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By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by Waewkidja on Freepik Many business leaders face the challenge of keeping their employees engaged and enthusiastic. One excellent method is to foster creativity among your employees. Doing so can lead to innovative ideas and solutions. Here are five strategies to spark creativity within your team: 1. Provide Autonomy and Ownership Give employees the freedom to take ownership of their projects and tasks. When individuals feel a sense of autonomy, they are more likely to explore unique and creative approaches to problem-solving. Allow them to make decisions, set goals, and experiment with strategies. 2. Encourage Open Communication Create an environment where open and non-judgmental communication is valued. Encourage employees to freely share their thoughts, ideas, and feedback without fear of criticism. Regular team meetings, brainstorming sessions, and idea-sharing platforms can facilitate open discussions and the exchange of creative insights. 3. Challenge Assumptions Encourage employees to question assumptions and look at problems from different angles. Create a culture where asking "why" and challenging the status quo is welcomed. Doing so can lead to breakthroughs and innovative solutions that might not otherwise happen. 4. Embrace Diverse Perspectives Foster a culture that values diversity in all its forms. When individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints collaborate, it can lead to the generation of innovative ideas. Encourage diverse teams and create an inclusive atmosphere where everyone's input is respected and appreciated. 5. Provide Time for Exploration Dedicate specific time for employees to engage in creative activities unrelated to their usual tasks, such as "innovation time," hackathons, or creative challenges. Allowing employees to explore hobbies, side projects, or areas of personal interest can stimulate their creativity and lead to unexpected breakthroughs. 6. Encourage Breaks and Downtime Recognize the importance of breaks and downtime in the creative process. Encourage employees to step away from their workstations, go for walks, or engage in activities that help them relax and recharge. Creative ideas often emerge when the mind has space to wander. 7. Recognize and Reward Creativity Acknowledge and reward creative efforts and outcomes. Appreciation can occur through formal recognition programs, incentives, or simply acknowledging and celebrating employees' creative contributions in team meetings. Remember that fostering creativity requires a supportive and encouraging environment. By implementing these strategies, you can help your employees tap into their creative potential, leading to innovative ideas that benefit both the individual and the organization. An added bonus is that your employees will love it! # # # Speaking of innovation, what has worked in your company for sparking creativity? What has been your track record in this area? I'd love to hear what's worked for you! And if you're currently experiencing challenges in this area, I'd love to brainstorm ideas about how you could improve your innovation efforts. Click the button below to schedule a chat!
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By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO and Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by cookie_studio on Freepik Many business leaders are scratching their heads, wondering how to prevent the Great Reshuffle from negatively impacting their organizations. One way to help counteract the exodus of talent is through recognizing and rewarding employees for their service. Here are 10 creative ways to give kudos to your employees: 1. Share Employee Content on Your Blog If you have employees that like to write (and that's not their main role), share their content on your company's blog. 2. Recognize Outside-of-Work Success Share your employees' successes outside of work on social media channels, your internal website, or your company's website. 3. Showcase the Monetary or Volunteer Impact of Employee Efforts If an employee's efforts on a project contributed positively to the bottom line, highlight that in some manner to your employee base. You can also draw attention to employees who support charitable contributions through either donations or volunteer time. 4. Provide Stipends for Long-Distance Commuters Employees living far away or who often experience heavy traffic during their commutes could receive stipends to help pay for gas. 5. Use Gamification Apps to Fuel Productivity and Motivation Gamification gives employees an entertaining way to meet company requirements, such as training. What might often be a tedious process could be transformed into something fun. Check out what Edgagement, Hoopla, and Gametize apps have to offer along these lines. 6. Share Kudos from Customers Create an Employee Wall of Fame to highlight customer feedback directed at particular employees or teams. 7. Share Employee Kudos At the start of your meetings, recognize employees for the small, daily wins. These are often overlooked, but these shout-outs can go a long way towards increasing employee morale. 8. Surprise Employees with Snacks or Meals Bring in or order food during busy workdays. It lets your employees know you appreciate their hard work. 9. Provide Sabbaticals for Long-Timers For employees who have been with the company for five, seven, or 10 years (for example), consider providing them with sabbaticals. That way, they can take quality time off work to pursue their passion and return to work refreshed and ready to re-engage with your company. 