Top Workplaces: Finding the recipe for a motivated workforce

Editor's Note: This article features perspectives from the three winners of this year's Top Workplaces "Leadership" awards: Jay Rothman of Foley & Lardner LLP, Phyllis Brostoff of Stowell Associates and Rob Henke of Rent-A-Daughter LLC.

TOP WORKPLACES 2017: Special section | Full list of winners

Phyllis Brostoff

When it comes to motivating and engaging with employees, Phyllis Brostoff starts by treating them like clients.

A trained social worker, Brostoff founded in-home health care service Stowell Associates along with chief operating officer Valerie Stefanich more than 30 years ago.

Stowell started small but has grown to the point where it now has more than 170 caregivers plus an office staff of more than 20.

In recent years, the company has been measuring its engagement scores and has even set up a task force of employees to help it keep refining the ways it’s engaging with workers, said Tony Kiesler, human resources director.

Sometimes, encouraging an employee is as simple and direct as boosting pay. Having a hard time finding part-time caregivers, Stowell created a bonus program to encourage the caregivers it already had on staff to work more hours, said Kari Klatt, executive director.

“We wanted to motivate the people who work for us to work more hours because they were a known entity,” said Klatt. “That has really helped us a lot in this tight market for finding qualified caregivers.”

Regular communication and activities involving fun and food are part of the recipe for an engaged workforce, company leaders say.

But there’s another dimension for Brostoff, and that’s continuing to work in the field with her own longtime clients.

Both Brostoff and Klatt go into the field regularly, with Brostoff still visiting a client she began seeing in 1985.

And her time in the field helped Brostoff come up with recommendations to revise the checklist the company uses for helping clients assess the safety of their homes, she said.

Jay Rothman

The law firm Foley & Lardner LLP has been working actively on engagement surveys to monitor its progress across the firm’s multiple locations and in Milwaukee.

The survey results prompted renewed efforts “around improving communication and being more transparent not only to the lawyers but to the professional staff,” said the firm's chairman and chief executive, Jay Rothman.

Changes implemented include regular email updates and in-person and by-video town hall meetings where employees can hear updates about the business and ask questions of company leaders.

The firm also overhauled its employee evaluation process in a way that added perspective for employees regarding their professional development.

And the changes keep coming. This year, Foley will launch its own leadership training sessions.

Managerial aspects of a law office, such as leadership development, aren’t something lawyers pick up in law school.

“We can’t assume that leadership in and of itself is an innate attribute,” said Rothman, so training in how to approach issues around leadership seemed timely. “We think of it as a good investment in our people this year, to just share with them some of the ideas around leadership."

The work is paying off in at least one concrete way: Foley is finding that employees who leave because they thought the grass was greener elsewhere are among their biggest fans when they return to the firm.

"The greatest thing is when we have people leave and they come back," Rothman said. "When the boomerangers return and say 'This is a really a neat place,' they can be terrific disciples for us."

Rob Henke

Rent-A-Daughter of Brookfield, which provides non-medical, in-home care for the elderly, takes a more spiritual approach to employee engagement.

“We really are a faith-based, faith-driven organization. That’s one of our core values. We don’t market as a Christian organization but we clearly run our business with those values,” said Rob Henke, co-owner of Rent-A-Daughter. “Part of our mission statement is while our caregivers care for the client, we want to care for our caregivers. And that’s kind of foundational, where it starts for us.”

So the company does the standard things like pay, benefits, employee picnics and training sessions. But Rent-A-Daughter also leaves room in its schedule, amid the daily grind of to-do lists, for purposeful prayer.

“We pray in our office daily and they all know that,” said Henke. “And it’s something that they oftentimes will come to us with issues that they want us to be aware of. It’s a safe environment that we’ve created for them.

"We often say we run this place by offering grace and truth, and what we mean by that is we just care for who they are as people,” he said. “We really try to get into a relationship with them for who they are. And that’s probably one of the fundamental things that we do that I think resonates with them.”

Jean Henke, who co-owns the business with Rob, said one of her key roles is to develop a relationship with the caregivers, “to know who they are, know their uniquenesses and how we can help them not only do well as a caregiver but how we can help them along the journey that they’re on, and where they're at. Because everyone has a story and not everyone has a story to tell them to, so we make it a safe environment for that.”

A motivational balance

One key to an engaged, motivated workforce is considering the perspective of the employee rather than just the business as a whole, says Susan Thomson, who runs the business consulting firm ActionCoach in Dane County.

“You need to understand why somebody would want to work for you to start with," Thomson said. "Just like you get really clear on a unique selling proposition from a marketing standpoint, the same thing applies with the culture standpoint: Do they see a growth path? If they can’t say, 'I’m having fun, I’m making an impact and I’m learning,' then we’re already at a mismatch with the people on the team.”

And if there is a mismatch, then the company needs to focus on what it needs to change, whether through training and engagement programs, leadership development initiatives or efforts to improve communication.

At the same time, the employer can’t do it all.

“You’re responsible to people but not for people,” said Thomson. “I can’t motivate anybody. I can create the conditions and environment and path, but they’re either going to choose to participate or not to participate.”

Motivating employees goes beyond the cost-of-entry types of attributes such as pay and benefits.

“What will make them stay and make them motivate themselves is a culture and purpose that they believe in and can see demonstrated every day,” said Thomson. “Because if all I’m doing is showing up and pushing paper around, and I don’t understand how I’m really making an impact on something that I care about, you don’t have the conditions for people to be motivated.”

The bottom line, she said, is a sense of relevance to the big picture of where the company's headed.

“If they’re not connected and they don’t see a path to grow, they won’t stick around.”

Dan Paulson of InVision Business Development and Marketing said the world of work has changed dramatically with technology but that many employers haven’t caught up.

People are working at night and on weekends, at home and in coffee shops, and they’re no longer chained to the desk in their office.

“But the thing that hasn’t changed is that for most companies, we’re still in this mindset of dollars for hours,” he said. “A typical business leader doesn’t think their employees are productive unless they see them in the chair at their desk in the office working.”

So it’s important for business managers to find a way to loosen the grip on that type of management style, all while continuing to have high expectations and hold employees accountable to get things done.

“Once employees are given more autonomy, there still have to be checks and balances,” Paulson said. “This isn’t a free-for-all.”