Imagine you had a network of women leaders all across the country that you could tap anytime you wanted to find out what’s working for them. With our exclusive feature, Worked for Her, you do. In our most recent installment, Rewa Gaudern, Human Resources Manager at Bookcliff Gardens, Grand Junction, CO, shares how she made the most of downtime in her office to benefit everyone.

At certain times of the year, some of our employees don’t have as much work to do. And we didn’t want them to end up just wasting that time away.

Naturally, we wanted to use this downtime to our advantage, but we weren’t sure how.

That’s when we realized if we wanted to get employees motivated – and maybe even solve problems –  we should try giving them the assignments they wanted.

All you’ve got to do is ask

So we started asking our employees: “What are your ideas for projects?”

Posing this question not only gave us insight into our employees’ interests, it also drew our attention to neglected areas of the company.

For example, one employee pointed out our equipment desperately needed to be organized and serviced. And she wanted to be the one to do it.

We discussed how she could tackle this, and she was excited to use the downtime to work on it.

Asking employees for their insight on projects was a simple way to get them engaged and keep them busy.

(Rewa Gaudern, Human Resources Manager, Bookcliff Gardens, Grand Junction, CO)

Are you looking for more proven strategies from your peers? Check out our new offering 101 Management Problems Solved: How Successful Women Tackled Common Leadership Challenges