This post was last updated on October 5th, 2016 at 01:31 pm
Have you ever been in a job that you hate? You just don’t feel the love from management and your co-workers are two-faced back stabbers trying to climb the corporate ladder? Yes. Yes. And Yes. That’s why I left the grind and became an independent contractor. No one is indispensable, but if I was your employee producing great numbers, you now have to take the time to hire and train someone new, which in turn means lack of productivity and loss of money.
Kerri Pollard Keynote Speaker Affiliate Summit
“Ones ability to attract and keep talent is even more competitive than ever. It comes down to people. Once you are having the compensation conversation to retain people, it’s too late.”
Kerri Pollard
Kerri Pollard Keynote Speaker at ASW16
Kerri Pollard is the Former President and Current Advisor of CJ Affiliate by Conversant. She is also the Keynote Speaker at Affiliate Summit.
“I’ve made my share of mistakes!”
Kerri Pollard
Now Pollard is sharing what she’s learned from over sixteen years of industry experience. It doesn’t matter if you are an employer, employee, affiliate, advertiser or networker, etc the takeaway is universal.
We Need to Better Motivate, Engage and Inspire
Motivate:
Most managers believe in recognition, incentives, interpersonal support and clear goals says pollard. But, that is not necessarily what it truly takes to motivate employees.
Pollard says Progress matters and points to Harvard professor, Teresa Amiable’s study and book Progress Principal- Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement and creativity . If people have a bad day it’s usually because there is no progress. One negative statement or negative incident can ruin a good day.
Engage:
Only 31.5% of employees are engaged in their work according to a 2014 Gallop Poll. Less than a third of employees polled actually look forward to work, are excited about what they do or give 150%. Pollard says companies are spending millions of dollars to measure and boost employee engagement.
“An engaged employee is a happy employee!”
Kerri Pollard
Pollard points to Glassdoor employment surveys. “Never before have employees had so much power over telling the world what they think of their company – the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Increasing engagement is as easy as improving the relationship with executive management, improving the culture (relationship with co workers) and offering career growth or development opportunities. Compensation is important. Studies have shown that just throwing money at people to get engagement doesn’t work. Engagement doesn’t just apply to workers, but also management. You can’t just stand on the sideline you need to actively participate. An engaged employee is a productive employee.
Inspire:
“Inspired employees are the most productive. They are the real nirvana,”
Kerri Pollard.
It takes two times as many people to get the input of one inspired employee. Employees want meaning. They want to believe something bigger than themselves, that they are contributing. Most companies make the same mistake. They start from the outside in, instead of the inside out.
“Value loses all meaning when you let the good employee go and keep the asshole. The cost to teamwork is too high.”
Kerri Pollard
Pollard concluded her keynote with a reference to Derek Jeter. He always played for the same team because he loved the New York Yankees and couldn’t imagine playing for another team.
We may not be baseball, but we all need to work to better motivate, engage and inspire the people around us so we can grow our industry and grow our businesses for years to come.
Watch Kerri Pollard’s Keynote at Affiliate Summit West 2016
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