From Smooshed Bugs to Soaring Effort: How to Inspire Employees to Care More

In this episode, Dr. Leslie Sukup shares a surprising restroom observation that sparked a deeper look into employee effort and motivation. Discover how simple acts of connection—like learning your employees’ values and dreams—can drive engagement, pride in work, and a thriving organizational culture. This is a must-listen for leaders who want their teams to give 100% because they want to, not because they have to. 

Transcript

Welcome to the Business Administration podcast.

Hello, I'm Dr. Leslie Sukup.

And in this episode I want to talk about indicators of seeing if your employees truly care.

But even more importantly,

how can you persuade them to care more,

especially if they're, if their care factor may be on the lower side.

And a funny story of how this topic came about is I was using a restroom earlier this week and for the most part it was, it was clean. You know, the floors were clean, the sink and the toilet were clean,

the mirror was clean.

But I did notice on the walls that there were some smooshed bugs.

I'm assuming they're bugs. That's what they, that's what it looked like.

And I was thinking to myself, you know, the one thing, when you go into a restroom as a customer, you love to see that,

that it's clean.

But you look at going above and beyond,

not just looking at the regular items that need to be cleaned, but the rest of the stuff like the walls and the smooshed bugs,

something that many take for granted. You don't think that the walls need to be cleaned,

especially in a restroom.

But obviously,

you know,

customers see these things and there is some importance to it.

This is an indicator of, you know, employees doing what, what the expectation is,

having a clean restroom.

But how do you get them to care just a little bit more, to take it to the next step,

to put 110% or even 100% into their job?

And this can be a hard thing to connect with employees.

One of the things that I share with my students is one, you need to communicate. You need to get to know your employees,

find out what their passions are,

what do they want to do in the future.

Some,

some jobs are,

are stepping stones for them, but it could be that this is their choice,

their career choice,

where they have that passion.

But if you can find where their passion lies and tie it in to what they are doing,

you're going to be building that intrinsic motivation, that internal reward system for accomplishing a task where that employee will continue to give more because it's tied into that passion or that fire in their belly.

And I, I've seen it,

I have seen it in students where,

you know, maybe they didn't particularly like the topic of the course.

They saw it as a stepping stone to getting to their degree.

But having a conversation with them, getting to know them, finding out what their hopes and dreams were,

that helped me to connect the material from the course into tying it into their,

their passion,

what their dreams are.

And I saw a significant turnaround in their performance in the classroom.

No longer were they maybe skipping classes or just sitting there in the classroom,

not actively participating, but they switched. They flipped from being that passive student just gliding by to being that student who was actively involved and being that sponge that would absorb that information that I was sharing in order to use it later to help them pursue their dreams and their passions.

As a professor,

it's heartwarming,

but it is.

It's the reason I love to teach. I love to see the transformation in my students.

And as an employer, you can have that same impact.

The more that you get to know your employees,

the more you will start to learn what their hopes are, what their dreams are.

More importantly, what do they value.

And as you learn what they value, you'll be able to turn that around and use it to help your employees care just a little bit more.

And that will in and of itself reflect in their performance and their duties in your organization.

You want employees who are going to give you 100% if they give you above that,

wonderful. That's bonus.

But the goal is to have the employees that are working for you to be giving you,

the employer, their all because they truly want to.

They believe in the organization,

they believe that it has some tie in to their values, passion, that fire in their belly.

And you will see transformation occur in a positive way.

Not only will it,

you will, not only will you have higher impact relationships between leadership positions and employees,

but you're going to see a collaborative effort begin to occur.

And that will translate into a positive organizational culture and a positive organizational climate which will attract more talent to your organization.

And that is truly a good thing.

And you will have your employees sharing by word of mouth their experiences.

And there's nothing better than someone giving their personal statement on what has transpired in an organization.

Because word of mouth weighs a little bit more than a stranger sharing information or hearing an advertisement on tv. When you can get personal statements from individuals saying,

hey, this is what happened at this organization.

I highly recommend to everyone that this is the place where you want to work.

It goes a long way and you will never have a lack of talent if that occurs.

But work on those, nurturing and caring for your employees, getting to know them,

and you will see a transformation,

the effort that your employees provide back to your organization.

Until the next time, be safe and be well.