Employee motivation is crucial to employee retention and highly productive employees. However, people are motivated by different things. Depending on each individual’s motivators, there are a number of obvious, and substantial, ways to motivate employees. This includes things such as pay rises, bonuses, promotions and perks. But don’t forget the little things that can be done every day to boost motivation levels in your employees.
You will find that encouraging this type of culture in your organization actually makes your entire employee performance management system run much more smoothly. Employees will be happier and more motivated to really get involved.
7 Easy Ways to Motivate Employees
1. Say thank you.
“But they’re just doing their job”, you might say. Of course they are, but it’s still nice to be appreciated for doing your job well. From supervisors to directors, saying thank you to employees for a job well done is a simple and effective way to boost motivation among staff.
2. Encourage everyone to take ownership.
Employees being encouraged to take ownership of their work can be scary if they’re not used to it, but it’s also a great motivator. When a problem crops up and it gets resolved, whoever was responsible for sorting it out will have an immense sense of satisfaction, and it’s not just the case for ‘problems’. If everyone has to take ownership of their own processes or projects, it gives them pride in their work and motivation to succeed.
3. Coffee breaks.
Most businesses have coffee breaks, or chats around the water cooler. But how often does management get involved? Teams setting aside 10 minutes each day to break away from their work and have a tea or coffee break together, it’s great for both team bonding and motivation.
4. Have a genuine open door policy.
It’s easy to say “My door is always open” when managers have their own offices. But do your employees really believe it? Having the door physically open unless there’s a meeting or confidential phone call is a great way to prove it.
5. Be positive.
Another one that seems simple, but it’s easy to forget that negativity breeds negativity. What starts out with one or two people moaning or being negative will soon impact other employees, so it’s important to lead by example from the top down.
6. Only praise when it’s deserved.
Don’t fall into the trap of constantly praising every employee just for turning up, because the act of giving praise will quickly lose its impact. Knowing that positive feedback genuinely means a job well done will increase employee’s motivation, and make your employee performance management system more successful.
7. Involve their family.
This doesn’t mean actually inviting their whole family into work, but getting to know who they are, their partners’ and children’s names, remembering events and asking after them can really make a difference to how employees feel about the company they work for.
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