Monthly Archives - October 2019

7 Ways IT Leaders Build Great Employee Morale

Every manager or business owner should strive to create an environment of high employee morale. Having employees that are happy at work is not only important because your employees are people and deserve happiness, but because low morale impacts your business in fairly significant ways. Employees who have a low feeling of job satisfaction are not as productive as happy employees. They may not be as polite as you’d like them to be as they interact with users inside and outside the IT organization.

If you are noticing a general gloom around the office, or want to avoid low employee morale before it becomes noticeable, there a few simple steps you can take that will make your employees happy to come to work. In this post, we’ll look at 7 of the best ways to improve employee morale in your department.

Buy Breakfast or Lunch Every So Often

This doesn’t need to be an everyday thing, but surprising your employees with breakfast or lunch every so often lets them know that you are thinking about them. A big part of low employee morale is when an employee feels underappreciated. Gestures such as a free breakfast or lunch every now again lets them know that you think of them as more than number on a payroll sheet or slaves to your bottom line.

These purchases also needn’t be expensive, a simple bagel in the morning or sandwich at lunch serves the same purpose. Indeed, the goal here is just to let the employee know that you are thinking of them, not to buy their loyalty.

Discuss Problems in Private

One of the most demoralizing things you can have happened to you is to be berated by your boss in front of your coworkers. Even if you think you are being tactful, calling out an employee’s poor behavior with others around to hear it is going to needlessly hit their self-esteem and ruin their day. This is especially true because there may be personal reasons that the employee is having an off day. Calling them out in public forces them to either bury these feelings deeper, and grow resentment of you in the process, or to air their problems publicly.

Even in private, you should show more compassion than simply talking down to the employee. When there is a problem, let the employee know that you are on their side and that you want to help address the problem.

Take a Personal Interest in Your Employees

Part of what makes work so dreary is that it takes you away from the things that you’d rather be doing. Your employees may have to leave their family and hobbies behind to come to work, but that doesn’t mean they have to forget about those things. By showing an interest in the things outside of work that motivate your employees, you allow them to bring a little bit of that into the workplace.

This is a fairly small gesture but can go a long way in easing the discomfort people have about having to put those things aside and come to work instead. It allows them to showcase a part of their personality and their life that they normally have to forget about at work. This is especially true of employees that are more isolated from coworkers that they may otherwise have these types of conversations with.

Spend Time with Employees Outside the Office

This doesn’t mean that you need to become their best friend. However, spending time with your employees outside of the office occasionally helps them to see you as a leader that they’ll be glad to follow rather than just that person at work that bosses them around. This time outside the office can come in a variety of ways. It could be something as casual as inviting everyone out to coffee or drinks after work one day. Perhaps if that feels too informal for you, you can have a department picnic, party, or activity day. These are great opportunities to get to know your employees outside of work and double as great team-building exercises.

Have an Open Door Policy

We talked a bit about how personal problems may have an impact on an employee’s ability to do their job effectively. While addressing the performance issues that arise from those problems behind closed doors saves the self-esteem of the employee, it is also a bit late to find out about these problems. By letting your employees know that they can come to you with personal problems that may impact their job performance, you are giving yourself a heads up on issues that may arise, creating the opportunity to help the employee and avoid those problems arising in the first place, and building employee morale by letting them know that you care about the issues that are affecting them.

Have Regular “One-On-Ones”

Often, employees do not feel comfortable coming to their boss with problems that they may have at the workplace. This is most often because the boss does not create an environment where they feel welcome to do so. By regularly taking the time to pull your employees aside and give them the opportunity to express their concerns about issues, you are creating an environment where they do not feel the need to hold in their problems and let resentment build.

Get Back to Them on Concerns

This tip builds on the last one. When an employee comes to you with a problem, they are entrusting you to advocate on their behalf. Not every problem is something that you can help them with. In fact, not every concern will even be reasonable. Even in the worst-case scenario, the employee needs to know that you made an honest attempt to understand their point of view and to resolve the issue for them. This means that if you say that you will investigate something, you need to actually do so and then follow up with the employee. This way, even if you do not actually solve their problem, they know that they were heard and respected to raise employee morale.

Learn More About Building Great Employee Morale 

Zeriva analyzes networks and recommends hardware and maintenance solutions that boost performance and saves money and time. Contact us to see how we can help you and your company save time and money on your next IT project.

Does It Matter Where You Sit During a Meeting? It Sure Does!

