The more motivated your employees feel at work, the more likely they are to deliver their best performance. Motivated, engaged, and even satisfied staff members stay with your company for longer, deliver better outcomes, and even make fewer mistakes. Unfortunately, keeping employees motivated isn’t always as simple as it seems.
Motivation in the workplace can dwindle for all kinds of reasons. If you’re moving into a hybrid or remote work strategy, lack of face-to-face interaction with team members can cause disengagement. If you’re focusing on a particularly challenging project, consistent pressure can leave staff feeling burned out.
The good news is there are ways to motivate your team, and they’re not nearly as complex as you might think. Here are some easy ways to get started.
1. Provide Recognition
All employees, no matter their employment level or industry, want recognition. Everyone likes to know they’ve done a good job. Unfortunately, many business leaders frequently forget to provide regular, positive feedback. A little praise, whether it’s an email, a message on Slack commending your employee, or an announcement in the office, can go a long way.
For particularly good work, rewards and prizes can be extremely useful too. You might even consider investing in a little gamification at work, encouraging employees to compete for the best score in an important metric, like customer satisfaction (CSAT).
2. Listen to Feedback
Employees will automatically feel more motivated and engaged by a workplace that takes their input seriously. Business leaders often lose touch with their staff members and what they need to work at their best, simply because they don’t have their finger on the pulse of the day-to-day working environment. Asking for regular feedback and input from your team can fix this issue.
Whether it’s a regular monthly meeting where you ask everyone for ways to improve team output, or an open-door policy so people can give feedback whenever they need to, make sure your team has a voice. When your staff does give you valuable ideas or advice – use it. Show your team members they can make a difference to your company.
3. Show That You Care
Studies are increasingly showing that employees want more empathetic leaders. Since the pandemic in particular, staff members have begun to demand more respect and care from the people they work for. With that in mind, it’s important to look for ways of making your staff feel like part of the family. Even asking about things like your staff’s latest solitaire score, or how their loved ones are doing, can be a great way to show empathy.
Implement wellbeing initiatives which focus on keeping your team members physically and emotionally healthy. Make sure you’re taking steps to look after your employees’ health too, by giving them paid time off when they need it. You might even offer things like remote working opportunities for people who want to improve their work/life balance by working from home.
4. Play Games for Company Culture
Company culture isn’t just a buzzword in the employment and hiring landscape – it’s an important concept for employee engagement and retention. Creating a place your employees look forward to coming to each Monday morning can help to reduce turnover. You can even improve the company culture for a remote team and create a sense of “belonging” for every member of staff.
A great way to build and enhance company culture is to work on strengthening connections between members of your staff. You can play games to improve bonds between team members. These games can also be an excellent way to highlight some values of your business, like creativity, strategy, or patience. Online card games such as solitaire can even increase the productivity of your employees.
Why not give gaming hour a go? Something as simple as doing a jigsaw puzzle as a team can make your staff feel more relaxed, more connected, and therefore more invested in your business.
5. Invest in Your Employees
Few things are more motivational than a positive view of the future. A great way to let your employees know you want them to stick with you in the long-term, is to discuss their career aspirations with them, and look for ways to help them achieve their goals.
For instance, you could offer training and mentorship programs for people who want to apply for promotions in your workplace. Promoting from within shows your existing employees there are benefits to working hard in your company. Helping your staff to gain additional skills also means you can benefit from the expanding talents they bring into their roles.
6. Keep an eye on Salaries and Benefits
Finally, while there’s more to keeping your employees happy these days than a good wage, most employees will struggle to stay with a company that isn’t paying enough. Keep an eye on the salaries you offer your team members, and make sure they’re on par with what you’d expect from similar companies in your industry. There are plenty of salary guides and marketplace reports out there to help you keep your offers on track.
Don’t forget to consider benefits too. Things like remote working opportunities, extra paid holidays, and other bonuses can do a lot to keep your team motivated.
Keep Your Team Motivated
A motivated team is a more productive one. With the six simple steps above, you can help your employees to feel more engaged by their roles. Don’t forget, when people do leave your business, an exit interview can be a wonderful way to gain insights into why they decided to go.