Motivate your employees with manager madness!

1. MISSISSIPPI SHRM
Motivating Your Employees
Sunday, May 12, 13

2. Motivation
What motivates your employees? While this may sound like a simple
question to answer it is, unfortunately, not so. Many businesses
allocate a portion of the yearly budget for nothing else but motivating
their employees. Many businesses, on the other hand, do not feel that
spending money to motivate an employee who is already being paid is
necessary. Regardless of which is right, wrong, or if there is even a
right/wrong factor in play, the bottom line is that we are all motivated
by something. It was recently stated by someone that “I work so that I
have the means to do the other things in life I want to do”. To some
degree this might hold a bit of truth for all of us.
Sunday, May 12, 13

3. Employees
sometimes feel
like they are
ghosts.
Do we even see them?
Sunday, May 12, 13

4. Productivity
Suffers
How much is lost due to watching the
clock ready to go home?
It’s only
8:15!
Sunday, May 12, 13

5. MANAGER MADNESS
Spend $50 and increase productivity!
Sunday, May 12, 13

6. Let us begin with a warning and get the
negative out of the way before we move on
to the positive. Should you decide to invest
not only company funds but your own time
and energy into a motivational endeavor it is
important to secure commitment from the
key players who will be participating. One of
the worst things that can happen when
attempting to motivate employees is to have
them say “oh, here they go again” because
they’ve seen the company start/stop/stop/
stop/start/start/start, etc. etc. etc. and they’ve
lost faith. Make them expect the unexpected.
Sunday, May 12, 13

7. This is what Manager Madness
Fridays is all about. Instead of having
a weekly “event” that is the same
thing each week done by the same
person(s), Manager Madness involves
all managers causing each week to be
owned by a different manager. In
doing so it creates manager
interaction, causes managers to work
together, and creates interactions
between employees and managers
who would not normally interact.
Sunday, May 12, 13

8. This is how it works:
Choose a project manager (usually one but no more than
two managers) who will be responsible for making sure
that something is done each week. Next, decide the
duration of the motivational campaign and how much
money you want to spend ($10/$20/$25/$50) – or decide if
you want to do it indefinitely and decide on what day of the
week you want to use and assign a different manager to
each week.
(You could have Manager Madness Mondays to start off the
week or randomly choose a different day of the week each
week to keep the employees on the watch.) Let the
manager choose from a list or create his/her own thing to
do for the week. (Caution here – make sure the project
leader reviews the game to ensure it is appropriate.) Then,
have fun!
Sunday, May 12, 13

9. Movie Night – Make it a movie night. Buy a gift certificate from
the local theatre and a local restaurant. Then, enter all
employees (minus managers) into a drawing. Draw a name – the
winner gets dinner and a movie.
Sunday, May 12, 13

10. Make sure the events work for your office setup.
If all of your employees work outside the office then you might
want to choose something done completely by email.
In the end, make sure that it is FUN for your employees.
Remember, you want to MOTIVATE!
A Few Suggestions:
Sunday, May 12, 13

11. BINGO – Buy bingo cards. Scan the cards (color if possible) so
that they can be used again. Print out the copies, cut them, and
paste them to a poster. Periodically throughout the day pull
numbers until someone gets BINGO. You can have two winners
($25/each) or five ($10/each.)
Sunday, May 12, 13

12. Mystery Manager – Collect facts about a manager but find some
facts that are the same for more than one manager. (Example: I
work with marketing could mean the Marketing Manager plus
his/her manager.) Send out the clues via email. (To make it
really fun create a mystery manager email address so that they
can’t tell who sent the email!) At the end of the day the person
who guesses correctly wins. Have a drawing if more than one
guessed correctly.
Sunday, May 12, 13

13. Where in the Office is (item)? – Choose an item in the office.
(Perhaps the CEO’s paperweight, perhaps a No Smoking Sign
from the reception area, perhaps……..you get the picture!) Take
the item to various places around the office and take pictures.
Then, send the pictures out via email periodically throughout the
day. Let employees guess the location and the winner is the
person who guesses the most correctly. As always, if more than
one winner, do a drawing.
Sunday, May 12, 13

14. Your Company History - Ask a series of questions about your
company. (Examples are: When was your company founded?
When did you move into your current location? What is the full
name of the owner of your company? How many people work for
your company?) Allow the employees to answer the questions
and then choose a winner from the person who answered the
most correctly. If a tie – as usual – do a drawing. This will serve
the purpose of having a motivational game but also serve to teach
employee’s information that they may/might not know/
remember about your company.
Sunday, May 12, 13

15. MOTIVATE
IN THE END
Sunday, May 12, 13

16. Acknowledgements:
Visit MSSHRM at http://
www.msshrm.org
Information taken from HRtoWHO by
Kyle Jones @ http://kylemjones.com.
Sunday, May 12, 13