IT employees are small in number, but their work has a significant impact on their organization. The decisions you and your team make during meetings will affect your entire company. You can control how much say you have at your staff gatherings by simply choosing the right seat in the room.

First, you need to decide what you want your role to be at these meetings. Do you want to influence your boss, or do you want to go unnoticed? Are you looking to be vocal, or is your goal to gain standing without having to say much? You can decide to focus on one angle for all of your company meetings, or you can alternate roles from one meeting to the next.

To play your cards right, you need to understand how the seating works and how choosing the right seat can have a positive effect on your boss’s attitude towards you:

The Head of the Table

The head of the table always belongs to the boss or whoever is leading the meeting. At times, your department head might decide to stand during a meeting or sit somewhere in the middle of the table. However, it’s still not a good idea to take the seat at the head. It will make you look like someone desperate for power, and your supervisor will subconsciously view it as a challenge to their authority.

The Seat Next to Your Boss

If you want to influence a meeting and have a say on major decisions, the best place to sit is right next to the head. When you’re within someone’s reach, they automatically notice and pay attention to you. Without being too vocal, they will take your opinions into consideration.

However, this seat shouldn’t be taken too lightly either. If you mess up and say something your boss doesn’t like, that will have more meaning to your manager as well. If you choose to sit next to your boss, be sure to prepare for the responsibility that comes along with it.

Should You Sit to the Left or the Right of Your Boss?

Believe it or not, it makes a difference on which side of your supervisor you choose to sit. Joan Raymond, former teacher, principal, and superintendent, says, “One study found that teachers kind of ignore students who sit to their right, and students who sit to the left generally perform better and are called on more. The same holds true in business: Research shows more deals are made when you sit to the left of a potential client.”

Before the meeting, think about how much of the team leader’s attention you want. If you’re looking for a lot of say, sit to the left of the head. If you want your opinion to count but don’t want to overdo it, choose the seat to their right.

The Power Seat

One of the choicest spots in the room is the seat where everyone who walks into the room makes eye contact with you. The position is different in every conference room – depending on the location of the door and where the table is situated. Once people notice you at the beginning of the meeting, you will automatically be on their mind, and when you speak up, there’s a better chance of them paying attention to what you have to say.

Sitting Directly Opposite Your Boss

The contrarian in the room usually sits directly across from the team leader. It’s a perfect spot for the person who doesn’t always agree with how the group operates and wants change. That doesn’t mean that you should never sit there, but it does mean that your manager will be looking directly at you for a large portion of the meeting.

You should choose to sit at the other head of the table if you:

• Feel that it’s a suitable time to speak up about some of your team’s methods and opinions
• Have opposing views that you think your boss will be receptive to
• Want to gain favor by taking the seat and being agreeable with what your manager has to say

If you’re there to make your boss feel good, you will be noticed and will have an easy time accomplishing your goal. If you’re there in opposition, be prepared to support your positions because, in all likelihood, they will be taken seriously.

Sitting in Middle of the Table

If you want to coast through a meeting without being too involved, you’re best off choosing a seat somewhere in the middle. Some people sit in the middle because they’re having a rough day, and they don’t want to say much, while others sit there because they’re more or less happy with what’s going on in the company, and they trust their team’s decisions.

The problem with the middle is that if you do decide that you want to be heard at some point, it won’t be easy. You will have to be vocal and express your thoughts clearly. Also, try to lean in, raise your hand, and make eye contact with your boss before you speak. Otherwise, whatever you say might end up being an afterthought in everyone’s mind.

Choosing Who to Sit Next To

Who you sit next to is almost as important as where you sit. Your supervisor and the others in the room will associate you with the people to your left and right. If you sit next to a rabble-rouser, it will have a negative impact on how others view you, and vice versa.

The beauty of this concept is that you can, at times, gain standing with your team by association. If you come to a meeting and you’re not in the mood of participating, sit next to the person everyone respects most, and nod and smile when they speak their mind. The others will perceive you as the popular person’s sidekick and will respect you even if you’re pretty much quiet for the duration of the meeting.

Learn More About Where You Should Sit During a Meeting

Choosing the right seat might not seem like a big deal at first, but when you think about it, it could make a difference in your career and your colleagues’ perception of you. It’s worth it for you to analyze who attends your meetings, their personalities, where they usually sit, and how you can use the seating arrangement to your advantage.

Check out our IT Help page at https://www.zeriva.com/it-tips/ for more useful tips and information for IT managers and professionals.

