Designing a Training Session to Motivate Employees of a Financial Consultancy Firm

The cornerstone of a companys success is a well-defined and implemented corporate strategy which the whole company lives. Those living the strategy are individuals, individual human beings. If employees do not feel closely connected to the strategys values and direction and motivated to fulfill the companys designated goals, the company is not likely to successfully reach its goals. (For ease of use, employees in this article shall mean all persons working in a company and influencing the attainment of its goals, i.e., all employees from senior management to ordinary employees, temporary workers, self-employed persons, subcontractors and others.)

Employee Training Motivation

What is Employee Training Motivation?

"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it." -Dwight D. Eisenhower There may be any number of reasons you need to use employee training motivation. Employee training may be due to a new hire, a new computer system that everyone needs to learn, or a new concept that needs to be introduced to your work group. Improving employee motivations to do well in training is a must. Whatever the reason for an employee training session, you need to keep your employees motivated about learning new things. Employee training can be an essential part of any business. When employees are motivated to succeed in learning new things your department will be more profitable. But sometimes its not about a new way of doing things, and simply about reminding each other about the best way of doing things. Like any relationship, your employee relationships can get stale unless you consistently invest time and effort to remind them how important they are to you, how valued their contributions are, and critically that they are all part of one team the same team. Here are some general areas you may want to focus employee training on:
Company vision and mission Customer service training. Sales training Team Building Leadership and decision making

 Brainstorm ideas to improve employee satisfaction Brainstorm ideas to improve productivity Decide how you can contribute to community programs

One of the things that may motivate your employees is that most employees want the new training to increase their job skills and career development. Everyone likes to feel important and empowered and everyone needs to grow. Giving an employee new skills and responsibilities will help increase how important the employee feels. There are a few ways that you, the manager can help your employee motivation through training.
Allow your employees to choose the training and career development they want not just what the company wants or assigns. Provide more authority to your employee to self-manage and make decisions. Ask your employee to contribute more often. Allow your employee to cross train for other jobs in the company. Ask the employee to help train others. Use multimedia and online training.

Using employee motivation will help your employees to learn the new skills needed to make them feel like a truly valued member of the team. Absenteeism will go down and productivity will go up.

There are 5 key steps you can take to motivate employees & their attitude Step 1Identify What Motivates Employees Ask your employees what motivates them. If you have trouble determining an employee's motivators, ask what would make him or her more excited about their job. If an employee seems hesitant or unsure, suggest several different motivators and get their reactions. Most employees want:

Good supervision from a leader who can guide and direct their activity. Clear goals and expectations that are mutually understood and agreed upon. Accurate and timely feedbacks that fairly reflects their performance and helps them improve. Interesting work, or at least the opportunity for interesting assignments from time to time. Challenges that help them learn, grow, and test their talents and stretch their abilities. Responsibility and the chance to take on important tasks and show what they can do. Recognition for their efforts in the form of praise, rewards, and advancement.

Respect Fair treatment

Motivated employees want:

Opportunities for growth Control over their work Participation in decisions To be part of a team, and enjoy the camaraderie and sense of achievement that comes from being part of a successful team.

Step 2Identify and Address Barriers to Employee Motivation Negative Outlook When you ask what motivates a worker, you make get some negative responses like: If you want to motivate me, give me a raise. Don't ask my opinion if you don't want to hear it. Promotion means more headaches. Who needs it? There are positive ways to counter these negative responses. For example:

If you want to motivate me, give me a raise. Employees often see money as the key to motivation, and sometimes it is. If you cannot grant a raise, you may want to ask the employee if anything else would inspire motivation. You may find that at times employees who want a raise can also be motivated by other means. Don't ask my opinion if you don't want to hear it. Employees who make this or similar statements may be upset because their ideas were not adopted by the group or the organization. Talk with employees openly about their ideas and the ideas of others. Explain that while all the ideas were worthwhile, only some could be pursued at this time. Make sure employees understand that their participation is always valued and will be needed again. Promotion means more headaches. Who needs it? Employees may be frustrated by not advancing or may be intimidated by the idea of advancement or promotion. Respond by talking to these employees about why advancement is important, to their careers and to the organization. Talk about the support that is provided for employees who are promoted, or want to be. Share with them some of the satisfactions or rewards that may make the headaches worth it and make sure they understand that you have confidence in them to make the best of any new roles.

