HR Best Practice Part 2: Two Secret Sauce to Motivation

Authored By Limesh Parekh, Founder at Enjay IT Solutions

"Let's face it, Motivation doesn't work"

It might sound like a Chicken and Egg story. But in fact, it's not. Let's face it, Motivation doesn't work. But then how do we start this spiral effect? Before I reveal the secret, let us first discuss the Motivation part in little more detail.

Problems with Motivation

1. Arranging (or giving) motivation lectures to employees do not have an effect if it is not delivering success and job satisfaction to Team members.
2. Your employees don't do what you tell them to do, they do what you do. So if you are preaching something that you are not practising - don't expect your employees to do it.
3. As Simon Sinek says there is a golden circle concept of Why, What and How. You first need to explain Why properly - very clearly, precisely and completely. If people buy your WHY, then you need to explain to them What and how. Most of the times, leader don't have a clear sense of WHY, even for themselves.

How to make your employees Successful (so that they are motivated).

Let me reveal the secret sauce of motivated and successful employees. I have seen companies, even today, don't have proper access to the internet and expect their employees to work in the substandard environment. I am not talking about Google like Freebies, but the basic tools which will make their lives easier and enable them to become successful.

1. Provide proper tools to them. Yes, this might sound trivial, but it is vitally important. These tools should act like force multipliers and enablers, help them be successful. Most of the companies don't provide proper Sales tools to a SalesPerson. Even the basic technology tools are not provided. How do you expect your employees to be successful in absence of best Industry standard tools?
2. Provide them Training, regular Training. Most of the times Leaders assume that their employees know everything and that the employees have an attitude problem. A little deeper dive suggests that it is not the case. There is a lack of training, people are not trained enough. Not only technical training but also things like Customer experience, values, how to treat the customer, how to or close the deal etc.

"Tools should act as enablers and force multipliers for your employees."

Million Dollar Question. How much should you spend on Tools and Training?

Tools and Training will not come for free, you have to put resources to it. So, ideally how much should you spend on it?

First, let us do the reverse calculation. If the proper Tool and Training can increase the productivity and value to the company by say 30% - can you spend 5% of employees salary?

Ideally, we should spend around 15% of employees Salary on various tools and Training to the employees. This should generally result in more than 50% increase in productivity and value to the company.

eg: hire a person for 40K provide him proper tools and training worth 6K every month and get a value what you would have got from a 60K person.

Important Tip: Don't forget to spend on the Leaders first, Because if they don't use the tools and Train themselves properly, the entire purpose is defeated.

Benefits of Best Tools and Regular Training

1. Increased productivity: With proper tools and training, you have a winning team which can outperform most of your competitors.
2. Happy Customers: When your team is properly equipped with great Tools and proper training, they are more enabled to provide the best service to your customers. The result is more customers and more profits per customers.
3. Increased motivation: Well equipped and well trained (educated) employees become more successful, they get more respect from Customers, More appreciations from their team leaders and managers. This results in higher motivation.
4. People stay longer: When People are successful and motivated, they enjoy their work. They have a sense of purpose, fulfilment and belonging. Thus they stay longer.
5. No Poaching Possibilities: Your competitors will not easily poach your employees because generally, they might not have those tools and those training. Your employees will not be comfortable working without that.

Some Tools that we use @ Enjay

1. Best internet connections in Town. Best possible and affordable PCs and Laptops. We had leased line 14 years back when we were only 8 people team.
2. A proper CRM tool for Sales, Service and Marketing purpose. Best CRM for Indian environment - EnjayCRM, was originally developed for Enjay. Even Today, Enjay is the heaviest user of CRM.
3. A Mobile and Mobile App for everybody on the field.
4. For Marketing Staff: Best tools for SEO, LinkedIn paid subscriptions, LinkedIn sales navigator tools, Best Email Automation (and Marketing) tools - Mailchimp, Lead Generation tools like GetSiteControl.
5. Development & Support: We use best technology and tools so that our Support Team can help our customers in the best possible way.
6. We use Google Apps as Emailing Tool.
7. Six high-end Mobile devices for WhatsApp Support to our customers (and even for marketing purpose).
8. Call handling tools - like Telephony integration with CRM, helps us to avoid all the donkey work and focus more on productivity.

Some Regular Training @ Enjay

1. Technical Training for all the tools that we use.
2. FABing Training (Feature, Advantage & Benefits) for all our Sales and Marketing staff - so that we all understand our products very well and also understand why our customers buy our products (from us).
3. Sales Qualification and pitching techniques - this is very regular training.
4. Email etiquette - this is must for all Enjay employees.
5. How to create a winning and employable profile on LinkedIn - this might sound contrary and dangerous - but it has been very very effective and useful.
6. Detailed training on LinkedIn as a lead generation tool.
7. Regularly reiterating purpose of Enjay and every department - gives sense of purpose to every Job profile @ Enjay.