Zeriva analyzes networks and recommends hardware and maintenance solutions that boost performance and saves money and time. Contact us to see how we can help you and your company save time and money on your next IT project.

IT departments are the lifeblood of the companies and organization that employ them. In today’s environment, when a business’s technology isn’t managed and maintained correctly, it has a significant impact on their ability to operate.

If you manage an IT department, you understand the importance of showing your employees that you appreciate their work. It gives them the motivation to maintain high-performance levels. Unfortunately, it’s not always within your power to give your staff members an increase in salary. Sometimes because the budget doesn’t allow it, and others because IT departments are relatively small and tend to fly under upper management’s radar.

Alternative Motivation Methods

As a manager, it’s your job to improvise under such circumstances. As the head of a group of IT workers, who play such an important role in your company, it’s up to you to make sure that they feel good about what they’re doing. The following are ten forms of motivation you can use to keep your performing employees motivated when raises aren’t an option:

1. Flexible Hours

More than ever, people are concerned with their family and personal lives. Give your personnel the option to choose which hours they work. The flexibility will give them the ability to juggle the other aspects of their daily routine that are meaningful to them.

2. Work from Home

You can allow staff to spend at least some of their week working from home. It doesn’t even have to be full days. In many cases, allowing them to work at home and come to work late or to leave early, will help them avoid traffic, which could be a big deal for them depending on where they live.

3. Recognition

Money isn’t everything. Your employees are human and have feelings. Showing appreciation through recognition means a lot to them. While there are many ways of recognizing exemplary performance publicly, the following are some of the more popular methods that companies use:

• Create an employee of the month program. The winner can get a placard for their car, a plaque on the wall, or a dedicated spot in the parking lot.
• Even without a system in place, you can give an honorable mention to all employees who perform above a point that you consider average.
• Host a lunch for your department only and thank them for their hard work. You can do it at the company cafeteria, or if there’s room in your budget, you can take them out to eat.

These are methods you can use to take care of an individual, a group, or your department as a whole.

4. Promotions

Even without an increase in pay, giving someone a new title makes them feel important and appreciated. You can create several titles within the same pay scale, or you can add the word “senior” or other words that indicate advancement to their current title.

5. Additional Paid Time Off

It’s relatively common for companies to reward hard work with extra off days. It encourages workers to continue to do a good job for you. It also allow them to relax and take care of themselves. Employees can get caught up in their work to the point where they stress themselves out, which hurts their performance. Giving them some “me time” will help them function better when they get back to their work.

6. Visibility With Executives

Bring staff members who you feel can use a boost in morale to executive meetings. Introduce them to the heads of your company and say a few words about them and what a great job they’re doing so the others in the room could applaud. You can do this with an individual employee, or you can bring in several at a time.

7. Employee Road Map

Create a metric system that rewards personnel based on their performance. Show it to your employees so they understand where their hard work will get them. The reward could be as simple as an honorable mention, which will create competition among your staff, or you could reward them financially. Either way, they’ll know that their performance and hard work will pay off.

8. Perks

You can offer your workers free membership to airline clubs, the local gym, or to any other associations that they would appreciate. Find out what piques their interest and invest some time into researching organizations that they might enjoy. The cost is minimal compared to the appreciation they will feel. It also gives them bragging rights and a sense of pride for the company. People like to show off their company perks to their friends and family.

9. Stipends and Allowances

There are several reasons why companies don’t give their employees a raise:

• They can’t afford to
• Have some funds to allocate towards raises, but not a significant amount, and they feel like their staff won’t appreciate if they offer so little.
• Have the money, but they don’t know if they’ll be able to sustain the salary increases in the future.

Instead of a raise, you can offer a yearly bonus. Be clear that there’s no guarantee that there will be future bonuses. Alternatively, you could offer allowances or stipend. Telling an employee that their getting a $600 raise might make you look cheap. Offering them a $50 a month transportation stipend or cell phone allowance makes you look generous.

10. Simple Acknowledgement

Always remember that you don’t have to do anything creative to reward your employees for their work. Smile at them when you see them and tell them how much you appreciate what they’re doing for you. Talk is cheap, but it’s also very effective.

Find More Ways to Reward Your IT Employees

As a department head or a manager, part of your job is to get creative when there’s a deficiency. If there isn’t enough money in your budget to give your employees a raise, remember that there are other ways to reward them. However you do it, they will see that you appreciate them and they’ll be happier to produce for you.

For more ideas on saving time and money in your IT department, read more here.