1000 Business Lessons Every Businessman Must Know

Chapter 50 Salary Design and Incentives: Improving Employee Motivation (3)
The range of benefits is vast and almost unlimited.This covers everything from housing allowances to birthday cards, and the establishment of nurseries and hospitals by companies is also a type of welfare.At present, many corporate employees do not understand the benefits they enjoy, and still superficially think that benefits are equivalent to cash.Not only that, many companies only conduct expense statistics on their overall welfare expenses, but they have not made statistics on employee personal benefits.

For employees, the company's welfare expenses are more and more concealed.For example, off-the-job training opportunities and paid time off.It is easy to calculate the cost of going to external universities and training courses, but it is not so easy to calculate the cost of training in the company's own training base.However, most large companies in the world have set up their own corporate universities, and employees rarely go out for further studies.But employees rarely count this part of the cost into their income.As for paid vacation, it is a special benefit policy for employees, and ordinary employees may also have it, but the length of the vacation cannot be compared with employees.And paid vacation is actually equal to the increase in compensation per unit of working time, but many employees do not realize this.

Therefore, enterprises should strengthen communication and exchanges with employees in the design of welfare plans: make a detailed description of welfare expenditures, so that employees can understand how much the company has paid for them; if you are sure that the company's welfare plans are competitive, in order to To convince employees, you can also publicize the results of your welfare survey, so that employees can feel the competitiveness of their corporate welfare plans.

416. Avoid maximizing cash benefits
Among many employees, especially those in the IT industry, there is a popular view: "Cash is becoming more and more popular as benefits drop again and again", and cash is more attractive than non-cash benefits.For enterprises, especially some emerging and small-scale enterprises, due to the complex operation of welfare plans and the difficulty of taking them back once provided, it is easy to reduce the flexibility of enterprise operations.

However, employees and ordinary employees have different requirements for benefits, and employees of different ages have different requirements for benefits.Faced with the pressure to start a family and start a business, young ordinary employees often think that cash benefits are the best choice during this period; for employees, food, clothing, and housing are no longer a problem, so long-term incentive benefits are more popular.

From the perspective of stabilizing the workforce, maximizing cash benefits is also an unwise choice.Deferred payment is recognized as an effective measure to prevent employee turnover, and the design of various welfare plans is an important aspect.For example, in the pension plan that is widely used in American companies, the amount and proportion of employees enjoying pensions are determined by the number of years of service in the enterprise; in addition, the repayment ratio and repayment ratio of various loans provided by many enterprises to employees Interest rates are also related to years of service in the business.For example, in order to solve the problem of housing purchases for employees, Shanghai Bell Company once provided welfare programs for employees of the company with interest-free housing loans.Moreover, it is stipulated that after the employee has worked for a specified number of years, the loan can be repaid in half.

However, if the company distributes these benefits in advance in the form of cash, the effect of retaining employees can be imagined.

From the perspective of long-term planning, enterprises should create a corporate culture environment, and cash benefits are relatively short-term, and cannot solve the role that benefits should play.Simple cash handouts cannot reflect the company's care for employees; and simple cash handouts cannot buy employee loyalty.If the pension insurance of each employee is turned into cash, then the employee's sense of security will not be obtained.In an organization with no sense of security, building a positive corporate culture is undoubtedly a castle in the air.

[-]. Mental motivation

417. Money Isn’t Everything

From the perspective of the law of diminishing marginal benefits in economics, the incentive effect of money is gradually decreasing.When a hungry person eats the first steamed bun, the effect is the greatest, and the second one is not bad, but the third one may feel nothing, and the fourth, fifth or even more will not only feel Instead of the benefits of steamed buns, it had a negative effect.Of course, generally speaking, an employee will not have a negative effect on the increase in wages, but the diminishing effect is very obvious.For employees, most already have relatively high salaries and comprehensive welfare plans.At this time, it is only a one-sided increase in his salary. Even if the absolute amount is large, it may not be able to achieve satisfactory results.

Judging from the existing incentive theory, this statement also has its correctness.

