It works like magic to motivate your employees. It's the simple, obscure $2-bill. (Yes, it's official U.S. currency, available from your local bank.)

Barry R. Schimel, CPA, president of The Profit Advisors, Inc., tells how the forgotten $2-bill is used to get employees to generate new and unusual ideas and efforts.

You can hold what Schimel calls a Profit Super Bowl meeting. (He describes the strategy in his book The Profit Game: How to Play - How to Win.)

"Where we facilitate a Profit Super Bowl," says Schimel, "we ask the coordinator to arrange for rewards: $250 worth of $2-bills." Why? "Because they're unusual. A $2-bill signifies that unusual dollars are rewarded for unusual ideas and efforts."

"There's magic in it," Schimel adds. "It's literally like giving a trophy. It's so unusual, the people who get them aren't going to spend them. They're a great reward."

A clever way to encourage terminated employees to get jobs and hold down your unemployment taxes: offer them a bonus to get a new job.

That's what one of our members just did. (He wants to remain anonymous so we'll call him Ken.)

Ken had to lay off three employees. He says, "The feedback we got made it clear that all three planned on taking out unemployment, working for cash and taking some vacation... It appeared we were going to get hit with big unemployment claims."

He continues: "We needed an incentive for the people to find employment quickly. So we offered to match 50% of wages earned for the first X-number of weeks, with X equaling the number of years they had worked for us. It didn't really cost us more and probably less than what our unemployment liability would have been."

Adds Ken, "The three got new jobs right away. In fact, there wasn't a day they weren't employed."

Employees with high team work habits are less likely to miss work without an excuse, and are less likely to call in sick.

That's the conclusion of a nationwide survey of 874 supermarket employees, conducted by McGraw-Hill/London House and the Food Marketing Institute.

Team-oriented employees scored high on helping co- workers and customers, suggesting improvements, and helping make decisions.

Employees who scored low on teamwork were: 57% less likely to help a customer and five times more likely to help a co-worker steal merchandise.

"Our results indicate that team oriented employees have attitudes that can significantly impact how productive they are," says Scott Martin, a senior director at McGraw-Hill.

Smart Idea: Screen applicants for positive work-related attitude and team-orientation. Contact Employers of America for guidance.

Spend a few hours on the phone with your employees and collect some good ideas. That's just what David Sullivan, COO of Promus Hotel Corp., did last year...and plans to do again soon.

Promus Hotel Corp., Memphis, TN, franchises and runs Embassy Suites, Hampton Inns and Homewood Suites. Sullivan and his advisors wanted input from their employees. So they set up an 800 number, and Sullivan took calls from 50 to 60 employees during a four-hour period. Sullivan says, "You do this, and you have more calls than you can handle."

The best idea came from a phone operator. "We were paying them based on the number of phone calls they answered. They felt pushed to handle more calls and give less service. So we changed that to an hourly pay scale."

Smart Workplace Practice: Want to get good ideas and feedback from your employees? Set times and invite your employees to call you during those times with their input, comments and suggestions.