Lighten the mood. The first thing you need to do is lower stress in the environment. It’s a major demotivator for anybody. Motivation comes from being in a positive environment as opposed to being in a negative environment.
You can tell when people are stressed. It makes people short-tempered and irritable. They tend to snap at people.
So we have things like stress busters where we’ll have birthdays for people with cakes. We have various contests that we do, like all you can eat within a certain period of time. We give out BDPB Bucks, which people earn by working more or doing certain types of projects. They can spend that; we’ll auction silly stuff off. It’s trying to reduce stress and make it an easy environment to work in.
During the busier times, we do a lot more of that type of thing. Over time, you gain experience to understand what the balance is. A couple years ago, it seemed as though we were having auctions every 15 minutes. We had all these interruptions going on and it was clearly too much. There’s a point at which you know it’s really counterproductive. What happens is if the amount of this type of activity is excessive, a lot of your best performers won’t show up. They’ll vote with their feet.
Keep workloads in check. We really urge people to help one another as opposed to trying to hold on to the things they have to do in order to justify their work. In times like this, people want to make sure that they appear to be busier and valuable. They don’t want anybody thinking that they’re not working because if they’re not working, then they’re not needed. We’re encouraging people to not hoard work and to make sure that they delegate work to the appropriate levels.
So it’s communicated firmwide in our overall message on a regular basis. And as we give people work, we’re trying to be clear as to who gets that work and [make sure] that they understand why they’re getting the work.
If they don’t have enough [to do], you tend to see too much time being put into work that shouldn’t take that long. Alternatively, if they are overburdened, they become very harried.
You have to send the message that that’s what you want people to do. The message really is that there’s different levels of complexity of work that we do, and we want the right person at the right level doing that work. It’s better for the people because they do what is a challenge to them and they’re more interested in it. It’s better for the client because less complicated work gets billed out at a lower rate. The best way to do it is to appeal to people’s reason and their common sense, which is: If it’s not challenging and if it’s work that is routine to you, then you need to delegate it down and train others.
How to reach: Berkowitz Dick Pollack & Brant Certified Public Accountants & Consultants LLP, (305) 379-7000 or www.bdpb.com