It’s an employer’s market. With global economies softening unemployment is on the rise. However good people are always valuable to any company. And lean teams leave no room for fat. All team members need to be motivated and productive.
Is there a secret to motivating employees and keeping them?
The Gallup Organization thinks so. After extensive studies, they conclude that:
“the single most important variable in employee productivity and loyalty turns out….to be the quality of the relationship between employees and their direct supervisors”
(FAST COMPANY, November 2000, 400)
The Gallup Organization has also come up with a tool to measure the quality of the employee-direct supervisor relationship. It is a series of twelve questions they call the Q12. The twelve questions are:
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
The questions make sense.
They sound like another fleshing out of Jesus’ axiom:
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you…” Matthew 7:12 NRSV
In a day when we are drunk on technological advance, it is a reminder that life still hinges on how we relate to each other.
The trouble is, it is easier to master new technology than it is to master the art of human relationships.
Christian bosses would do well to take the Q12 seriously.
Indeed church boards and parachurch boards should also take the Q12 seriously.
Often secular companies treat their workers better than groups that function under the banner of Christ.
Come to think of it, all ministry leaders should take the Q12 seriously as well.
Church ministries are populated by lay workers and rightly so.
However many ministries in our churches and parachurches run on auto pilot.
Hard working “volunteers” burn out and become disillusioned because they receive no encouragement.
Therefore it makes sense for Sunday School Directors, Cell Group Ministry Directors etc. to adapt the Q12 to their context and use it as a key tool for helping to nurture their troops.
Both church and marketplace claim that people are their most important resource.
Here is a tool to help everyone put their money where their mouth is.