|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
WIIFM - Making the Whats In It for Me? Question Work for You
In the constantly changing world of Call Centers, asking agents to adapt to ever increasing demands, responsibilities and performance can be a challenge to even the most involved of managers. Being able to create buy in is always challenging, but if you can answer the WIIFM question you will be ahead of the game. While some people may think that the WIIFM question is selfish and self serving, I want to challenge that notion. Very few of us are willing to be completely altruistic in our daily endeavors. We hold down jobs and invest in careers for diverse reasons but the bottom line is that the work we do provides us the means to live the way we choose. When we can no longer see the WIIFM because we are bogged down in the challenges of our daily tasks, we no longer feel compelled to perform those tasks. So, let me ask you a few questions. Why do you work? Is the work you do important to you or is it just the means to a different end? Do your goals include continuing to do the job you are currently in or do you intend to make a career change? How does the job you're performing now fit into your goals? In other words "What's in it for you?" Now that you have thought about your WIIFM answers how can you provide the WIIFM for the people that work for you? I know that in a busy Call Center getting to know every employee's hopes and aspirations can be difficult at best. However, giving them the tools to ask and answer their own WIIFM questions can lead to a happier and more productive agent. When discussing new policies, coaching for better performance, or talking about the direction of the organization?keep in mind "what is in it for me (them)." They may not know the answer or they may not be able to see it during the discussions. Giving them the opportunity to ask the question or giving them examples of the WIIFM can make accepting change, or receiving coaching easier. Actually, WIIFM is just another way to motivate your people that may or may not consist of monetary goals. Not everyone in your employment is motivated by more money, or it may not be their primary motivator. For example, I am completely motivated by praise. I can go a long way on an "atta girl". If you get specific about why and where you think I am doing a good job, I will double my efforts to be valued, appreciated and praised. I will even ask for praise when I need it. However, when I work in a situation where I don't feel valued or appreciated, all the money in the bank won't keep me satisfied. Do you know what motivates your employees to perform? Can your employees answer that question for you? When your employees see the WIIFM they can make informed decisions about their contributions. It provides focus and can create target goals to strive for. Answering the WIIFM question can alleviate fears and frustration, help employees navigate change and even provide a reason to excel. If you could help every employee ask and answer the "what's in it for me?" question would it make your job easier? Would it give you the tools you needed to provide better motivational messages, contests, and benefits? Could helping your employees understand "what's in it for me" improve productivity, retention, or employee satisfaction? WIIFM can work for you; all you have to do is ask the right questions. If you are interest in leadership theory and practices then you need to visit: http://www.righttolead.com. Carole Sue Jones is a contributing writer and thinker for our organization. In addition, as a leader you may be interested in http://www.myleadershipsuccess.com.
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Solitude Vs Teamwork! Irrespective of any given situation, "Team Work Works!" It is not that students are incapable of studying in solitude, it is just that when they study in collaboration the synergy drives the students, one step further. During the learning period people tend to be skeptical and filled with fraught of underachieving, so they stick with the habit of solitary learning. They often underestimate the power of a "group". How Leaders Unlock Potential in Teams Leaders are faced with unlocking the potential in the people that they lead and motivating the individual is a key part of this process. Motivation is not something that is done to an individual as they already posses it. What a leader does, to benefit the whole team, is to release, or unlock, it. Here are seven ways leaders unlock potential in people. High Performing Teams: 10 Things You Want To Know About Building A High Performing Team "Conflict becomes politics, commitment becomes 'Only if it's in my best interest', accountability becomes 'Only when it serves me,' and results just fall by the wayside."