quit and cock-up of the month – how I built my dream team

16 Jun
Coloured pencils 

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16 June 2010 by Sophie http://www.smarta.com/blog/2010/6/guest-blog-offering-a-grand-to-quit-and-cock-of-the-month—how-i-built-my-dream-team

Dominic Monkhouse is the UK managing director of web hosting business PEER 1, where he’s recruited more than 20 people since joining. He shares his most effective – and often unconventional – tricks for finding and keeping great talent.

Ask interviewees to draw a picture

The first thing I do when I interview people is hand them a blank piece of paper and a bunch of coloured pencils and ask them to draw whatever motivates or inspires them. The first part of the interview is talking about that. I didn’t even take cv’s into the 15 interviews I did last week. A cv is just an indicator the person’s got the technical abilities to do the job. It doesn’t say anything about them.

I always ask people what they like doing outside work. I’m not going to hire someone who can only say, “I like to spend time with my family” – how dull! I don’t want dull people to work for me, because my customer would find them boring too.

Get people inside and outside the company to help interview

I interview every single person we hire. I owe it to staff and customers to hire good people. But I get the other staff involved in interviewing too. Everyone is looking for the same thing, the same energy. We look for people who are self-motivated and have passion, who can take the initiative.

You can get another business owner or entrepreneur to interview alongside you. It really helps because sometimes you’re so vested in wanting to hire someone, you end up just hiring the least worst person you see. It helps to have someone who doesn’t have emotional interest in the business there to see things objectively. For example, I’ve used marketing agency bosses to hire marketing people before. The candidates don’t mind. It might be a bit more intimidating for them, but I’m not looking for someone who’s easily intimidated.

Ability testing

As well as phone and face-to-face interviews, we use strength finder tests, so we know the person can do the job and get on with it. So we’ll test for a sense of responsibility, which means they self-manage. We look for achiever strength, which means they don’t just want to go and lie on the beach.  Buy a book called Strengthsfinder 2.0 – it talks you through the test and what strengths you should look for in each role. You use a code in the back which gives you access to the test. We buy 15 or 20 at a time, for around £7 each. The cost is worth it.

Offer people £1,000 to quit

Within the first two weeks of joining a company an employee knows whether they’ve made a mistake and if the company’s not right for them. But the employer can’t tell that. So we offer new recruits £1,000 to walk away after those first two weeks. If they don’t take it, it means they’re happy, so you know it’s the right decision. But it means they’re forced to think about it.

If you don’t try to have that conversation that early on, the next break point is after three months, when you’ve realised the person isn’t right. The cost of finding someone again is huge. And it might be that the next person isn’t right, and the person after that – in which case it could be nine months before you find the right person.

The two-week idea saves you the three months trying to work out if the person’s right, and if you have to spend that £1,000, it’s money well spent. It means you can crack on. Although no one’s ever taken the money and left us yet!

Keeping good people: cock of the month

I want to keep my team happy. So I give them free breakfast, free fruit in the office, we have Beer Fridays (free beer!), a mini-bar, a dartboard, a Wii. We have free food day the day before payday, when everyone’s skint.

We always talk about the state of our finances, which is something too many small businesses are nervous about doing. It should be transparent – it makes the team feel part of creating the success.

We celebrate our failures as well as our successes. We have a ‘cock of the month’ award for the biggest mistake made. It’s an actual model of a cock – or a rooster, I should probably say! I’ve won it myself before.

The little black book

You go to other people’s offices where a chair’s broken in the meeting room because no one thinks it’s their job to fix it – it just creates a bad impression.

So everyone gets a little black book when they start. You write in it the stuff we should change, things you don’t think work in the company. But I don’t have time to fix all those things – so I tell the team that if it costs less than £100 to fix, and it makes the business a better place to work, just expense it and do it. Once every six months we sit down and look at everyone’s black books and share them to fix the bigger problems in the company.

Keep finding ideas

Lots of ideas I get come from other companies I’ve visited or work with. Or ones I’ve spotted in ‘best companies to work for’ lists – you just give them a call and ask if you can see how things are done. You just need to keep bringing in ideas that work for other businesses.

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We give our clients homemade chocolate cake

12 Jun

Rebecca Burn-Callander, Real Business, 12 June 2009

Dominic Monkhouse has made a career out of rejuvenating businesses in the tech industry. He took Rackspace from nothing to a £30m turnover and is now MD at PEER 1 Hosting, a global hosting firm. Here’s how he’s keeping clients sweet in a recession.

“We are a technology company,” says Monkhouse. “But first and foremost we’re a service company. It’s hard to get that across with a PowerPoint.”

To win new business in an incredibly competitive and saturated sector, Monkhouse has some unusual techniques. “We give all our new clients homemade chocolate cake, or carrot if they prefer, when they visit our offices,” he says. “Elsewhere in this sector, you’d just have some chaps in grey suits turning up and going through a slide deck.”

And its not just about the cake. Monkhouse has tweaked the whole company culture to be as welcoming for prospective customers as possible. “We invite them to come and spend the day with us,” he says. “It gives them an insight into who we are.”

