Every company wants to get the best performances from its employees, but they don't know how to encourage them. One way to get enthusiasm, performance, and trust is to motivate them to do better at work. How to motivate employees is critical for employee retention and provides many benefits for office advancement. By continuously motivating and maintaining it at high levels, leaders can bring their teams to align in mutual success. Let's check out what can be done to keep your team motivated in the workplace.
Do employees need motivation?
Yes, employees need motivation. Employees cannot only be required to complete tasks and work pressure without being balanced with motivation and recognition. When a company can motivate its employees well, employees are more likely to be happier in their working lives, being more productive, creative and have higher levels of innovation.
How to motivate employees must start from the leader to the team members. If employees get recognition and enthusiasm from their leader, employees will feel that their performance is always seen and appreciated. Leaders can motivate individually or with team building. The team must always have high level motivation to keep giving their best performances.
What happens if employees are not motivated?
Employees who are not motivated will increase turnover, and can lead to resignations. If many employees submit resignations, it can lead to a loss of balance in work allocation and in the workforce. If employees continue to experience pressure at work and lack of motivation, this can lead to depression and increased absenteeism. The work environment becomes negative, and every employee does not focus on goals because they feel the work pressure is too heavy.
12 ways how to motivate employees
We have summarized some of the best ways to increase motivation in the workplace. By creating a culture of recognition, you can show employees how well they are to the company and how their contributions are appreciated.
- Create a culture of appreciation and recognition
The best method for motivating employees is creating a company culture of appreciation and recognition. Implementing a strong employee recognition program will have a positive impact on the workspace. Let's say you have a consistent employee with their best performance which is always above average, but this employee is never given a prize or considered for their hard work. Sooner or later, the star performers will eventually realize that their work is not appreciated, and there is no more desire to try and the motivation drops.
By creating a culture of appreciation and recognition, employees who previously underperformed will see their coworkers get prizes and other appreciations, increasing their enthusiasm to work better and get the same accomplishments.
- Celebrate milestones
Celebrating milestones is one of the best ways to keep employees feeling valued and motivated. There are many ways to celebrate small or big milestones in office. For example, there is an employee who gets a promotion, a team achieves an annual goal, or a leader who succeeds in getting a project with great value. Highlighting those events shows employees that they're recognized, keeps them inspired, and always motivates employees to reach for the next milestone with more enthusiasm.
- Encourage employee development
Recognizing your employees can be done by growing the team's skill instead. The performance of each employee can increase if there is an opportunity to add to their skills, it can be from courses, seminars, or meet with the experts. Professional development can be a top priority for companies that want to increase growth potential and raise the morale of employees who are losing motivation.
Sometimes employees feel stuck with their progress because they feel uncertain about their skills and there is no opportunity to develop. By prioritizing employee's development, it helps retention rates and they have clear pictures of what needs to be done for the company, eliminating their opportunity to look elsewhere.
- Create a wellness challenge
Making a fitness challenge for employees can boost overall employee well-being. Join employees in the employee wellness program, either remotely or by coming directly to the nearest gym or workout place. By encouraging employees to prioritize workout time, they will have the opportunity to refresh, reset, be healthy, and be more motivated than ever.
- Corporation gifts
Employees will be happy if they are given souvenirs or corporation gifts. You can give it on various occasions, such as on office birthdays, when the team reaches a certain milestone, or as a form of recognition for employee's hard work. BestGift HK is the best place for you to find a corporation gift that can be specially designed with a company logo. There are many choices of corporation gifts that you can choose from at BestgiftHK, from T-shirts, tumblrs, tote bags, stationary, to other useful items.
- Fun team bonding activities
Team bonding activities are something fun that you can do outside the office. By giving employees the opportunity to carry out activities outside the office, this will provide opportunities for employees to bond with each other, helping to build trust among teammates. After the activity is finished, it will translate back to the workplace, creating a robust teamwork and each team member can motivate one another.
- Snack time
Sometimes the office can be a boring place because employees have to focus only on work and goals. By setting up a special time to provide snack packages at the office, employees can have time to relax and chat with each other, while enjoying delicious snacks together. The office can provide snack time once every two weeks or when there are important occasions, providing fun experiences for employees to keep them enthusiastic and feel motivated while working.
- Employee of the month
When you see the fast food industry, you often see photos of employees displayed near the cashier. This is a great motivator for every employee, because apart from appreciating the best employee performance each month, this can be a special motivation for other employees to achieve the same position, and their photos are displayed for everyone in the office to see.
- Office transparency
A lack of transparency can make employees lose trust and make them look elsewhere for their future. Sometimes the office just wants to give bad news about office conditions, without telling when office conditions are better than a few months before. The office must be balanced in providing news to its employees, so that employees know what they should pursue, and what they should hold on to.
- Resolving disputes between employees
Loose relations between employees can be one of the reasons employees lose motivation and want to change jobs. As a good leader, you must be able to mediate when there are disputes between employees, and be able to resolve them properly without having to resort to violence or bad feelings on either side. Leaders must be able to maintain team cohesiveness by reducing the possibility of disputes, listening to individual complaints, and maintaining team harmony.
- Create stretch goals
Stretch goals are a great setting for measuring a team's abilities. If the company sets goals that are too big, it will have an impact on some employees who feel that goal is too impossible to achieve. By providing stretch goals, employees can achieve small and major goals on a regular basis, and feeds their desire to contribute and have a positive impact on office progress.
- Point system
Make special rules to give points to tasks that have been done and also certain work milestones with a point system. Each employee can collect points for individuals, and can be exchanged for rewards prepared by the office such as a wellness program, stationary, a day off, or several other reward options. With a point system, employees can understand what they should be pursuing, and how they can compete with coworkers in a balanced manner.
After employees reach the points they want, they will realize that their motivation to work harder is having a reward available for them at the end of the day.
That's all about how to motivate employees. With a high level of motivation, employees can show their best potential, have trust in the company, and reduce the possibility of employees to change jobs. Create a culture of appreciation and recognition in the office, to maintain the enthusiasm and motivation of employees, so that you can create a positive work environment and each employee can feel comfortable continuing to show their best performance at the office.
