Derek Johnson on Motivating College Employees

1. Energy Drinks & Snacks - This is huge for Tatango! Make sure your fridge is stocked with energy drinks and your kitchen has an abundance of snacks to munch on. Every employee has that time during the day where they need that little caffeine boost or they get a little hungry. If you don’t want your employees to leave the office, lose momentum and waste time that could be spent at their desks, make sure you have everything they could want within the office.

2. Business Cards - Want to make your young employees feel valuable within your company? It’s easy, every employee should have their own business cards. I’m not talking only full time employees or management, every employee should have their own business cards. You have to remember back to when you received your first business card, wasn’t that an amazing feeling?

3. Buy Cool Computers - Don’t go buy the bargain box computers for your young employees, go cool, go hip and buy Mac. College students are all about cutting edge technology and design, don’t let them think that your company isn’t.

4. Give Them Financial Insight - Don’t hold out on your employees, share with them how much revenue is being brought in, where the money is going, and how each employee has an impact on both of these. How can an employee know what they are doing is in the best interest of the company, if they don’t even know what the financial impact of their actions are.

5. Give Them Face Time - Take your young employees to meetings, let them do a press interview, get them in front of a camera, this way they can share in the credit the company receives.

6. Let Them Make Decisions - Give your employees a project and let them know the desired outcome. From there, let them decide the best way to go forward. Not only is this showing young employees that you trust them, you may learn a few things by how they tackle the project.

7. Music - Let your employees listen to music. Set up music sharing within the office, give your employees headphones and introduce them to iTunes radio.