Human needs appear in the form of levels, starting from low-level needs and developing to high-level needs.When a set of needs is satisfied, the set of needs ceases to be a motivator.He divided human needs into physiological needs, stability or safety needs, social and love needs, self-esteem and respect needs, and self-actualization needs.Of course, a person's needs at a certain level are not [-]% satisfied before the needs at the next level can emerge.Generally, when the lower-level needs are satisfied to a certain extent, the upper-level needs become the goal pursued by people.In fact, everyone has these five levels of needs, the only difference is which needs dominate at their stage.As employees, they have generally reached a certain level in terms of salary and have become an indispensable member of the company. Therefore, their physiological needs, including food, clothing, housing and transportation, and the safety needs of job stability and stability should have been quite satisfied. no longer occupy a dominant position.The main incentives for employees are the needs of social interaction, respect and self-actualization. They need the recognition and respect of the people around them more, and whether they can achieve greater achievements and give full play to their talents. The satisfaction of money powerlessness.

Therefore, in motivating employees, it is far from enough to simply increase their salaries and benefits.In order to get a satisfactory incentive effect, more spiritual incentive methods should be used.

418. Trust is Priceless
Everyone has the desire to be valued. Whether a company dares to let go of employing people and give them a stage and opportunity to display their talents is an important aspect that affects employee loyalty.When conducting surveys on resigned employees, many resigned employees reported that the main reason for their resignation is that the boss does not trust people, refuses to delegate power, does not give them room to play, and blames employees for mistakes no matter what the situation is.

For employees in the knowledge economy era, giving them the necessary trust and greater decision-making power at work is an important part of spiritual motivation.This is because most of the employees have stronger autonomy, they are not only unwilling to be controlled by things, but also can't bear the remote command of their superiors, they emphasize self-guidance in work; Entrusting important tasks to the organization can encourage them to have greater enthusiasm for work and exert more initiative; in the era of knowledge economy, managers are often faced with the situation of "experts leading experts", and employees of enterprises are more professional than managers. More familiar with their own work than managers.The most important solution to this problem is to select excellent employees and then give them enough space and power to display their talents.

I am used to trusting myself, worrying about others, and frequently interfering in the work of subordinates. I am afraid it is a common problem of managers, especially for managers who have grown up from the front line of work.However, this often creates a strange circle in the enterprise: the boss does not trust the employees, and wants to intervene when encountering a tense stage or a difficult problem.In this way, the more you manage, the more you will become arbitrary and suspicious; and the subordinates will become more and more restrained, and develop the habit of dependence, conformity and closure. Even if employees who are proactive and creative do not leave, they often become in this atmosphere. Do nothing.Over time, the enterprise will lose its vigor and vitality.

419. Building a Flat Organization

Too many organizational layers are usually the most important factor affecting smooth communication.Because communication itself is a problem of two-way transmission of information, there is a process of compilation in this process. Generally speaking, information may be distorted due to problems in understanding and transmission methods during the transmission process.The more layers are transferred, the greater the possibility of distortion will naturally be.In a large enterprise, even the employees may have many layers of barriers from the company's core management, especially the front-line employees.

Therefore, reducing the level of the enterprise "pyramid" is an important way to achieve seamless communication.In high-tech enterprises, due to drastic changes in the external environment and rapid industrial development, a flat organizational structure should be established to facilitate the communication between management and employees, so as to make decisions more quickly and realistically.Dell, which has swept across the entire IT manufacturing industry with a revolutionary business model, denies the hierarchy within the enterprise and encourages the free flow of information at all levels.

Dell, the CEO of Dell, believes that most of the problems of many large enterprises today come from the difficulties in communication and the complexity of levels.Hierarchy means the blockage of information flow, and represents layer after layer of permission, command and control. It stifles the valuable creativity and creative initiative of front-line technicians in repeated "no" and "no". sex.In the era of information society and knowledge economy, making decisions under such a structure is tantamount to suicide.

420. Use cruise management

The so-called parade management means that the company's leaders should stay less in the office in their daily work, but should appear more at the front line of employees' work and implement walking management.This management method was first proposed by Hewlett-Packard and put into practice, and achieved very good results.Many companies go to great lengths to make employees' opinions reach managers smoothly: it's a suggestion box and a reception day.But which one is faster and more effective than parade management?Senior managers often appear on the front line, and what they bring to everyone is not the same tension as inspection work, but convenient communication methods and sincere attitudes.

(End of this chapter)