By Bryan Williamson and Carol Frank

Are you finding it difficult to keep your employees motivated?  Do you feel that your people’s morale has been reaching new lows?  If so, you’re not alone.  Among the many challenges of a tough economy, most managers find one of the hardest is keeping their employees motivated and spirits up.  While this can always be difficult, it is especially true with revenues down, tighter budgets and everyone having to do more with less.  Often managers are working with a smaller staff because minimizing costs has resulted in a reduction in force or not filling openings when people leave.  So it is even more important in these times to keep your employees recognized, motivated and engaged.

But there are many ways that managers can keep their people motivated that don’t involve simply handing out more cash.  Some require making a sizable investment of time and money and can be quite sophisticated.  Other methods are very economical, more fundamental and are still very effective, providing great value.  One thing that became very evident during my 20 years managing employees – they are all motivated by different things. Then there’s the fact that while some motivational practices can be very effective, there are many that can actually demotivate employees.

APPA’s November 15th  webinar “Creative Compensation” will present the top ways to positively motivate your employees with little or no money.  It will explain what the most important ingredient is in motivating your employees.  It will teach the key considerations in creating effective ways to motivate your employees.  It will go through the details of nine different methods to motivate your people and lift their spirits.  The webinar will also provide an opportunity for participants to ask questions of the presenter, Bryan Williamson, a seasoned compensation professional.

Carol Frank of Boulder, CO, is the founder of four companies in the pet industry and a Managing Director with BirdsEye Advisory Group, where she advises pet companies in M&A transactions and Exit Planning.  She is a former CPA, has an MBA, is a Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Advisory (CM&AA) and holds Series 79 and 63 licenses.  She highly values and incentivizes referrals and can be reached at cfrank@birdseyeadvisory.com.

Bryan Williamson is a compensation consultant with over twenty years of experience creating innovative all-employee compensation solutions.  He been a consultant for Mercer Human Resources Consulting, Towers Watson as well as several other firms.  He has worked on creative compensation solutions for Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Center for Disease Control, Compaq, Houston Independent School District, McNeil Labs, Salomon Brothers and USAA Federal Savings Bank, among others. Bryan can be reached at karpaideeum@gmail.com