Long-term Employees:
How to Motivate & Let Them Know They Are Valued – With a Minimum of Redundancy
Addressing “performance” with long-term employees has its challenges; primarily, giving them meaningful feedback and helping them to stretch themselves. Stretching their skills, knowledge, and performance to meet new goals may be like using muscles that have atrophied with lack of use. They’ve been doing good work for a long time and developed patterns of behavior and performance that have become less demanding; and, perhaps, less rewarding although they may not be aware of it.
Motivation efforts can be fruitless and can even work against the supervisor’s objectives if the “motivation” isn’t based on what the employee wants and values. How do we discover what that is? By communicating with the employee and observing the employee’s behavior over time. Asking the employee directly, “What motivates you?” can work, but needs to be part of a larger discussion about the employee’s and the manager’s expectations, observations, etc.
First, focus on the employee’s strengths. Find several behaviors and/or results that fall within your expectations, goals, objectives for that employee. Envision the employee stretching beyond those behaviors and/or results: making that behavior more consistent, for instance, or using that behavior strength to overcome a weakness. Sometimes we need practice thinking in new terms and envisioning the possibilities; we may have to take “baby steps” by considering a more obvious situation with that employee or another employee to begin using these coaching skills.
Before initiating a discussion with the employee, identify your own expectations and relate that to the valued behaviors and results you and others have observed regarding this employee. Since this is a long-term employee, noting a consistent pattern over a long period of time is appropriate.
If you have access to a series of performance evaluations for this employee, you may discover some skill or behavior, examples from the employee’s history, that are not visible or utilized currently.
A few good resources on coaching, that may be especially helpful when working with long-term employees are:
Kaye, Beverly. Up Is Not the Only Way. Davies Black, 1997.
Kaye, Beverly and Sharon Jordan-Evans. Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em: Getting Good People to Stay. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1999.
Lombardo, Michael M. and Robert W. Eichinger. Eighty-eight Assignments for Development in Place: Enhancing the Developmental Challenge of Existing Jobs. Center for Creative Leadership, 1989. [available through the Center for Creative Leadership: - at this website, click on “bookstore” then “search” then “88”]
Manager mini-seminars and tools for performance-related issues from CCH (some are free, others not)
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