- Patrick Lencioni, author of "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team", speaking about dysfunctional teams Raising Issues In Your Group or Offline In a recent group coaching session, a client mentioned that he thought his monthly meetings with his peers were dysfunctional. He felt they achieved "false closure" on key decisions - they'd discuss an issue, not make a clear decision, and move on, all acting as if they were clear. He felt one person took too much airtime on a regular basis, that the agendas weren't focused. On top of all this, people would come to him individually after these meetings to complain to him about them - and said they wanted their concerns kept confidential, and that they weren't willing to raise them in the group. They had formal time set aside for discussing how the meetings went and he couldn't remember the last time they had actually done this. No one raised this, either. General Patton and Leadership No figure in history is like General Patton. He was colorful, hard core and got the job done. His leadership skills have been touted by some and criticized by weaker individuals. Some attribute General Patton on the reason for US victory over the Axis Powers and although we eventually would have won anyway due to our industrial output, few deny that it would have taken longer and thus cost more lives. Perhaps you might not even be alive today reading this article if it were not for General Patton's victories? For those who want to learn more let me recommend an excellent audio tape series on the subject: Team and Organizational Survival Strategies for Turbulent Economic Times Survival: The Name of the New Economic Game Feedback - How to Make it Effective Let's look at the detail of giving feedback. Whether youwant to reinforce behaviour - Confirming feedback or changeunacceptable behaviour - Productive feedback, there arecertain steps you need to follow to make it work. Top 7 Ways to Motivate Your Team 1. Involve them. Many employees want to be involved in the ongoing development and progress of their company. Plus, they often have insightful ideas that can make a significant difference in the company. 5 Reason Why Team Has A 4 Figure Income Feedback - Confirming the Good News The feedback I'm talking about here isn't some sort offormalised appraisal that takes place with your team membersevery month, or every six months or once a year. Thisfeedback happens continually and it happens when you see orhear something you want to give feedback on. The trick is -keep it simple. Collaboration Software - Building an Office Without Walls The rise of the internet has given businesses a new way to think and function on both the individual level and as a whole. Today if you are in a business that doesn't have or use the internet, then you are giving up valuable advertising and productivity. Whether or not your company uses the internet we are all aware, to some degree, the effect the internet has on advertising and promoting businesses on a global scale. However, we may not fully understand what else the internet can do. We may not realize that using the internet to our advantage can also include increased productivity by building a virtual office; one without walls. Okay, so how do we build an office without walls then? In this article I will be discussing how to basically build this kind of office and how it can help you be more productive and organized. Franchisee Relations and Team Work Franchisees of a particular franchise must get along in order for the team to hyperspace the competition. Recently our company; Franchising.org did a study and surveyed the franchisors on our website. As it turns out none of them had any information in their Confidential Operations Manual of any substance on how franchisees could increase their synergies by working very closely together within a region. Only a couple of companies had anything at all on the subject and indeed even these were limited to maybe one page or a couple of paragraphs. How To Help A Sick Team Become Healthy Team Building Question: Recruiting Government Workers As Franchisees Many believe a leaner government promotes better freedoms with respect to free enterprise and the right to free contract. Leaner governments make fewer laws because of their enforcement capabilities. Under our current direction with high government debt loads and low unemployment we will begin to see a downsizing of government at every level. We see it in a few closures of military bases. The Federal Government is the United States' second largest employer behind Wal-Mart with about the same level of ambition, intelligence and energy. It employs over 900,000 people without including military, enforcement agencies, governmental administrators and or politicians. If the government (Federal) cut itself by 20% and we believe 40% is more in order: that would be 180,000 job cuts or about 3600 people per state at 20%. Larger states like California could be as high as 21,600 at a twenty percent reduction How the P.R.I.D.E. Team Changed my Call Center Several years ago I took an assignment as a Manager in an outsourcing Call Center. Shortly after I started it became clear that several areas within the department needed improvement; absenteeism was high (19%), call takers lacked the enthusiasm about the programs to deliver quality customer service and seemed unconnected to the goals and metrics. With the overall morale of the center in a less than pleasant state the management team weighed our options. We determined that any new rules rolled out by management may be perceived as "us vs. them" by the call taking teams. Rather than try to manage down with force we decided to get the people who were doing the work involved in the improvements. It was clear, in order to make positive changes the call takers had to embrace the existing goals and embrace any changes we tried to make. What better way to do that then to include them in the process of making the changes. From this idea the P.R.I.D.E. team was formed. People Really Involved in Developing Excellence The first step was to roll out the concept of the P.R.I.D.E. team to the supervisors. I explained how the team would work and what we hoped to accomplish with it. The supervisors then rolled out the concept in their team meetings. Basic Roll out: Each team on the floor votes for a representative from their team to attend