Lack of Knowledge, and Fear A combination of lack of knowledge and fear are big reasons why employees are not motivated or show poor attitude at work. For example, fear stifles motivation when a new worker refuses to ask questions lest he or she seem incapable of doing the job. Supervisors can remind new workers again and again that their questions are valued and important and encourage them to ask. Step 3Develop an Employee Motivation Program An employee's performance, actions, or attitudes can damage both their careers and the organization. In such cases try first to come to an agreement about acceptable behaviors through informal discussions. If that doesn't work, meet with the employee and develop a formal employee motivation program. Get input from the employee. This is a chance to listen and find out about the employee's concerns. A great motivation program should include the following elements:

Clearly explain what the employee needs to do to meet expectations, and how what the organization will do to provide support or assistance. Correction works best when it is perceived as a partnership. Monitor the employee's progress with care and meet frequently with the employee to review the plan and the employee's conduct. Provide encouragement, praise, and recognition as the employee's work improves. Make it clear that the employee's value in the workplace is increasing. Some employees are motivated by discipline. They don't take their work seriously until they are threatened with some kind of sanction for unacceptable or inadequate performance. But discipline should be used only as a last resort for problem employees who fail to respond to other, positive forms of motivation. Make it clear that resorting to discipline is not punishment by you or the organization but a consequence of the employee's own performance and behavior. Put the responsibility squarely on the employee, where it belongs. Once you have warned an employee or applied necessary discipline, be sure to use other positive motivators as well to encourage improved performance. Discipline alone is rarely enough to turn a problem employee around.

Step 4Add Motivation to Employee Training Start off with a bang. Get trainees involved right away. Take a few minutes at the beginning of the session to grab their attention and create a little excitement. Encourage participation by having employees take center stage and describe something they already know about the topic, or give them the opportunity to ask a question about the topic they'd like answered during the training session Keep their attention focused. You talking and trainees just listening is probably the least effective way to train. Experts tell us that in most cases hearing only accounts for 10 percent of

learning, whereas more than 80 percent comes via the sense of sight. This means safety training activities should be heavily weighted in favor of hands-on practical experience, interactive discussion with the trainees doing most of the talking, question and answer, and activities that have a visual impact. Make it real . Reality TV is really popular, so why not try some "reality" training? Have a speaker come in to give a short presentation about the topic. For example, you could have an employee who was injured on the job talk about his or her experience and what he or she learned from the accident as it relates to your topic. Send them away all fired up. Although safety training sessions may seem like the end of a long road for you--a process of preparation, presentation, and evaluation--remember that for trainees, it's only the beginning. The rest happens on the job. If they don't apply what they learned in the session to their work, you've wasted a lot of time, effort, and money. So send them back to the job fired up about safety and eager to use what they've just learned. Have a good wrap-up session prepared for the end of training. Make sure trainees leave with a sense of accomplishment to reinforce that they've learned something really important. Also be sure they don't go away empty-handed. Give trainees a handout or booklet to serve as safety reminders and job aids. And be sure to tell them that your door's always open any time they have questions, problems, or suggestions related to the training session. Give rewards as appropriate. Some can be earned and some by chance. An example of an earned reward would be giving each trainee a certificate of completion at the end of a session. A chance award could be placing a gift card under one chair and at some point in the session, ask people to check their chairs. Or you could give out small gifts, such as bite-sized candy bars or a company logo mug, to trainees who participate in the discussion. Step 5Implement Procedures for Motivating an Aging Workforce According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), by 2010 middleaged and older workers will outnumber younger ones. See several useful tips about training and motivating older workers . Motivation is a complex subject. As you try out the techniques we've discussed, you'll find that your understanding of motivation and how to motivate people will gradually change and become more refined.