10. Use the Power of a Post-It Note I left this for last because it's something you can start doing today! Who doesn't like a personal touch to show appreciation? A simple post-it note with a meaningful message that you place on an employee's desk is a simple act that can go a long way to show appreciation. These are just a few things you can do to recognize and reward your employees. Doing so can help keep employees happy and can also help build a foundation of increased loyalty to your company. And what business leader wouldn't want that? # # # If you or anyone you know are stuck in the middle of a project and don't know how to get it moving forward... OR you want to start projects but don't have the internal bandwidth to undertake them, I'd love to have a chat! I have over 30 years of project management expertise, so I can help accelerate these projects over the finish line. Interested in learning more? Click the button below to schedule a time! By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by Freepik Many business leaders these days are searching for ways to stop good employees from leaving their organizations. With the Great Resignation in full swing, how do these leaders retain their best talent? Here are seven tips to help stop the bleed and, at the same time, improve your employees’ work lives. Employees are more likely to stay when they are: 1. Valued & Appreciated Every employee likes to know if they are doing a good job and making a difference in the company. Regularly showing them appreciation is a great start. And, if you can understand the best way to go about that, that's even better. Gary Chapman and Dr. Paul White present a great approach in their book 5 Languages of Appreciation in Business: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People. 2. Challenged Many employees leave their positions because they don’t feel challenged. Schedule a 1:1 with them precisely to determine if they feel challenged or not. If they’d like more challenging assignments, start the ball rolling to do just that. 3. Trusted It goes without saying that no one likes to be micro-managed. When you give your employees assignments, let them know you trust they’ll do a good job. And if you let them know you’re available for questions, that gives you the ability to have a hands-off approach, which shows you trust them. 4. Empowered Give your employees the full scope of what they need to do their jobs, including the authority they’ll need to see their assigned tasks through to the end. Doing so can prevent them from unnecessarily going back to you with questions when they could have handled the job independently. 5. Involved Ensure that you involve your employees in matters that concern them when it makes sense. It doesn't do you or your employees any good to make decisions about them when consulting them would have been a good idea. This approach also applies to communicating important company and department info. 6. Mentored Most employees want to grow and develop their abilities, and many leave their positions because they lack mentoring opportunities. Invest in your employees to help them become more effective in their roles and have the potential to move into leadership positions. Doing so most likely will save the company money in the long run if they don’t have to hire from the outside to fill vacated positions. 7. Promoted and Paid Well This tip is a no-brainer. Provide opportunities for advancement and compensate your employees well, or they may walk out the door when a better option comes along. In the end, investing in your current employees will most likely help increase their satisfaction. Doing so could reduce employee churn and perhaps positively impact the bottom line. And who doesn’t want that? # # # Speaking of churn, are your customers satisfied with your products and services, so they aren't leaving for greener fields? If you’d like a quick way to find out, download my FREE Customer Satisfaction Checklist. You’ll discover an answer in just a couple of minutes. Click the button below to download your freebie! By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by Kampus Productions on Pexels Consultants over the years have earned a bad rap. One thing I've heard frequently is this: Consultants are too expensive, and their engagements don't often empower businesses with self-sufficiency when they leave the engagement. No wonder businesses hesitate to hire consultants! Consultants love a steady stream of income. But that's not a good thing when they do this at the expense of businesses by keeping their fingers in the proverbial pie. I’m illustrating this point because it details a need most customers and clients crave--empowerment to solve their issues and chart their journeys. They don't want to keep hiring consultants to solve their challenges. Ultimately, if consultants or any business can build self-sufficiency as a part of their products and services, they'll deliver incredible customer value! Here are two examples of how I do this with my clients. The first one involved developing a Scrum process for a local manufacturer. The second engagement involved creating a Voice of the Customer process for another local manufacturer. In both instances, I ensured they had all the necessary tools, procedures, and an action item list that contained all outstanding items requiring attention upon my exit. Both projects were a resounding success, and neither client needed to call me back to help solve any challenges related to their particular projects. One CEO said he would hire me again because I empowered them to chart their destinies, which differentiated me from other consultants with whom he had previously worked. I'm giving you these examples because two principles apply, even if you're not a consulting company. Here are two things you can do to build self-sufficiency with your customers: Ensure Everything They Need to be Successful-- During Their Buyer Journey Your buyer journey should be a seamless experience for your customers or clients. Anything you can do to make the process a pleasant experience for them is certainly beneficial. Automated tools ensure customer interactions happen when needed, and the right system can deliver information at the right time to the right people. After the Engagement is Over Ensure your how-to guides or any other information they need to succeed are thorough and easy to understand. If that doesn't happen, your customer service agents could receive too many calls, and your customers might get frustrated. Ultimately, the idea is to empower your customers or clients throughout the process. When businesses can do this, they'll deliver incredible value to their customers or clients! And who doesn't want that? # # # Speaking of empowering your customers, workflow automation tools excel at that. Their use enables employees to engage in higher-level functions by removing mundane tasks so that these tasks no longer consume countless hours of their valuable time. In our best-selling book, No-Nonsense Digital Transformation, Michael Cantu and I discuss this concept extensively. It provides a step-by-step roadmap on how to prepare for and implement digital transformation initiatives in your business. If you’re interested in learning