Page 75 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

To Boost Morale, Alter the Environment 55

Building an Upgradeable Staff
Jeff Jobe offers some advice for redesigning people’s jobs,
while helping everyone become upgradeable in their posi-
tions.
• Practice the 3 C’s: creative commitment to customer service.
• Communicate with everyone directly.
• Provide extensive employee training and development.
• Set up discussion groups where employees can ask questions and
make recommendations to management.
• Ask “What if?” questions.
• Ask,“In order to do this, we must (have employees fill in the blank)
do what?”
• Create ongoing opportunities for people to improve themselves.

three main areas—69 hours of “Personal Concierge” training,
keeping employees well-informed of all changes that are about

to take place, and inviting each employee to be a part of
designing the way new roles will play out at the hotel in real sit-
uations. Employees at the Heathman have a significant say in
hotel operations, ranging from compensation matters to build-

ing better internal customer service relationships.

Tips and Techniques for Redesigning Jobs

Variety Is the spice of life—mix it up. Whenever possible, keep
jobs multi-task and multi-talent driven. Workers want to do an
assortment of things when they’re at work. Typically, the more
skills required to do a job, the more satisfied the worker, hence
higher employee morale and motivation.

The kicker is finding the right combination of talents that an
employee enjoys doing and then matching those talents to the
needs of the job. This can sometimes be tougher for people who
are performing specialized kinds of jobs. That’s when you’ll have

to put on your thinking cap and come up with new ways to
make those jobs more varied as well. Better yet, why don’t you
ask your employees to suggest a desired mix of skills and activi-
ties that may make doing a very specialized job more interest-
ing? For example: A health care worker may start providing
more aspects of patient care and as a result have fewer patients