Through the performance management system, the performance expected of employees is given a concrete shape.
Employees help to achieve the companys goals by performing assigned jobs. If the company has an integrated company-wide performance management system in place, employee performance is no longer a nebulous concept but rather a set of clearly defined expectations

(goals) to be met by an employee in a given position. To determine the expectations, the companys strategic goals are broken down in detail to the level of ordinary employees. Employees then seek motivation to meet the designated goals in which the company is able to help them by setting attainable conditions and measures. Hence, the performance of employees corresponds to how the work and rewards (both financial and non-financial) meet the employees needs.

What kind of motivation works well?

Motivation and motivational tools available to companies are of a financial and non-financial nature. Motivation can also be negative or positive. At first glance it could seem, indeed, that financial motivation, i.e., financial rewards for employees performance, is the right driver of employee performance and that the higher the financial reward, the higher the work commitment and employees performance. Yet, the results of surveys and experiments have shown for years that this is not always the case. Financial motivation is meaningful to employees only to a certain extent; once the motivation reaches a certain amount, it no longer influences the employee. This is not a suggestion that companies should disregard the financial remuneration of employees. A well thought out and fair compensation system aligned with success in fulfilling the designated goals (as described below) is the basis of social peace in the company and surely motivates employees to deliver the required performance. However, attention should also be paid to non-financial motivational tools. The harder it is to define and grasp these tools the more significant a role they play in motivating employees. In broad terms, they can be included under corporate culture. Why does an employee who gets two comparable job offers with identical financial compensation prefer one offer over the other? The reason is often the corporate culture which the employee expects in the company of his or her choice.

Who is expected to take care of employees motivation in the company?

It is of course the HR function. The HR function is expected to cooperate actively in promoting the integrated performance management system, know the employee population and provide ideas and tools to motivate them. The HR function is also expected to act as a sponsor in creating the financial compensation system and provide input in making strategic decisions. However, there is a BUT! Indeed, the HR function can be expected to set rules, have knowledge and provide support, yet non-financial motivation is the responsibility of management, namely senior management and line management. Management is genuinely wrong to think that except for direct assignment of tasks to employees, which is ensured by the management, the HR function can take care of and be responsible for all other reactions of employees at work and associated with work.

Financial methods of motivation

Though there are many reasons why people work for a living, it is undeniable that money, or other financial rewards, play a key role in motivating people in the workplace. There is a wide variety of ways in which a business can offer money (or financial rewards) as part of the pay package, including:

Salaries: fixed amounts per month or year for performing a role; these are common for most managerial positions (e.g. Accountant, Payroll Manager) Benefits in kind (fringe benefits) very common in businesses of all kinds; these include staff discounts, contributions to travel costs, staff uniforms etc Time-rate pay: pay based on time worked; very common in small businesses where employees are paid per hour. Piece-rate pay: pay per item produced becoming less common Commission: payment based on the value of sales achieved. Other performance-related pay: e.g. bonuses for achieving targets Shares and options: less common in small businesses, but popular in businesses whose shares are traded on stock markets Pensions becoming less common and generous. Small businesses tend not to offer pension benefits.

In most cases, an employee might expect to have a mixture of the above in a pay package. How important is money as a motivator? It is widely accepted that poor or low pay acts as a de-motivator. Someone who feels undervalued or under-paid may soon leave to find betterpaid employment. However, it is less clear that paying people more results in better motivation. For most people, motivation (the will to work) comes from within. More money can help us feel better about out work, but it is unlikely to encourage us to work harder or to a higher standard.

Financial Compensation System

Companies with an integrated performance management system in place have their employee compensation aligned with success in fulfilling the goals of the company and often also the goals of the team and the individual. Employees compensation mirrors the employees skills, capabilities and knowledge, i.e., competencies, and the employees long-term and short-term performance. Each employees quality is reflected in a certain component of the employees compensation as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Relationship between the employee and the wage the employee receives

The proportion of individual wage components of the employees total rewards differs based on the type of job and job description; similarly, the type of goals of individual employees differs depending on their position in the companys hierarchy. Generally, the higher the employee is positioned in the organizational structure, the higher the proportion of strategic goals in the overall structure of the employees goals and the greater the share of the variable wage component in the employees total rewards. The method for translating success in fulfilling his/her goals into the amount of the employees compensation including the specific proportion of individual components of the employees income is derived from a detailed consideration of the industry where the company operates, the competitive environment, the companys strategy and the applicable HR strategy. Hence, the transfer bridges between success in fulfilling goals and the amount of reward can rank from moderate to aggressive and can be used to regulate and influence the employees behavior in meeting the goals, see Figure 2.

Figure 2: Interrelationship of performance and rewards

The horizontal and vertical axes illustrate the percentage success in fulfilling the goals and the amount of the reward, respectively. Rewards can often be paid only when a certain value in fulfilling goals is reached, i.e., when knock out criteria are met. The knock out criteria for the payment of rewards of all employees is usually established at the company-wide level. Once the company achieves its main, usually financial goals, only then can the rewards of individual employees be considered. Under step 2, the knock out criteria is applied to the individual performance of employees. Under an interim step, the knock out criteria can be established for the performance of individual organizational departments or teams. Once the fulfillment of goals reaches a certain level, the higher value of goal fulfillment is no longer translated into a higher reward, ie a reward cap. The reward cap should protect the company against excessive fulfillment of goals which might not be covered by a proportionally higher amount of financial funds, for example, in the case of qualitative goals. If the planning process and goals are established correctly in the company, its employees should not exceed their goals by tens of percents. Such a situation rather points to incorrectly established goals of the employee rather than to his or her excessive success.

Non-financial Motivation
As mentioned above, while the non-financial motivation of employees is less tangible, it is very important. Non-financial motivation is defined by corporate culture and corporate values. It begins with direct and open communication and atmosphere across the company and continues with providing constructive feedback to employees and adopting a personalized approach where possible. Non-financial motivation includes basic company values such as ethical approach, loyalty, empathy, courage, leadership and team spirit. Non-financial motivation runs through the whole process of goals setting and evaluation. It allows and even expects the employees to take part in establishing their own goals. This is the counselors approach to the official and ongoing employee evaluation.

Other non-financial motivation drivers of employees which the company and management can use include: power decision-making opportunities responsibility; self-fulfillment opportunities; strong and clear vision of the company; relationships in the group; certainty; recognition praise; feed-back; and respect relationship to authority. It is the role of managers, in line with the principles of the personalized approach to employee performance management, who are in day-to-day contact with their subordinates, to recognize, assisted by HR, the main motivation drivers of their subordinates.

However, non-financial motivation is not only about approaching employees fairly. Non-financial motivation drivers also include things like having attractive and diverse work, ongoing learning, taking part in corporate development and enjoying opportunities for career and/or professional growth. However, the latter is on the edge of the financial motivation drivers because, for example, while MBA studies can be attractive non-financial motivation for employees, they incur rather significant costs for the company, and thus, are considered financial motivation from the companys perspective. In this context it is good to know that the generation currently entering the labour market the so called generation Y, is largely interested in the opportunities of developing their professional skills and career.

Benefits of the Integrated Performance Management System for HR

The performance management system can be considered, without exaggeration, as the key HR process. Many other areas and processes of human resources management benefit from the outputs provided by a well-established performance management system. Regular employee evaluation and monitoring, for example, enable identifying an above-average performing talent and developing the talent management program. Clearly designated expectations from individual employees allow easier definition of the required employee educational activities and employee educational system.

Conclusion
While the accounting theory sees employees as costs, they actually are one of a companys most important assets and should be treated as such and in line with the accounting theory, i.e., developed and improved or at least maintained. The last issue of the Performance Management System series will deal with IT support for performance management. The previous issues were focused on creating and implementing the strategy and translating it to the performance system. Attention was paid to the method of defining and evaluating strategic goals and short-term goals established under the budget and plan as well as to the establishing of the economic structure so as to monitor the differences between the plan and reality and transforming this data into information for managerial decision making and management. The last article was focused on the establishment, measurement and systematic improvement of processes using performance indicators.