Maintaining Employee Performance

Nobody wants to work for a boss that only makes demands and rewards the employees with nothing more than a paycheck.  On the other hand, if a boss is too lax with the employees and is seen as more of a friend than a superior; then there is a good chance the employees will take advantage of this.  I feel there is a common ground that can be utilized to ensure that your employees continuously perform well and hopefully enjoy working for you. 

I’ve found that using 3 R’s when dealing with employees has given me a great balance between performance and employee morale.  The R’s I am talking about are Reinforcement, Recognition, and Reward. 

Reinforcement has two parts to it in my opinion.  I feel that continuously setting ambitious goals and making it aware to your employees that you expect them to achieve these goals is crucial.  This is what psychologists refer to as the self-fulfilling prophecy.  In essence, people will perform how you expect them to.  If you go into a situation and have a preconceived notion that someone will fail, there is a high probability that they will.  This could be due to you not giving that person everything they need to be successful and in a way you almost sabotage them from the beginning because you expect them to fail.  To avoid this, always have faith in your employees because you trusted your judgment when hiring them.  The second part of reinforcement almost coincides with my next R; Recognition.  I feel that constantly giving positive reinforcement around the workplace helps employees perform well.  It could be as simple as agreeing that you like a marketing idea an employee presents you or as basic as saying “keep up the good work”. 

Recognition is also very important to employees.  Nobody wants to feel like they are being taken for granted or unappreciated.  Many times when I have written articles I have mentioned my employees by name and thanked them for all the work they have done.  For everyone else out there, ways you could recognize your employees could be as simple as telling them thank you every time you see them.  If your employees are amazing and you want to show your gratitude you could take an ad out in a newspaper, post a status on facebook or twitter, or put up a gigantic poster in your workplace that describes how much your employees mean to you.  I also feel that if an employee is doing a stellar job it is important to recognize this in front of every other employee as a motivation tool.  If everyone can see how employees who do excellent work are treated, then they are more likely to strive to be an excellent employee as well.

The last of my 3 R’s is Reward.  When employees are going above and beyond to make your life better, it is important to show your gratitude and appreciation by rewarding them.  Recently one of my employees told me she was taking her boyfriend out to a restaurant for his birthday.  I called up the restaurant and picked up their tab of $134.  On occasion when I visit my properties I have been known to give my managers a 2 hour break and $40 which they have to spend.  During the holidays I give my employees gift cards to restaurants.  There are many ways you can reward exceptional employees.  My employees have made my life better than I ever imagined so I truly feel a reward in giving back to them. 

These are just a few ideas that can help you maintain positive cycle of performance and reward.  We need our employees to make money and our employees need us to make money.  However, by always having a positive energy in the workplace, I feel that optimal performance will be achieved.  So after reading this I hope you take time to evaluate how you treat your employees and hopefully you can find the perfect balance between performance and reward.  Thanks for taking time out of your day to read my thoughts.  Good luck to you in all your endeavors. 

-Casey Cavell

Time Management

The world’s most precious resource is not oil, gold, or the almighty dollar; it is time.  Since it is a finite resource and no one knows how much time they are guaranteed, it is important to maximize efficiency in all of your business ventures.

Most people don’t realize how much time they waste throughout the day.  Let’s say that you watch on average 1 hour of television per evening.  Multiply that by 365 and that’s 365 hours worth of watching TV.  If you divide 365 by 24 (number of hours in a day), you arrive at 15.2.  That’s right, by just watching 1 hour of TV per day, a person spends 15.2 days of their year being unproductive.  That’s a long vacation by most standards.  Can you imagine all of the progress you could make towards realizing your financial dreams with 15.2 extra days to work on them?  Now I know that it is important to have a little time to relax so that you don’t become burnt out.  This was just one task though.  Imagine all of the other ways that we waste time throughout our day.  Looking at people’s statuses and pictures on facebook, taking long lunches, zoning out and listening to music; virtually anything that you do that isn’t helping you directly or indirectly achieve your dreams is wasteful. 
  
I recently challenged myself to work on maximizing my time in order to become a better employer, real estate investor, colleague, and mentor.  I decided I would devote 60% of my work day to work on goals I have set for that month.  30% of my work day would be spent on creating new goals and challenges for me for the next week or month.  10% of my work day would be spent identifying my weaknesses and developing solutions for them.  This 60-30-10 ratio can be applied to any goal you set.  For instance, if you have recently purchased a self storage property and your goal is to increase occupancy from 65% to 80% within one month, you can use the 60-30-10 ratio for your work day.  60% of your work day would be spent on marketing your property, sending referral bonus emails to current customers, and making improvements to your property.  30% of your day would be spent planning future goals such as; how to get from 80% to 85%.  30% of your day would be spent figuring out how to sustain your occupancy rates once you achieve your 80% goal.  Finally, 10% of your day would be spent on introspection and indentifying why you are having problems meeting your 80% occupancy goal.  If you spend 100% of your day working on a goal, setting higher future goals, and identifying any problems you might have in obtaining a goal; you will always be working towards a goal and you will achieve them. 
  

So to get you started, I challenge you to spend tomorrow working on a single goal.  Identify a goal that you have that can be accomplished in one day.  Spend 60% of your work day on obtaining that goal.  Spend 30% of your day planning future goals.  Finally, spend 10% of your time thinking about what is wrong with your plan and how to fix it.  Of course these duties don’t have to be done in this order.  Develop a plan for your day and budget your time accordingly.  After spending a day doing this, you will find that when you apply it to other tasks too, you are consistently achieving your goals.  Good Luck to you.