TACA Conveyor - Winter 2007 - (Page 16) employees see that you care about who you enlist as a leader, they’ll feel more secure and will work even harder.” Seed #9: Conduct “stay” interviews regularly. Great employees like to hear about what they can do to make the company even better. Regular “stay” interviews provide a great opportunity for leaders to compliment their high performers on their great work and also to inspire them to do more to take the company to the next level. “Use these interviews to gauge how well you are meeting your employees’ needs,” says Sujansky. “Be open and honest with your employees and always seek out their suggestions on what you and the company can do to improve.” Seed #10: Create the kind of environment where people can do their best work. Is your work environment restrictive and stifling or is it freeing and innovative? By allowing your employees to develop and implement their own ideas within your organization, you’ll be able to help keep them passionate about their work. To show its appreciation for innovation, Google allows their engineers to spend 20 percent of their time on independent projects. You should also make sure your employees have what they need on a basic level. Do they have the equipment they need? The right computer programs to work efficiently? Nothing frustrates an employee more than not having everything he needs in order to get the job done. Seed #11: Help employees to achieve work/life balance. In today’s high-tech world, it is easy to set employees up so that they can work from home. Here’s the problem: too many companies do this and then expect employees to be “on call” 24/7. If you give this impression, even subtly or unconsciously, you’re disrupting their work/life balance. Employees in today’s workforce saw their parents give their lives to companies while missing soccer games, recitals, and family dinners only to be laid off at age 55 without much hope for finding other employment. Today’s working generation seems to share the sentiment of “We’re not going to let that happen to us!” They actively seek out companies who make providing a true work/life balance a priority. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) went so far as to place someone in charge of helping employees maintain work/life balance. “Providing flexible hours or allowing your employees to work from home shows them you value the lives they have outside the office,” says Sujansky. Seed #12: Insist that your employees take vacations. As an employer, you may be thinking, “If they would rather keep working than take a vacation, who am I to stop them? The more they’re working the better it is for us!” Several studies show that employees who take vacations are less stressed, lead a healthier lifestyle, and are even at lower risk of having heart disease. All of that means lower healthcare costs for you. Furthermore, employees who get away from the office are less likely to suffer burnout, a problem that harms BUILD IT STRONGER. FASTER. BEAUTIFULLY. SMARTER. GREENER. SAFER. FOREVER. For over 100 years, the people of CEMEX have been hard at work turning visions into realities. Building what could only be imagined, improving upon convention and believing that partnership and passion are the only ways to do business. Please visit www.cemexusa.com to learn more. Cement Sales Austin Ready Mix Sales El Paso Ready Mix Sales Houston Ready Mix Sales (800) 492-2353 (512) 389-3711 (915) 565-4681 (281) 405-7700 16 TACA 342365_lattimore.indd 1 Conveyor • Winter 2007 9/6/07 6:59:44 PM 334504_cemex.indd 1 6/8/07 8:37:37 AM http://www.lmctx.com http://www.cemexusa.com
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