Knowing how to run a company is only half the battle. The other half, and often a more difficult challenge to tackle, is knowing how to motivate your employees.
In this day and age of dwindling productivity levels, it can be tempting to assume that motivating people will come naturally over time. However, the truth of the matter is that you’re going to have to work at it for motivation within your workforce to increase.
Most people like to know what they’re working towards and how well they’re doing. Employees at every level need to know where their job fits in with the big picture of any given organization — not just for altruistic reasons, but because it directly affects their willingness to produce results. When employees do not understand what is expected of them or how their work relates to the overall goals and objectives of a company, motivation levels plummet, and boredom follows suit.
To help inspire some innovative ideas on ways in which you can motivate your company’s workforce, here are three different strategies below.
1- Be Consistent with Rewards & Recognition
One mistake companies make when rewarding their employees for a job well done is not following through with consistency. The more people you have working for you, the more difficult it becomes to track who gets what and when. This is why a great way to increase motivation within your workforce is by having a clear and consistent reward system that rewards all of your employees equally.
Instead of one big year-end bonus award, consider coming up with quarterly gifts or awards where everyone from executives down to entry-level employees receives something as a token for their hard work regularly throughout the entire year rather than just at the end of it. Doing this will increase morale across the company and cut back on costs associated with getting custom swag made up every single holiday season.
2- Use a Motivational Speaker
Motivational speakers are a great way to bring excitement and inspiration back into the workplace for those employees who have been slacking off. Whatever your organization happens to be going through at any given moment, there is probably a speaker out there that can help you either turn things around or get them back on track.
Using a motivational speaker does not just cut down on costs associated with motivating your workforce from within. Still, it also helps bolster creativity which in turn increases productivity levels. So if your company is having issues coming up with new ideas, try bringing in a professional speaker once every season as an added incentive.
3- Create Engaging Job Descriptions & Responsibilities
Finally, another method for motivating your workforce is creating engaging job descriptions and responsibilities throughout the entire year and not just on paper at the first offering.
If you expect people to do their jobs, you first need to tell them what those jobs entail daily before sending them off on their own; otherwise, it’s like we’re all on different pages within the same book. You don’t want this as it leads to confusion and missed deadlines and poor quality work performance overall.
Using innovative methods such as those listed above increases your chances of holding onto your top performers and inspiring those who tend to lose motivation the fastest throughout their initial employment. Be creative and think outside of the box, and you’ll see that coming up with different ways of inspiring your company’s workforce is possible.
