Every manager’s dream is to be able to come to work each morning and find his employees enthusiastic, motivated, and totally dedicated to their job. Sadly, more often than not, that is very hard to achieve.
The sad reality is that not even a third of all workers report a high level of job satisfaction. This is precisely the reason why you need to invest a tremendous amount of time and energy for your people to stay engaged, feel that they participate, and be genuinely eager to contribute to the company’s goals.
A great deal of this matter is making your employees feel like they are part of the team. Every team member is important, and the success of the entire operation depends on the success of every individual. To foster such a relationship with the people working for you, you’ll need to take care of their various needs.
In fact, you can achieve this by organizing team events, giving them the responsibility to make a change, awarding them for their success, and investing in their professional education. The critical thing is to pay attention and be ready to compromise because the right balance between your incentives and the output of your employees will determine the type of relationships you want to impose.
Below we’ll go through each of the four ways companies of all sizes can utilize to keep employees engaged and motivated.
Make Sure to Reward Success
The old saying goes that even the most capable workhorse needs the occasional sugar cube. You can start with having highly skilled and highly energetic staff. Still, productivity will plunge quickly if you fail to recognize their genuine contribution to the company and reward their hard work.
So, when you need to give credit where credit is due, do it with an audience as broad as possible. Fill as many days as possible with appraisement for a job well done, whether it happens to be performed by an individual or a team effort. Okay, we know that you probably don’t have the budget to provide your hardest workers with a custom Rolex watch.
Anyhow, with rewarding success by gift-giving, it’s the thought that counts, not the gift’s price tag. So, if you don’t know where to start with picking goods and gifts, check these gift ideas for employees on a budget and reward their individual and team success with inexpensive gifts that they’ll love.
Organize Team Events More Often
A sit-down in a loose and relaxed environment is a wonderful opportunity to increase the solidarity between team members. Any kind of celebration is welcomed, like an occasional group gathering on sports events, a colleague’s birthday, the arrival of a new family member, or a national holiday. If your company has the means, it might pay off greatly if you decide to patronize the local swimming or basketball team which your workers and their families are a part of.
These staff events will work like magic, no matter if they are work-oriented or just meant to decompress the stress from the workload. People will get to know each other better, develop deeper connections and smoothen the differences between employees and management.
Allow Individual Responsibility to Make a Change
People working for you are always more dedicated if they recognize that they’re in a professional environment where their opinion matters. You can greatly increase the group identity and sense of belonging if you consider what everyone thinks of a particular work subject.
Plus, the best ideas often come from employees who face the process of delivering your product or service every day. Each time you pass the responsibility of adopting a change in your company, every employee will feel encouraged to step forward and aid the effort you’re all making.
Invest in Professional Education
It doesn’t matter if you’re a workshop, a hotel, a factory, or an accounting firm, workers will always appreciate the gesture of investing in their professional capabilities. You can send them to seminars, introduce free courses out of their working hours, and train them to further develop their capabilities. This will empower employees, and let them know they’re here for the long run.
It often happens that people will apply for a certain position simply because they need the financial security that the job provides. Managers who will invest in the distinct expertise of their employees will greatly diminish the chances of facing this problem and keep high levels of worker retention.
Final Words
In the end, it’s all about communication. The ways mentioned above to keep employees engaged and motivated are meant to signal what you as an employer value as success.
A rewarded good behavior will keep on producing good behavior. Get to know each of the people working for you personally, if possible, and treat them with dignity and kindness. It would be best if you were creating an environment that represents the core values that constitute our human experience in society. The central value always is trust, so be patient and withhold on passing judgment too quickly.
If you deliver on these standards, your employees will support you as you support them and forgive your own mistakes. They’ll ‘get you’ finally, and you’ll achieve the level of understanding that every manager needs to be a great leader. Just remember, not everyone is the same, and occasionally, everybody needs a different type of motivation.
