Motivating Employees Starts with the Supervisor and the Relationship

Productivity is everything to a business. You can't remain

productive unless your employees are motivated. If you are a supervisor, chances are you have not had a formal course in how to motivate employees, so let's discuss your role in the process and how you can be more influential in motivating your employees.

It’s been said that motivating a large group of employees can be like herding a group of cats. Each one is an individual, and therefore you must look at employee motivation in much the same way.

Motivating the employees you supervise starts with getting to know them as individuals. There are no parlor tricks in motivating employees. You conjure up magical and inspirational speeches that will cause them to be motivate. The problem of motivation goes much deeper, and for each of your employees it is a different formula for what does the trick.

Building a relationship with the employees you supervisors does not mean that you probe them for personal information and get involved in their personal business. However, it does mean you speak with them regularly, engage in real small talk and discuss what they do an their goals.

It means spending time with them individually, getting to know them at work, and discovering their likes and dislikes in the general course of a workplace relationship.

Once you begin to "profile" your employees in this positive way, you will learn what "turns them on" and you will think about how to develop resources or opportunities that motivate them to achieve more on the job.

Through this process, your employees will perceive that you care about them. You won't have to worry about whether they are thinking positive thoughts about you. They will. Your goal is to create an atmosphere where motivation flourishes.

Eventually you will get a strong feel for the ways each of your employees can be motivated, and you can plan opportunities and rewards that fit these unique aspects of their motivational profile and personality makeup.

To help supervisors and increase your EAP utilization 20% guaranteed and it's free to do it... fax this form to  843-884-0442 AND MARK ON IT "FREE TRIAL ONLY" -- you will not get a bill or a phone call, etc. If you are a new subscriber...and wish to pay now, we will give you 18 months instead of 12...(Sorry, new subs only.)  FRONTLINE SUPERVISOR EAP NEWSLETTER

EAP Workplace Awareness Training Program: Helping Employees Make a Positive Decision about Psychotherapy

EAP Workplace Awareness Training Program: Helping Employees Make a Positive Decision about Psychotherapy: What is psychotherapy and how do I found a therapist; what kind of therapist should I use; how does psychotherapy work

Show You’re Confident (An EAP Office Counseling Tip to Help Employees)

Confidence is the belief in oneself or one’s abilities. We don’t always feel confident in what

we are facing, but there is a way to feel and appear confident in job interviews, oral presentations, sales pitches—almost any personal challenge.

The secret is taking the focus off your awareness of feeling deficient or lacking in ability and shifting it to the people or situation in front of you.

How? Ask yourself questions that cause you to shift your focus: Think “What does this person need?” or “What are these people’s needs?” or “How can I discover what’s important to them?” or “What do we have in common?” or “What is the mood of my interviewer or audience?”

Any question that helps you empathize and reach out to discover more about what you’re facing will change your behavior--you will shift use of your brain from right brain to left—the more analytical side—reducing fear and altering the way you appear, speak, and project confidence to those in front of you.

Did you like this “EAP Office Counseling Tip?” Look for more tips by following on LinkedIn. Share with new staff. Coming soon . . . "Follow Up Tip for Supervisors After EAP Referral" (Feel free to copy the above, use, and share.) Follow me on LinkedIn to also see more tips at http://linkedin.com/in/workexcel/

EAPs: Education Employees and Help Workers Build Family Resilience

Topic for a Brown Bag:

Personal resilience means the ability to bounce back from adversity

—tough times and tough events. We know this means for individuals, but the concept also applies to families. Families can be resilient too, and they can become more resilient to weather stressful events.

Seek to build resilience within your family and you can weather tough times and improve your chances of thriving despite it all. If you answer no to the following questions, consider how you can build these traits, each one of which reinforces the other. (1) Do individual family members feel confident in their abilities to cope with change? (2) Do family members not shy away from hard work? (3) Do family members demonstrate the ability to cooperate with one another, despite the minor squabbles most families experience? (4) When wronged, do family members forgive each other? (5) When stressful events happen, does your family adapt? (6) Do family members nurture one another? (7) Do family members stick up for one another other? (8) Are family members open and honest with one another other? (9) Does the family interact and build relationships within its community?

We often address topics similar to this one in Frontline Employee..Get a subscription for your EAP and increase your utilization, value of your program, and offer your organizations reduced risk, and better integration....all of which can keep your program thriving instead surviving.

Family resilience has earned its own place in the Wikipedia. I bet you did not know that. So important is this topic that it is examined in many respects. See it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resilience

[Valentines Day News] Helping Employees and Their Relationships

suppose this research below on predicting fidelity (or infidelity) in
relationships is appropriate for Valentine's Day. I saw it in my news
feed this morning. But does have some workplace implications for
education and wellness.



Essentially, the research shows that a spouse or
partner's natural inclination to glance away faster and to subjectively
"devalue" an attractive potential sexual partner predicts higher degrees
of fidelity. The longer the look, the more likely the individual was to
participate infidelity. The shorter the look the less likely fidelity
will be a couple's issue.



