Motivating Your Internal Employees
Ten Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Workers

By Margaret Steen
Staffing Industry Review
November 25, 2008

The key to a smoothly running, successful staffing agency is a good staff. But in an industry known for its high staff turnover rates, motivating and retaining the best employees is not always easy.

A few simple principles can help you get the best work out of your employees. "People need respect, they need rewards, and they need to know what their requirements are," says Kathleen Dodaro, co-owner of Dodaro & Associates, a training and development firm based in Denver.

But putting these ideas into practice can be easier said than done. It's one thing to design an incentive plan, for example, and another to make sure it is actually producing the behavior you want. Staffing firm owners and managers may plan to spend time talking with their employees to establish a better rapport with them, only to find their days consumed by closing deals and handling crises.

Staffing firm owners and experts in employee motivation offer these 10 practical tips for motivating the recruiters, sales staff and other workers in a staffing firm:

Hire well. Make sure the person you are hiring is "taking the job for the right reasons: not just for the money, not just for the proximity to their house," says Jeff Garton, author of Career Contentment: Don't Settle for Anything Less! Having employees who really want to work for your company will make motivating them much, much easier.

Employers and employees need "a mutually beneficial purpose," Garton says. Yes, the employee should fill a need at your staffing firm. But the job should also be satisfying -- on a level deeper than a simple paycheck -- to the worker.

"Your retention starts with your interview," says Barbara J. Bruno, CEO of Good as Gold Training, who trains recruiters and runs her own staffing agency. This includes making sure the job description and requirements are clear to the potential employee.

Bruno says she looks for candidates with "a history of high achievement," whether that's good grades, excelling at a sport or doing well at a previous job. People who have been overachievers in the past are likely to continue that way.

Let them know you hired well. Employees will feel appreciated if they know why you hired them. Vague praise is less helpful than concrete examples.

"Let them know, 'You've got a great attitude, I really appreciate it,'" said Valerie Frederickson, founder and CEO of Menlo Park CA-based Valerie Frederickson & Co., a human resource executive search and consulting firm. "Show them specific examples."

This advice applies to employees who have been with the company for a long time, as well.

Communicate with your employees about company goals. Frederickson involves all of her employees in the strategic planning process so they understand how what they do fits with the company's goals -- and how they will share in the reward when the goals are reached.

John Beckford, vice president of client services and operations at Florida staffing firm Employment Resources Inc., says that at his company everyone participates in determining the goals for the coming year. "It's our plan; it's everybody's," he says. "Everybody takes ownership of it, and you get much better results."

It helps to hold kick-off and wrap-up meetings for projects, as well, to keep everyone informed, Bruno says. Employees who don't understand their role are less motivated to push themselves.

Communication means listening to employees as well as giving them information. An open-door office policy goes a long way toward making employees feel valued, and therefore motivated, Beckford says. But that's only if it's done right.

"A lot of times companies have an open-door policy, but really it's a closed door with a 'Do Not Disturb' sign," he says.

Finally, it's critical to act on what employees tell you -- or to explain why you can't. When an employer asks employees for feedback and then doesn't do anything based on the answers, it makes employees less likely to give honest feedback the next time around, Dodaro says.

This doesn't mean you're bound to implement every employee suggestion, however impractical or expensive. "Tell them the truth," Dodaro says. "Here's what we can do. There are some things we can't do."

Ask employees what motivates them. Are they working primarily for the money? Do they enjoy talking to people? Do they want time off more than anything else?

"I think you really need to customize it," says Maynard Brusman, a consulting psychologist, executive coach and workplace expert.

When a manager has this conversation with an employee, there are two primary benefits. It helps the manager create an incentive that will really inspire the employee to work harder. And the simple fact that the boss asks these questions "shows an incredible degree of concern and caring," Brusman says.

Use financial incentives carefully. Bruno describes staffing agency employees as "social workers who like money," a phrase that illustrates both the power of money as a motivator and its limitations.

Research indicates that although too little money will make employees unhappy, money is rarely the main reason employees change jobs. "People need basic compensation to pay their bills, but they're not going to jump for a small amount of money when they feel rewarded for what they do," Dodaro says.

This means that although you should make sure your compensation is fair and competitive, you should not depend on the promise of more money to motivate all your employees.

Bruno uses the common formula of base salary, commission and contests to compensate her workers. The contests -- a free lunch for the first person who reaches a short-term goal, or leaving early on Friday afternoon for everyone who does a certain amount of business before then -- help her encourage behavior that will help the company reach its longer-term goals.

