Motivation & Management

Leadership is pretty self explanatory and a very important role. Either you are the leader or the leaded. Obviously the leader role is necessary for a business to run and be successful. There are many different leadership styles. You can have a great advisor to lead, or a real jerk that could destroy a company.

Part of a leaders role is to motivate the employees. A business would suffer if you had employees with no drive or morale. Why would they want to go to work if they hate it? It is proven that a good attitude and good working environment will promote motivated employees.

How do you motivate employees? Well, there are many different ways but I think the most desired is money. That is not a common motivational tools these days so if you get that you are one of the lucky few. It could be in the form of a bonus for meeting specific goals. Even a gift card would motivate most employees. It makes them feel like their hard work is being acknowledge.

Other ways to motivate employees may be through a speech or rally. My wife and I were walking through WalMart a few weeks ago. We were walking by the jewelry department and noticed about 25 employees standing around in a circle. A manager was standing in the middle giving a loud motivational speech. The employees would cheer back and clap their hands in rhythm. We thought it was a little strange but interesting. I googled it when I got home and found out it is called the "Morning Cheer" or as Sam Walton originally called it the "Walmart Cheer". I really don't know how well it works but they seemed to be into it.

I do think it is detrimental for a company to explore all types of ways to motivate their employees. Employee moral and positive attitudes are key to a successful business.

Standardized Position Descriptions

Position Description, is also known as a job description, has its good and bad. The good parts of it are for the manager or your boss. The bad can be more your problem as an employee.

Management can use this to let the employee know what his/her duties are, guidelines for hiring new employees, training, and evaluating employees. All of these good if you are the manager. What if your not? How may a Standardized Position Description effect you?

The problem that I have seen with a S.P.D. (Standardized Position Description) is that it is not fair to the employee. It can be used against you if they want to fire you. Management can say that you where not working under your scope of your duty. Another problem that I have with this is that you can have the same job title, which gives you the same job description, and not have the same work load. Let me give you an example. One employee could be working in a factory assembling 5 cars a day and another employee can be working in a different factory ,with he same job description, having to put out 100 cars a day. How is this fair. Its not. Employees need to be careful and think about it if they have a S.P.D.

Price discrimination

That's right I said discrimination. I always wondered if there was such a thing as price discrimination. Could a retailer sell something for different prices in different areas. Think about it Could Walmart sell something in Southlake for more and then sell that same item in small low income town for less? I would think not. Although this is possible it is not likely to see this in most retail stores.

It is called First degree price discrimination and it happens all the time. This is when the price of something changes with the willingness of what someone will pay. Take eBay or craigs list. You put something out there to sell and whoever is willing to pay the most gets it. Should we try this in our local retail stores? Can you imagine haggling over a box of Cheerios! This would maximize retailers profits. Charge customers what they are willing to pay. This is when you would want to be somewhere in the North Texas area like Southlake, Keller, or Colleyville.

Pricing Strategies

There are many strategies in pricing. One that comes to mind is during the holidays. They call it Black Friday. Do you know why it is called Black Friday? It is the only day that retailers hope to make enough profit to be in the black, not in the red. Some years are better then others.

My wife with many of other people think that this is the best day ever. It is interesting that so many people know about this one of a kind shopping day. The retailers bombards us with adds and commercials leading up to the special day. They are using one of the advantages of pricing strategies by exciting the consumer with sale prices.

Retailers pricing strategies are clear for this one day sale. They put out adds that may have a lap top in it for a incredibly low price. People will line up outside and around the corner of a store hours before they even open. All this to get that laptop. Hope they read the small print that states " 2 per store." Retailers know that this will get them in and even know they might not get the laptop that was on sale, they will probably settle for something else. We are always looking for seemingly good deals.