I hope you are enjoying your Holiday season! This is often a time where we look for gifts to give to others. When I read an article by a fellow colleague, I thought, “Wow! This article is full of great tips of the best gifts that a leader can give to their team.” So I have included the article below.
The author is Deirdre Kelley, who is a fellow organizational consultant who is helping teams reach their potential. She is a Philanthropic Impact & Sustainability Associate with JDLevy & Associates. Deirdre comes from a background in all three sectors – public, private and nonprofit – and now focuses her talents on nonprofits. However, the article she has written has golden nuggets for any organization. I know you will benefit from the ideas that she has to share. Here is her article:
“Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
— Richard Branson
If you lead a team, department or organization, you’re involved in human resource management (HRM). We all have complaints about HRM done wrong, and the ubiquitous response that it would simply cost too much to improve is equally familiar.
Hey, you may have even felt trapped by this idea yourself! Your staff is turning over or reports low job satisfaction, but what can you do about it? Your organization isn’t rolling in money, and you’ve got to prioritize your clients. Sound familiar?
Five free strategies won’t fix all your problems (at least, not likely), but these innovative HRM strategies may go a long way towards improving your nonprofit employees’ satisfaction and retention without breaking your budget.
First of All…
I simply must warn you: Before going about fixing anything, I always recommend digging into the source of the pain/problem. So, you have high turnover. Why? Talk to your staff. Get their opinions on what could be better. Reach out to former employees, if possible. Even if they request changes you can’t make, you will be starting with more information. Information is power.
After you’ve done this, THEN consider strategies that fit the targets you’ve identified.
Task Swapping
“One person’s trash is another’s treasure.” Ever heard that? Task swapping is a neat little strategy that capitalizes on this idea. Every employee has parts of their responsibilities they love more than others, and not every person is the same. Some people find sorting data in a good excel sheet relaxing, others find it soul-killing. So, what if one employee’s “trash task” is another employees’ “treasure”? Enter, Task Swapping, through which employees are encouraged to identify and share their “trash tasks” with each other, seeking tasks their comrades despise that they might actually enjoy, and offloading some of their own “trash tasks” in return. Of course, staff will likely always be stuck doing something that they don’t love. But it doesn’t hurt to give improvement a try!
Action Step: Keep track of the “trash tasks” of each employee. Study their strength and enjoyment areas. If you can reassign tasks based on comparison between these lists, do. Further, consider asking employees to bring lists of their “trash tasks” to a meeting. Facilitate swapping as staff self-identify interest in any tasks. NOTE: if training would be required for a task swap to occur, consider approving it if the cost is not higher than the expected increase in satisfaction of the parties and if it does not jeopardize work quality.
Targets: job satisfaction, burnout, employee relationships, manager-employee relationship
Job Crafting
Job crafting actually happens in your organization whether you know it or not. It is the natural process of employees liking some duties more than others and paying more attention to the duties they like. A few examples (not always positive) of job crafting are:
- A manager choosing to spend 15 minutes a day touring the office just chatting with staff to meet her social needs and keep track of their attitudes
- A receptionist developing a faster system for information retrieval so he doesn’t need to spend as much time tediously searching for documents
- An insurance claims processor restructuring the way she thinks about her job as “helping people get back on their feet after disasters” instead of “pushing paper”
- A program manager neglecting keeping data on his programs because he dislikes data management, instead focusing more on innovating curriculum
If you recognize job crafting and promote the positive varieties of it to employees, you will see an increase of autonomy, intrinsic motivation, and probably the quality of work produced. Employees will like their jobs more, because they built them.
Action Step: Discuss job crafting along with task swapping in a staff meeting. Encourage employees to craft their jobs in positive, intentional ways to: automate unappreciated tasks, expand favorite responsibilities, add personal passion projects, etc.
Targets: job satisfaction, autonomy, intrinsic motivation, work quality, burnout
Professional Development
Professional development can entail paying for select staff members to attend big professional conferences out of state, but it doesn’t have to come with a price tag like that. A few strategies that can be completely free:
- Mentoring & Coaching. Your area may have free mentoring services available to special interest groups (like this one for women in Frederick Country, Maryland), some of your board members may be willing to mentor staff members, or you could offer cost-sharing if your employees want to engage paid professional mentors (not free). Mentoring and coaching give your employees opportunities to intentionally develop themselves personally and professionally.
- Board member skill-share sessions. Your board members probably know some things that would be of high professional and financial value to your staff. Perhaps you have a board member who knows the stock market, how to invest in real estate, or who can give tips on saving for children’s college tuition. Have them host an optional session at the end of the workday (on paid time) for the staff!
- Free seminars and events. Keep track of events and seminars in your organization’s areas of interest. Maybe a nearby university is hosting a speaker on trauma among refugees, or a local community organization is leading an interfaith dialogue event. Can you spare a few hours of your employees’ paid time to permit them to attend a few of these events? In the modern virtual world, this may not even take them away from their desk, but may significantly improve their motivation and satisfaction.
Action Step: Search for local mentoring programs. Ask board members if they would be interested in mentoring an individual staff member or have a skill to share. Pair interested staff with opportunities as available. Make staff aware of relevant events and seminars as they occur. Create a policy for paid professional development: how much is permitted per month?
Targets: job satisfaction, work quality, burnout, getting “un-stuck”, work-life balance, stress
Micro-breaks & Lunch Away from Desk
You may have heard of the Pomodoro Method, the importance of occasionally looking up from your computer screen to let your eyes relax on a distant object, or the value of moving during the workday. Research also heavily points to the importance of taking lunch away from the desk—it increases productivity and creativity, among other things. A free and rewarding way to improve your employees’ daily experience of work is the promotion of micro-breaks and lunches away from the desk. Micro-breaks are on the employees’ own schedule and may be anything from a brief coffee break to a 30-second stand-up-and-stretch to watching a funny video of a puppy. Lasting less than 10 minutes, micro-breaks serve to refresh and reset the brain, optimizing function. Lunch breaks away from the desk provide a change of scenery and accomplish similar goals.
Action Steps: Promote the value of micro-breaks and lunch away from the desk in one-on-one conversations with staff and in staff meetings. Lead micro-break ideation: does a staff member want to bring in a ball to dribble? A yoga mat for brief floor stretches? Maybe staff are willing to keep each other accountable to look up from their screens or stand up and stroll around the office every hour. How about simple exercises like arm circles or jumping jacks? Would someone like to host a 100-squats-a-day challenge?
Targets: health, productivity, stress, burnout, employee relationships
Praise
Your employees chose to work in a nonprofit organization. Why? There could have been many reasons, but one that nonprofit employees often cite is a desire to contribute to the greater good or to give back. Your organization is providing critical services to society. Public-facing staff may already know how much their work matters, but does your paper-pusher know their impact? When you hear from a client or stakeholder who is telling you that your organization is making the world (or their life) better, pass that on to the staff who made it happen!
In addition to praise from the public, set up rhythms of praise within your organization. Collect kudos from employees to each other. Tell your staff when they perform excellently. Give end-of-year awards (they don’t have to be anything fancy, maybe just a printed certificate and a bar of chocolate) and build positive feedback into regular meetings. Set up a culture of gratitude, and your staff will thank you!
Action Steps: Schedule time for kudos and praise into regular meetings. Collect praise from employees and clients and share with the staff who make the magic happen!
Targets: intrinsic motivation, job satisfaction, burnout
Try out these free strategies and add your own! This is not an exhaustive list. Be creative in helping your people thrive!