Here is the research summary.



See the program: "Giving Couples Counseling a Try"

Revisiting Depression in the Workplace and Helping Employees

All mental health professionals conduct assessments and/or treat people for depression from time to time.

Some who suffer with this illness may experience such chronic long-term sadness that they barely understand any more what it is like to feel normal.

When depressed employees find relief, it is not unlike those who are able by a medical procedure to hear or see for the first time.

You probably have employees on payroll right now who suffer with chronic depression. They function with depression, but they are not firing on all cylinders. Productivity losses for this group of employees is enormous.

Employees with depression may not look "depressed", sulk at their desk, or behave sluggishly. Still, depression is one of the most costly illnesses to employers at a whopping $75 billion in lost productivity and absenteeism alone.

Consider educating employees about depression periodically so those who suffer from it have the chance to self-diagnose, rally with motivation, seek help. This is easy to do, and the payoffs can be great.

Here's a tip: Educate employees about depression in an article, and refer to a term called "bottomless sadness" associated with depression, and normal sadness. Google this term, and wrap a 150 word article around it. Put it in your health and wellness newsletter (or wait until March when I will do it in Frontline Employee.) You will be surprised at the impact this article has employees. Some who need help right now may reach out.

Don’t do a one-shot educational presentation or brown bag on depression. Instead trickle the information out in chapters with your newsletter, fliers, or another wellness tips program. You will see people move toward getting help after awareness builds after about six messages.

Consider this reproducible and editable tip sheet called “Understanding Depression.” Or Google for one like it somewhere on the Web. There are many. But, begin educating employees about this brain disease if you have not done so in a while.

Note, the tip sheet above also is available as a Video, Web Course, DVD, and PowerPoint. All have professional narration.

Begin an EAP-driven Proactive Injury Recovery Program to Support Employees Injured on the Job

The research is clear--better empathetic communication and engagement with injured workers can reduce workers' compensation costs associated with their recovery.

HR and EAPs should collaborate on this construct to get employees back to work sooner, reduce lawsuits, help prevent related employment claims, identify more troubled employees at risk of re-injury, and address secondary personal problems of injured workers that sabotage recovery.

This is not rocket science. Get excited, man! Follow 25 injured workers in 2018 and engage them in an "EAP Proactive Recovery Program." Then, compare your results--using 6-8 metrics--absences, treatment costs, re-injury rates, legal claims, reduced HR hassle time, speedier return to work, employee turnover, reduced overtime, etc.--to the same costs associated with the last 25 compensable injuries that were not similarly followed.

You should see a powerful return on this program. Then show up at an EAPA conference or share your results at a SHRM conference. Even better, attend a insurance or risk managers conference and promote employee assistance programs for the management tools they actually are, and should be, to help more workers and reduce costs. You might spark a needed true-to-the-spirit Core Technology EAP renaissance. 

Here are a few ideas to consider for your project:

1. Consider having injured workers engage with the EAP. A self-referral, or even a formal referral after injury is appropriate because the referral is based upon a job-related issue--injury. Another source of referral for such a program is the workers' compensation managed care nurse--get this individual on board with the program. 

You will discover this to be relatively easy because you are actually making their job easier and giving them improved stats. (I have done it, or I would not be writing about it.)

2. Have the EAP assess the psycho/social and environmental issues, and intervene with those that could contribute to a prolonged absence. This is a research-proven cost driver for WC injuries--the longer out, the less likely the return to work.

3. Institute EAP follow-up with medical doctors. They often have information helpful to a better EAP assessment.

4. Identify workers affected by depression and resolve employee concerns and complaints related to communications with the boss, HR, etc. (This reduces the likelihood of employees involving attorneys and suing the organization See: http://blog.reduceyourworkerscomp.com/2013/07/injured-workers-hire-attorneys-due-to-lack-of-employer-communication/)

5. Provide assertiveness training to help injured employees avoid peer pressure to engage in prohibited work activities that can cause re-injury when they return to the job.
Return to work programs are great, but many include risk of re-injury if they are located near the environment associated with the original injury. ("Come'on Joe, help lift this lumber! Your back is fixed by now! Gimme a break!")

6. Conduct an EAP assessment for untreated alcoholism. (WC injuries are three times higher for alcoholic workers.) Also have the EAP discuss opioid use issues because many of these folks are at risk for addiction, especially those with back injuries.

These few activities require trust, a commitment to confidentiality, and services that only an EAP with its core technology and legally-backed confidentiality assurances can offer. (Think again if you still believe #800 insurance EAP hotlines can engage to this degree with employees and key stakeholders.)

So, "who you gonna call" to reduce workers' compensation costs? Try an effective EAP with a programmatic approach to WC injury and recovery--or get one in place for 2018.

Increase your supervisors referrals free for the next three months, no catch. No invoice, No Bill, no hassle, no nothin'. - Fax this form, and cross out the price on it. And mark "Give it to me free, Dan."  Put your email on the form. I don't need your name.

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