Here are five tips from Inc. Magazine to help motivate your employees and create a sense of community.
It can be difficult to feel passionate about the job you’re doing, especially if you’ve been at it for a while. A lack of motivation among employees is a dangerous issue that every leader must tackle head on, otherwise it could lead to burnout, poor performance, dragging sales and resignation letters.
It would be great if you could create an environment where your employees feel welcomed, inspired and useful at work, so that they actually look forward to Monday morning.
The person in charge has the power to transform a company’s culture and make a business feel more like home to the employees.
A great manager makes time to get to know employees on a personal level. While an employee’s personal life and values should never impact the way they are perceived at work, there are many benefits to getting to know team members outside of what they do. By taking the time to understand the staff’s backgrounds, a manager can gain considerable insight. Maybe a staff member is fluent in multiple languages, or has technical skills in what you company is currently lacking. You won’t know until you ask.
Paying attention to what your team members have learned through their unique experiences can help you find more ways to improve their quality of life and address their needs at work. Plus, you might just end up learning something that helps you better serve your customer base too.
Motivate your team by engaging them through new tasks that speak to their unique skills When filling a role in your company, you probably were mostly focused on the applicant’s skills that applied directly to their job description. However, chances are that they have more skills and passions than just the ones they’re using for their specific job. If you make the effort to find additional tasks that speak to their other talents, your employee will feel like you’re really paying attention to who they are as a full person, not just how they contribute to your bottom line.
To combat boredom, you also should offer continuing education and professional development so that employees can improve on skills that they are passionate about. This way, even if they transition to a new type of work, they will be much more likely to want to do so in conjunction with your company, because you have supported them throughout and offered opportunities for them to grow alongside you.
Emphasize good mental health by providing regular opportunities for employees to express their needs. Employees might be struggling to find balance in their lives. Maybe a single parent is having trouble getting their kids to school while working a nine-to-five job? Another employee could be dealing with an illness that makes it difficult for them to participate in office events. The point is, you just won’t know what’s going on with your team members unless you provide an environment where they feel comfortable speaking openly with you.
There are many things that you can do to facilitate a workplace that is conducive to honest and frank discussions that bridge the gap between leader and team. Whether it means sitting down with employees individually to talk about their career path and how you can help them get where they want to go, or bringing in a certified counselor, providing your team with regular check-ins will vastly improve their overall morale.
Foster connections between employees with team bonding experiences. When you make an effort to support a closer camaraderie between employees, work becomes more enjoyable and thus more productive. Office sports teams, special outings and birthday parties are just some of the ways you can facilitate bonding in your company. As well as creating friendships between team members, by participating in these activities yourself, you can help remove the perceived barriers between you as the boss and the people who work for your company.
Recognize employee accomplishments. There’s nothing like the feeling of being congratulated for a job well done to encourage a renewed interest in producing results at work. Take the time to genuinely appreciate your employees for the work they do, so that they never feel that their hard work is going unnoticed. Whether it’s a simple mention in your weekly team meeting or a personalized compliment in their holiday card, just letting them know that you see what they’re doing and value it can be a huge confidence boost for even the most seasoned employee. The added benefit when you acknowledge triumphs in public is that your others will see that hard work will result in recognition, resulting in renewed efforts throughout your team. A simple rule here is to make praise public while always keeping criticism private.
