5 tips on how to motivate your employees
1. Find out what motivates them
The #1 rule of motivating your employees is to find out what motivates them. Pretty simple, right? Unfortunately, not. The truth is we all have different ambitions and motivations; your job is to know what motivates your staff. This will help you set them goals, targets, and incentives based on what makes them tick.
2. Make them feel valued
You can do this by simply thanking someone for the work they’ve done. I’m not saying you have to thank them for every task they do, but every now and again, when they have done a good job, let them know. Make a note of something they done that impressed you and bring it up in your next meeting with them.
Everyone loves a compliment from their boss. It also shows that when they go above and beyond, it gets noticed.
3. Arrange a team day or night out
Short term this may not directly motivate your employees in the workplace, but will bring your team closer together. This will create a more enjoyable working environment.
Colleagues becoming friends make the bad days at work just little more bearable, this should be encouraged. Because of Covid this isn’t possible in most parts of the world, however you can still allocate 30 – 60 minutes a week to arrange a video call with your team. This doesn’t cost anything and will also contribute to point 2 in making them feel valued. You can have a beer, glass of wine, if it’s a no to alcohol have a “catch up coffee morning”.
4. Incentives
You can create incentives for ANYTHING. You can set team targets, or individual. You can set incentives that don’t cost you anything, and incentives that cost you an arm and a leg.
Incentives for a low budget: (more frequent, individual targets)
- Early finish
- Extra day annual leave
- Vouchers
- Inexpensive prizes
Incentives for a larger budget: (less frequent, team targets)
- A team night out (once a month)
- Purchase a vending machine.
- Purchase an office pool table.
- Purchase an office coffee machine.
- A team weekend abroad (once every 6 – 12 months) (difficult, but achievable target)
Not everyone will be motivated by a team night out or a coffee vending machine. Which brings me to my next option: Incentivise staff by creating a bonus scheme for individual or company results. Many businesses don’t have a bonus scheme in place and it’s hard to see the reason why. The bonus schemes don’t need to break the bank and will help get a lot more out of your team. There’s a reason why sales people are paid commission, it encourages them to do their job and sell. Bonus schemes work in the same way, you just need to create goals and targets based on the specific job roles.
Examples:
If they’re field technician: base the target around the number of return visits required in a month.
If there in accounts: base the target on entering the correct nominal codes whilst invoicing.
If they’re digital marketing: base it on a reduced CPA. My point is you can set targets for any job role.
5. Be a leader. Be clear, and communicate what you expect from them.
As long as you have followed point 1 on the list you should already know what motivates the individual. It may be career progression; it may be a well-balanced home/work life. You now know what makes them tick, it’s equally important they know what you expect from them. What do they need to do to progress within the business? How can they build trust with you so you allow them to work from home twice a week? You need to be clear on this and track the progress being made. Arrange a monthly meeting to discuss their progression. If required, show them how they can improve in certain areas. Read that sentence again and take note of “show them” and not “tell them.” Anyone can tell someone how to improve, leaders show them how to improve.