more, click the button below! By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by Roy Harryman As a business leader, have you encountered situations where you weren’t sure how to encourage a good employee after a major failure to get them back on track? If so, I’d love to share with you some tips inspired by the Kansas City Chiefs' recent victory in the AFC Championship game. Their third trip to the Super Bowl in four years would not be possible without a handful of players who struggled for much of the season by turning it around in this game. 1. Don’t Give Up on Your Employees Rookie Skyy Moore started off the season returning kicks with little success. They pulled him from return duty yet kept working with him behind the scenes to improve. With multiple punt returners unavailable due to injuries, the coaches brought Skyy into a tie game to return a punt with less than a minute to go. Not only did he catch the ball, he ran it back for a big gain to put the Chiefs in great field position for the eventual game-winning field goal. Tip #1: After big failures, let your employees know you still believe in them. Give them guidance, or training if needed, in areas of weakness that can help prevent them from making similar mistakes again. 2. Continue to Cast a Vision for Their Future Kansas City's defense is loaded with rookies this season. KC’s coaches threw them into the fire, telling them they were going to be a big part of the team. Not surprisingly, these rookies made plenty of mistakes that resulted in numerous penalties and opponent touchdowns. But the coaches kept them in the fire, trusting they would eventually succeed. In the biggest game of the season, they did turn things around and came up with HUGE plays that directly contributed to the Chiefs winning the game. Tip #2: Continue to cast a vision of where you see your employees going despite any mistakes they make. And after big miscues, let them know you still want to help them on the growth journey you’ve started together. 3. Express Confidence in Their Ability to Succeed Harrison Butker is one of best kickers in the game; however, he’s had his worst season to date. Due to a sprained ankle, he missed three games, and when he returned, he missed a lot of field goals and extra points. With the game tied and a few seconds left on the clock, the Chiefs confidently sent Butker into the game to kick the game-winning field goal, and the rest is history. Tip #3: Let your employees know that any past failures they’ve had are in the past and that you have complete confidence in their ability to succeed. Speaking of overcoming failure, how many of you have had projects go south because of poor project management? That’s where I love to help! I excel in quickly organizing projects and rallying your teams to accomplish them in quick order with tremendous success. If you’re interested in learning more, I’d love to schedule a chat with you! Click the button below to get started. By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by drobotdean on Freepik With the Great Resignation in full swing, many business leaders are scrambling to find ways to help prevent their good employees from jumping ship. One way to help counteract the exodus of talent from organizations is through recognizing and rewarding employees for their service. Here are 10 creative ways to give kudos to your employees: 1. Share Employee Content on Your Blog If you have employees that like to write (and that's not their main role), share their content on your company's blog. 2. Recognize Outside-of-Work Success Share your employees' successes outside of work on social media channels, your internal website, or your company's website. 3. Showcase the Monetary or Volunteer Impact of Employee Efforts If an employee's efforts on a project contributed positively to the bottom line, highlight that in some manner to your employee base. You can also draw attention to employees who support charitable contributions through either donations or volunteer time. 4. Provide Stipends for Long-Distance Commuters Employees living far away or who often experience heavy traffic during their commutes could receive stipends to help pay for gas. 5. Use Gamification Apps to Fuel Productivity and Motivation Gamification gives employees an entertaining way to meet company requirements, such as training. What might often be a tedious process could be transformed into something fun. Check out what Edgagement, Hoopla, and Gametize apps have to offer along these lines. 6. Share Kudos from Customers Create an Employee Wall of Fame to highlight customer feedback directed at particular employees or teams. 7. Share Employee Kudos At the start of your meetings, recognize employees for the small, daily wins. These are often overlooked, but these shout-outs can go a long way towards increasing employee morale. 8. Surprise Employees with Snacks or Meals Bring in or order food during busy workdays. It lets your employees know you appreciate their hard work. 9. Provide Sabbaticals for Long-Timers For employees who have been with the company for five, seven, or 10 years (for example), consider providing them with sabbaticals. That way, they can take quality time off work to pursue their passion and return to work refreshed and ready to re-engage with your company. 10. Use the Power of a Post-It Note I left this for last because it's something you can start doing today! Who doesn't like a personal touch to show appreciation? A simple post-it note with a meaningful message that you place on an employee's desk is a simple act that can go a long way to show appreciation. These are just a few things you can do to recognize and reward your employees. Doing so can help keep employees happy and can also help build a foundation of increased loyalty to your company. And what business leader wouldn't want that? # # # I have an announcement! I am now providing a new service to prospective and current clients. I'm still determining my messaging, so here's the bare-bones description: If you or anyone you know are stuck in the middle of a project and don't know how to get it moving forward... Or, you want to start projects, but don't have the internal bandwidth to undertake them, talk with me! I have over 30 years of project management expertise, so I can help accelerate projects over the finish line. Interested in learning more? Click the button below to schedule a chat! |
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