This might sound hokey but there’s a sharp business case to this seemingly fluffy proposition. “We’re selling to technical people,” says Monkhouse shrewdly. “If we create an atmosphere here that they like and a company that they themselves would like to work for, it’s good for us. They may not be able to actually join the company but they’ll buy services from us.”

The proof is in the figures. The european turnover of the firm has hit £3m and PEER1′s customer feedback is outstanding, despite using the stringent “Net Promoter Score” system, which classifies anything beneath a nine out of ten as worthless.

And Monkhouse reveals another killer tip: “We offer new staff £1,000 to leave the company in the first two weeks,” he says. “If they stay, we know they want to be at the company long-term and fit into the culture.

“What you say at a pitch isn’t going to make the difference,” he concludes. “Being able to show that your staff yearn to belong communicates a whole lot more about the quality of service you deliver than a slide deck ever could, and that wins pitches.

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UK Customer Experience Awards

26 Nov

“Will I be the guest speaker, just tell a few stories from the front line of customer service and hopefully be entertaining?” I can guarantee the former, so yes. I was absolutely delighted to be asked to attend the UK Customer Experience Awards ceremony at One Whitehall last week. This is the UK’s most highly respected organisational awards, established as long ago as 1994, the award has become the benchmark for companies claiming to be customer focused. Thanks to John Hughes at Customer Service Network for the invitation and his masterful hosting of the day.

It was great to be involved. The award recognises organisations in the UK that excel at delivering customer service and it’s so energising to be in their company, no also-rans, no inconsistent deliverers and not surprisingly Orange mobile and South West trains weren’t in the room. Though they did figure in my stories, as did Continental Airlines whose service to me in the USA, a few years ago, has yet to be bettered.

The benchmarking and sharing nature of the awards is fundamental to their long running success. The team of assessors (I am one) help organisations find their strengths and weaknesses, provide benchmarks and guidance to help them improve service performance.

I remember when at the helm of Rackspace (overall winners in 2005) we did over 20 benchmarking visits (visiting other firms to find and copy great ideas) during the year before winning. Hard work pays off tomorrow and plagiarism pays off today – so to speak. Now running PEER 1 Hosting in the UK we are on our own service excellence journey. The start point at PEER 1 Hosting is different, this time less good to great and more great to outstanding. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is already world-class in terms of IT service firms (36 in 2009) so the challenge is to become one of the top service firms in the world in any sector, where scores in the high 70s and low 80s are the norm.

Some of the former winning organisations that offer inspiration today at PEER 1 Hosting are:

Bromford Housing Group (Winners 2007) – Helena has been a great ambassador for the team. I have stolen among other things the rant line and the careers sections of their website and the talent bank idea.

Happy (Winners 2003) – Henry and the team were back in the awards again this year (winners need to sit out for 3 years). I love the relaxed feel of their office and the colourful bean bags at Ocean Village are Happy in origin. I have enlighten on the business value of diversity; we are now actively seeking employees to job share of fill roles part-time. The management training element of the business is outstanding and I have used Kathy (MD) in the past to inspire young managers and will again. Finally, what’s not to like about free ice lollies? So we have bought a freezer for the new office so we can copy this one as well!

Nationwide Building Society (Winners 2002) – It was a long time ago that I saw their first PRIDE values video. The video was an internal communication tool to tighten up the understanding of what it meant to work at Nationwide. I have copied this idea several times already and have another PEER 1 Hosting video in the works – incidentally by the same video crew www.lovefilmproductions.com who did their video a few years ago. From values flow behaviours, at Nationwide they see these at 4 levels with expected behaviours for directors being different to front line branch staff. We have just started to trial some feedback tools with staff in the UK based on the ideas I picked up at Nationwide.

First Direct (Winners in both 1998 and 2004) – I am an evangelist for FD! I have been a customer for so long I can’t remember who I used to bank with and when. Simplicity of service access is important to customers, well FD’s customers. The phones are answered in a few rings by a real person. FD have an algorithm to work out the number of staff they need so you never get an automated voice telling you are so important to them they haven’t got enough staff so they can’t speak to you at the moment – I call this a service denial strategy and it is much-loved of utilities and mobile phone operators (including Orange). Their annual customer churn is 4%, which they also point out is the rate that the population in the UK dies or emigrates; I’m a sucker for a catchy stat! The concierge service is amazing (love to emulate) and the access to on site massage is one we already have plans for.

Rackspace (Winners 2005) – Some of the things we did here were unique and worth copying/doing again. I always enjoyed “free food day”, feed everyone the day before payday with the rationale that the employees will not have any cash left themselves to pay lunch. “Top 10 things you don’t know about me” – all new starters fill this in and it gets emailed around before they start and goes on the wall. In fact, this was stolen from ?Wahtif! and I have used it again and again. The inspiration for the home-made chocolate cake to be severed to visitors came from their amazing welcome tray (see the image at the top). At Rackspace they were baked by Sam’s mum and at PEER 1 Hosting they are lovingly prepared by Nicole at Love Yum. Image(060)Corporate values on the wall in the open space and not forgotten gather dust on a shelf, staff recognition based on  expressing these values – both these were picked up from ?Wahtif!.

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