the P.R.I.D.E. meetings. P.R.I.D.E representatives gather issues, concerns and ideas from their teams and present them at the P.R.I.D.E meetings. The P.R.ID.E. Team will take action for improvement based on the ideas and discussions from each meeting. Meeting minutes will be distributed to the floor. Once the roll out was complete and the teams elected representatives, the first meeting was called to order. We congratulated the new P.R.I.D.E. team representatives for being voted in by their teams and broke the ice by getting to know each other. The group agreed on some ground rules and established time limits for discussion. I reiterated that the meetings will not be a gripe session; we will focus on improvement. We began discussing the issues challenging the center. The high rate of Absenteeism (19%) was the issue we chose to bring to the table first. We asked the group why absenteeism was so high and asked what we as the management team could do to help. The representative's answers provided insight and ideas to improve attendance. Suggestions ranged from things as simple as being welcomed to work in the morning, to more challenging tasks such as supervisors building better relationships with their team members. The ideas and thoughts we tapped into gave us direction to improve this metric. Instead of pushing an elephant up the stairs, we were following the lead to reach our destination. After listening to and acting on the P.R.I.D.E. Team's suggestions we started to see some very impressive changes. Over a three month period Absenteeism dropped to 3%! People were more excited about doing their jobs and finding ways to improve. There was a general buzz around the center. Communication was one of the keys to our success. In addition to the P.R.I.D.E. Team members discussing the meetings with their team members and other co-workers, we documented the conversations from the meeting then distributed them to the floor to ensure no "behind closed door" perceptions. If time allowed supervisors would bring the P.R.I.D.E meeting notes to team meetings for discussions as well. The meetings evolved. The more meetings we ran the more root causes we discovered. We listened to every issue big and small. We created subgroups to focus on large issues. Sometimes there were issues we could not do anything about, but we always provided an explanation on why action could not be taken. Listening to the representatives' ideas and making changes based on them created buy in for change. The call takers were more apt to make the ideas work because they came from them. After the P.R.I.D.E. program was well in place, I turned it over to the senior supervisors to run. It was a great development opportunity and helped build relationships throughout the group. Overall the P.R.I.D.E Team created a paradigm shift in the center. The existence and actions of the team sent a message that everyone in the center was part of the same team. The representatives realized their importance. There was only "us" instead of "us and them". The program created involvement, strengthened commitment to the company and opened communication gateways. Creating a Winning Staff Team As a business owner, I've had staff come and go over the years: some have done extremely well, and others not so well. During the time I was involved in running my business, I found some weaknesses in myself that tremendously affected things that were going on, especially from a negative point of view. It was not uncommon for me, whenever something was not going well, to ignore it. Sometimes I would hope it would go away, or maybe ask somebody else to solve it for me, whatever was going on. Proactive High Performance Teamwork Proactive High Performance Teamwork is made up of nine proactive components and will provide the growth you are seeking in your practice. Two of the nine components are Performance and Opportunities. Why People Dont Listen... and Some Fun Things You Can Do About It It's frustrating when your co-workers, audience members, teenager or even your dog (!) won't listen. While you can't control how they receive what you say, you can control how you send it. Here are a few tips on why people don't listen and what you can do to change it. You are Excused from Training Trainers, please picture this... You are presenting in a new location to a new group. You are prepared for a one day workshop. Your materials are ready and you are "on". Things seem to be going well. You are building a nice rapport with the class and the pace of the training is right on schedule. About two hours into your day one participant starts to demonstrate disruptive behavior. This individual begins talking to the person beside him during the lecture. A few minutes later, during an activity this gentleman is doing everything in his power to take people's attention away from the subject at hand. As the calm cool trainer you are, you try to work with him to no avail, and his behavior is really starting to affect the others in the workshop. You've got about one hour to lunch, and you are now behind on your timeline?For the sake of the training, what do you do? Resolving Workplace Conflict: 4 Ways to a Win-Win Solution The effects of conflict in the workplace are widespread and costly. Its prevalence, as indicated by three serious studies, shows that 24-60% of management time and energy is spent dealing with anger. This leads to decreased productivity, increased stress among employees, hampered performance, high turnover rate, absenteeism and at its worst, violence and death.
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |
