DISCUSSION
What happens when managers unintentionally demotivate employees?
Written by RetailWire Staff
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from Retail Contrarian, the blog of the Dynamic Experiences Group
"When people are highly motivated, it's easy to accomplish the impossible. And when they're not, it's impossible to accomplish the easy." – Bob Collings
I love today's quote. While we often think about how to motivate employees, sometimes leaders demotivate the staff and don't even know it.
Here are four ways frontline leaders might unintentionally demotivate their employees, and what they can do to avoid doing so.
- Take charge after not being on the floor. A leader walks onto a busy sales floor and immediately takes charge without knowing what customers have been helped. Even worse, he or she asks customers if they've been helped. Both actions inadvertently communicate to the staff that their manager has no confidence that they are doing their jobs.
- Undermine the company or the boss. Many leaders do this without even realizing it. A while back I heard a manager tell her staff that the company wants them to do something new. She immediately followed up by explaining why it won't work. You could see her staff's negative reaction. Your staff should never know if you don't personally support something.
- Cherry pick customers. I once had an assistant manager who did this all of the time. The minute he learned a customer was going to take a long time or be somewhat challenging, he'd hand him or her over to a colleague because he had "some important operational things to do." Funny, he never handed over that customer who walked in to make a purchase.
- Hold yourself to a different set of standards. Not many managers do this on purpose, but it happens from time to time. Managers take personal calls when the staff is told they can't. I've also seen managers who don't always stick to their scheduled working hours. True, the managers might be exempt and have had to work from home, but does the staff know that?