Employees Don' T Quit Jobs When They' Re Overworked

Business.

Tea and the secrets of staff retention - tea and the secrets of staff retention. Consider this scenario. Staff retention a concern?

Imagine you' re a front - line employee working at a mundane job. - you' re on autopilot, counting the hours and minutes until your shift is over and you can go home and do something you enjoy. It' s so boring you simply go through the motions. Or you stick with the job only until something that' s more interesting or pays more comes along. In that dismal scenario, managers resign themselves to the belief that there' s always going to be high front - line turnover. Then you' re gone.

They don' t bother training employees because they' re just going to quit anyway. - unfortunately, customers dealing with bored employees feel absolutely no loyalty to the company. Continuing with that line of thinking, these managers and supervisors assume that the only thing that' s going to motivate employees to stick around is to pay them more. Consequently, revenues are down and wages keep costs high. The cup that satisfies. Not exactly a formula for success.

Today' s employees do indeed want something more - and it isn' t just money. - kenneth kovach at george mason university, the number one motivator for employees is interesting work. According to the landmark studies in employee motivation spearheaded by Dr. The question is how to turn a potentially boring job into something interesting. Serving tea becomes an art when served with an attitude of quality, and service, mindfulness. I think the answer lies in the tea ceremony. Practitioners of the tea ceremony don' t just read a manual and then get certified.

They immerse themselves in the art, so much so that it becomes a form of moving meditation or Do - Zen. - they train for years under the guidance of a master. Like a good martial artist, they have the attitude of humility. What it all boils down to( bad pun) is that the most effective way to motivate employees is through on - going training. They know that no matter how advanced they may become, they can always improve. Interesting tidbit: Fortune magazine did a survey of the" 100 Best Companies to Work For. " The number - one factor that people considered when choosing a company? Change it to spice tea.

Professional training. - the kind of front - line training i' m referring to is not the standard approach where managers dictate policies: list the things employees can' t do, and then teach them the technical aspects of the job: how to do the paperwork, run the cash register, etc, make the deliveries. That' s not the kind of training that motivates employees. Oh, yeah, and be nice to people( which often, means that employees, by the way address customers as Sir or Ma' am, a practice that' s guaranteed to offend rather than flatter some customers) . I' m talking instead about providing training with spice - equipping them with communication skills that lead to stronger customer loyalty and increased spending per customer. In other words, the right kind of training makes even the most mundane work interesting.

It makes the job of interacting with customers a craft, quality, requiring focus, and attention to detail. - the consistency of tea time. Similarly, a one - time training session for employees is likely to just raise their expectations and eventually annoy them - especially when, without reinforcement and support, everything reverts back to the way it was before the one - time training. One workout in a lifetime is going to do more harm then good because there is a high risk of injury and the overall improvement in performance will be negligible. We need to convert training from being an event into an ongoing process. Phase one is professional training that equips employees with the subtleties of service that make work more interesting.

That' s why I recommend that managers look at customer service training as a two phased approach. - once that new foundation of knowledge is established, then in phase two managers conduct their own monthly 90 minute casttm( customer service team) meetings. The fascinating and sometimes frustrating art of enhancing customer perception is that there' s always room for improvement. The learning, shifts from being, therefore a one - time event to an ongoing process. That makes even the most seemingly mundane jobs much more interesting. So do their customers! From the moment our clients conduct their first CAST Meeting, they notice the emergence of a much more motivated and engaged workforce.

The irony when it comes to training employees is that a lot of managers believe they can' t afford to train employees because they have high turnover. - employees don' t quit jobs when they' re overworked. The truth is they have high turnover because they aren' t providing ongoing education or growth for their employees. They quit jobs when they' re bored - or worse. Everyone loses. When they are being paid enough to physically show up but have mentally moved on. As a business leader, you have the opportunity to elevate your enterprise from merely being a place where employees go to earn a living, to a place where employees satisfy their innate need to learn and grow.

That' s a learning organization where the flavour of work is like well brewed tea... richer and more satisfying for everyone.