Enhancing Employee Self-Esteem: Effective Listening

Listening is a way to acknowledge someone and increase the speaker's self-esteem. It’s the listener's way of saying "You are important and I am not judging you.”

10 Tips for Effective Listening:

1. Shut up! Okay, that’s a little harsh, but you can’t listen if you’re talking.
2. Eliminate distractions. Close the door, turn off the telephone, stop reading your e-mail and let the employee know they have your full attention.
3. Create a relaxed environment. Give the employee space, time and permission to say what’s on their mind. If you are relaxed, it well help them relax.
4. Listen actively. Make eye contact, nod, ask them to explain if you don’t understand. If you need to take notes for future reference, let the employee know up front, so they understand why you’re jotting and might take a moment to respond.
5. Listen empathetically. Try and see the situation from their point of view.
6. Listen patiently. Different people communicate at different speeds. Give the speakers plenty of time to express all they need to say.
7. Control your response. An employee might say something that upsets or angers you. You’ve given them permission to speak, let say what they need to say without the interference of an emotional response.
8. Don’t argue or criticize. You’re not always going to agree with everything that is said. However, this is not a competition that needs to be won.
9. Get clarification. Get more detail, amplification from the employee. Ask questions. Make sure you understand clearly.
10. Listen lots, talk little. This is the first tip all over again, but it needs to be stressed. You won’t use the other tips if you can’t get passed this one.

10 Irritating Listening Habits:

Do you ever find yourself falling into any of these habits?

1. Interrupting the speaker.
2. Not looking at the speaker.
3. Rushing the speaker and making him feel that he's wasting the listener's time.
4. Showing interest in something other than the conversation.
5. Getting ahead of the speaker and finishing her thoughts.
6. Not responding to the speaker's requests.
7. Saying, "Yes, but . . .," as if the listener has made up his mind.
8. Topping the speaker's story with "That reminds me. . ." or "That's nothing, let me tell you about. . ."
9. Forgetting what was talked about previously.
10. Asking too many questions about details.

from Larry Barker & Kittie Watson, Listen Up

10 Poor Listening Habits:

Effective listeners do their best to avoid these habits:

1. Calling the subject uninteresting
2. Criticizing the speaker &/or delivery
3. Getting over-stimulated
4. Listening only for facts (bottom line)
5. Not taking notes or outlining everything
6. Faking attention
7. Tolerating or creating distractions
8. Tuning out difficult material
9. Letting emotional words block the message
10. Wasting the time difference between speed of speech and speed of thought

from Nichols, R. G. and L. A. Stevens (1957). Are you listening?

Technorati Tags: Employee+Motivation, Self-esteem, Leadership, Management, Effective+Listening

Related posts:

• Ten Golden Rules of Time Management
• Six Tips for Enhancing Employee Self-Esteem
• Developing Positive Employee Self-Esteem
• Enhancing Employee Self-Esteem: Delegation Tips

Enhancing Employee Self-Esteem: Delegation Tips

As a manager/supervisor, you just can't do it all. To achieve effective results, you need to able to delegate projects and work to others.  By effective delegation, you communicate to your employees that you have confidence in their ability to complete a job or project. (Again, don’t dump your garbage on your employees.)

Here are some simple tips to help you delegate effectively:

1. Define and describe the task, not the process.
2. Give enough authority to accomplish the task.
3. Monitor the process, but allow people room to work.
4. Give feedback along the way.
5. Reward and recognise effort as well as results.

Through effective delegation, you can expand the range of what you can accomplish and develop the skills and strength of the team you manage.

 
Technorati Tags: Employee+Motivation, Self-esteem, Leadership, Management, Delegation

Related posts:

• Ten Golden Rules of Time Management
• Six Tips for Enhancing Employee Self-Esteem
• Developing Positive Employee Self-Esteem

Six Tips for enhancing employee self-esteem

1. Praise a specific task or job. Go beyond generalizations when acknowledging good performance. Point out the specific behaviour(s) that caught your attention. "I appreciated the extra time you put in getting the widget report for this morning's meeting." is better than, "You're doing good work."
2. Arrange for performance recognition from the boss. When an extra-mile job is completed by an employee make sure that the credit is communicated up the company structure and get your boss to provide some sort of recognition. A simple memo from the boss saying "thank you" can go a long way to building an employee's confidence.
3. Give special assignments. Let an employee see your confidence in them by asking them to undertake special projects. (This doesn't mean the crappy jobs you don't want.) For example, a change in legislation is going to affect your business. Get an employee to research the new law and prepare recommendations on implementing the changes.
4. Give teaching assignments. Recognize an employee's skill set by having them pass their knowledge on to new employees.
5. When giving task instructions take the time to explain why you want some done a certain way. "Because I said so," doesn't work for your teenagers and it's not going to work for employees.
6. When an employee is experiencing performance problems, be constructive and positive in your correction. Stress the behaviours you want to see while continuing to emphasize the those things already being done well.