It's important to keep your eye on your ultimate goal when devising compensation strategies. "Even though you're trying to motivate and retain your sales team, your main goal as an owner is to make a profit," Bruno says. "That always has to be part of the formula."

Frederickson warns against setting up a reward system that creates the wrong incentives. For example, she says, she wants her employees to have a high enough base salary -- and a long-term view -- so that they're not tempted to accept work that falls outside of what the company does best. "If my team were purely incentivized on gross revenue, we wouldn't be able to turn that business down," she says. "Staffing firms need to really take a hard look at what kind of customer experience they want their customers to have with them and make sure they're incentivizing the right behavior."

Tailor incentives to your employees. You may have some employees, particularly among the sales team, who are motivated by money: They may be saving toward a particular goal, like buying a house, or they may use money as a way to measure how well they're doing.

But many workers, including some in numbers-focused fields like sales, respond better to more intrinsic motivation. "In the staffing industry, these recruiters have an opportunity to do some really good things in getting the right people matched up with the right organization," Dodaro says.

"I have some employees who absolutely couldn't care less about the money," Frederickson says. These employees, although they need to make enough money to live on, are more likely to work harder if they feel appreciated and feel as if they're making progress at work. Because of this, Frederickson selects from a number of different incentive packages for each employee, based on what she thinks will work best for that person.

It's always risky to generalize about people in a particular type of job since even among sales people motivations vary. But it can help to consider why people choose a certain type of work to begin with.

Recruiters, for example, are "very relationship-oriented," Brusman says. "It's not just the numbers." Workers who delight in matching workers to companies may be more motivated by the thought that they're being helpful than by how much money they're making for the company or even for themselves.

Sales people, Brusman says, have to be able to handle the pressure of meeting their sales goals. They are "socially and emotionally intelligent and incredibly resilient," he says. They also tend to be entrepreneurial and may like the idea that their earning potential is limited only by how much work they do.

Still, Bruno says, "It's not always money." Some workers may appreciate flexible hours or time off more than extra cash.

Give employees autonomy. People are more motivated to work hard when they feel in control.

For example, Beckford says his company tries to set up workers' jobs the way they want them. If one prefers making phone calls and another likes going to trade shows, the company will try to structure their jobs so they're doing more of what they like and less of what they don't like.

After the workers help create their own job descriptions, Beckford says, there is no micromanaging. "Folks want to be treated like adults," he says. "We expect you to live by the covenant you created."

Bruno has her employees set their own financial targets for the year. "If they're hitting or surpassing their sales goals, what does it mean for them? Their family? Quality of life? Income?"

If a goal is too low, she encourages them to dream a bit about what they could do if they had more money.

Bruno also asks her employees to consider goals that aren't directly related to work, such as health goals or other personal goals. "People do things for their own reasons, not yours," she says.

Be clear and consistent. If the rewards system seems unfair, employees will not be motivated to work hard. "You have to have processes and systems so that everybody knows the rules," Bruno said. Although top producers may, in fact, often win contests and awards, the other employees shouldn't feel that the system was rigged. For example, there should never be a question about who "owns" a prospect or a candidate.

For short-term contests, Bruno suggests setting employees up with different levels. Perhaps those who have been with the firm for less than six months can compete against each other rather than against everyone. Or, the outside-sales and inside-sales teams can each have their own contest.

Provide feedback. It's tempting to think that if you set numeric goals for your employees, they will know how well they're doing without any input from their managers.

But giving employees frequent feedback on their work has several benefits. It shows your employees that you're paying attention, that those goals you laid out at the beginning of the year really are important to you. It also lets your employees know that you know they're trying hard. And it can help them improve their performance, as well.

Some feedback can be casual: going over a new employee's progress with a manager once a week, for example. Quarterly reviews are also helpful for everyone.

Bruno suggests asking everyone at their review what work activity generates the best results. "You want to do more of that," she says. "A lot of our work is nonproductive."

Help them succeed. Everyone likes to feel successful, and in a numbers-driven environment such as the staffing industry, it's easy to tell who is doing well and who isn't. Although sometimes a worker who isn't succeeding will be motivated to try harder, often the feeling of failure makes this difficult.

"If we're having a great month, we love it," Bruno says. "If we're having a bad month, we hate it."

Managers can help workers who are struggling get back on track. And one way to prevent them from struggling to begin with is to provide training and professional development opportunities. "Training has to be offered on a consistent basis," Bruno says.

When even these strategies fail, remember that not everyone can be inspired to work hard at a given job. "It is impossible to motivate an individual who does not want to be motivated," Bruno says.

Margaret Steen is a freelance writer in Los Altos, CA who writes about business and the workplace.