With the economy in a slump and staff reductions, there is much more stress at work these days. Employees are asked to do much more with little or no help. Everyone needs to pick up the slack caused by missing co-workers. Tempers can get short and recent studies from The Seamless Workforce, CNN Money and The Workforce Institute @ Kronos, indicate that most employees plan to change jobs when the market improves. Most employees feel over worked and under appreciated.

Since money is tight, what can a supervisor or owner do to improve this situation and retain key employees? An honest THANK YOU will go a long ways to improve morale. When employees are required to operate in a silent vacuum, they tend to think the worst. They believe that their employer doesn’t care if they live or die, that is as long as they do not die on the job, which might trigger a formal complaint and lawsuit.

I discovered the power of THANK YOU while working as a foreman for an electrical contractor. I thanked my workers each day for giving me a good days work. I found that my crew increased productivity, paid more attention to the taskes at hand and enjoyed comming to work each day. They also policed themselves. Slackers were not allowed on the crew. I did not enforce this policy, my crew inforced it. I overheard one of my crew telling a new member that, “everyone works on Bear’s crew. He treats us well and we work hard for him. If you want to goof off, go work for someone else.” I would not have put it so harshly, but then I didn’t need to. His fellow worker made it clear.

So thank your employees for sticking it out and working hard. You will find them happier to simply be acknowledged.

Ken Bear Cole

Fishing with Bear LLC