While these tips are written in the singular, most of them apply when working with team performance. Technorati Tags: Employee+Motivation, Self-esteem, Leadership, Management Related Posts:

• Developing Positive Employee Self-Esteem

Developing Positive Employee Self-Esteem

I dislike the presumption that employers empowering employees. I believe this concept works the other way around, employees empower their employers. From small businesses to large, from private to public sector, organizations need employees to get the job done. "People are our most valuable asset/resource/etc." is not only corporate double-speak, it's a statement of the bleedin' obvious.

The skills with which employees complete their tasks, their attitude towards their job, and their behavior towards customers and co-workers all have impact on the quality of a business's bottom line. One of the most important functions in a manager's job is shaping those skills, attitudes and behaviours.

The most effective tool a manager can use for this shaping is developing positive self-esteem in an employee. Over the next little while, I am going to post some specific ways that managers can maintain and enhance an employee's self-esteem.

Technorati tags: leadership, management, motivation, self-esteem

Related posts:

• 5 Things Employees Need to Learn from You
• The Daily Five Minutes
  
• Great Managers Understand Their People

The 4 Most Overused Terms in HR!

Jason is weary of the following “4 Most Overused Terms in HR!”

• "Innovation"
• "Transformation"
• "End-to-end"
• "Flexible"

The Human Capitalist: The 4 Most Overused Terms in HR!

What about you? Do these phrases weary your ears or is this something else you don’t want to hear any more? I’ve never heard end-to-end used in the context mention, but I would find that one irritating after the first hearing. “Human Capital” is one of my peeves.

Technorati Tags: , Human+Capital+Management, Human+Resources, Jargon

Org Chart

Link from Michelle

Tags: Human+Resources, Humour, Organizational+Behaviour

Canada Career Week Fair is a one-stop shop for exploring career opportunities

Edmonton... Albertans looking for a first job, a career change or who want to explore education and training options will have access to a wealth of information at the Canada Career Week Fair. The fair takes place at the Northlands Sportex on November 18 and 19 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is expected to draw more than 7,000 job seekers and high school students.

Organized by Human Resources and Employment, Oteenow Employment and Training Society and Service Canada, the fair is part of a national initiative to address labour force development issues. This year's theme is "Seeking Change - Find Direction."

"The provincial government is committed to ensuring Albertans have the skills, supports and information they need to succeed in the labour market," said Minister of Human Resources and Employment, Mike Cardinal. "We are also working with industry and employers to build Alberta's workforce and find innovative solutions to labour force issues."

This year's fair will feature 145 exhibitors, including employers, industry organizations, post-secondary institutions and training providers. In addition to offering participants an opportunity to explore career choices, many employer exhibitors, such as the Edmonton Police Service, will be actively recruiting.

Presentations titled "Ask Me What It's Like to . . ." focus on specific careers and give participants an opportunity to hear from experts in various occupations. Feature displays include a mini carpentry competition among several high schools, rescue demonstrations by Edmonton Fire Rescue, NAIT's Mobile Trades Lab, and the Edmonton City Police will be displaying their Recruiting Humvee and Bomb Truck.

Admission to the Canada Career Week Fair is free.

Categories: Employment, Career, Recruiting

Management guru Peter Drucker dies

CBC News: Management guru Peter Drucker dies

Peter F. Drucker, the man who has been credited with pioneering management theory, died Friday (November 11, 2005). He was 95.

Categories: Management theory, Peter Drucker

Ban Grumpiness in the Workplace?

Maybe management needs to give the employees more to be happy about.

German Company Says Nein to Grumpiness

You vill be happy in the office — and you von't vhine anymore at vork!

After one female employee refused to smile all day at work, a German IT company banned grumpiness in an effort to promote a more congenial atmosphere, according to The Australian.

Categories: Motivation, Satisfaction

EI premiums cut 4 per cent

CBC News: EI premiums cut 4 per cent

Employment insurance premiums for Canadians and their employers are going down by about four per cent beginning in January.

The Employment Insurance Commission has set the 2006 EI premium rate at $1.87 per $100 of insurable earnings, down from the current $1.95.

Employers will see their premiums fall from $2.73 per $100 of insurable earnings to $2.62.

Categories: Compensation, Employment-Insurance, Payroll-Taxes

Cnet panel on ID theft and privacy

• Day 1: Can Business be trusted?
• Day 2: State vs. federal regulation
• Day 3: Who should be responsible?
• Day 4: Encryption and responsibility
• Day 5: Driver's licenses and next steps

link from The Canadian Privacy Law Blog