Do you find it difficult to motivate your employees? Do you often find your employees slacking off? Does it seem to you that your employees don’t want to be with your company? If you answered yes to any of all these questions, then, you, my friend, have a real problem at hand. The good news is that there are ways to overcome this problem and inspire employees to be their best!
Happy workers=productive workers. This is generally how things work. The happier your employees are at work, the more productive they will be in their job. So, what makes happy employees?
To put it simply, a happy employee is an employee who is motivated to do his or her job. And, this takes us to the next and probably the most important question: how do you motivate or inspire employees to work hard and help the company grow? This is a question that we seek to answer here. So, without wasting any further time, let’s look at some of the ways to inspire employees to be their best—at work.
Communicate Effectively
Your employees won’t be motivated to help you meet your goals if you are nothing more than a name on an email for them. One thing that CEOs and managers often ignore but should not overlook is employee communications. Talk to your employees frequently, preferably face-to-face. It is important for you to regularly communicate to your employees exactly why their work is important for the company, showing your appreciation for their commitment and hard work.
Exhibit Your Trust in Them
One of the best ways to inspire employees and get them to perform better is exhibiting the trust you have in them and their ability to get things done. Now, there are several ways of doing this including giving them more responsibilities and providing them with an opportunity to grow. By doing this, you exhibit to your employees that you trust them, which often motivates them to do their best.
Since it can make them nervous, watching your employees’ every move is counterproductive and it will only demotivate them from work. Instead, give them responsibility and greater autonomy and you will see them rise to the occasion in due course.
Empower Them
This is an extension of the above. If you want your employees to perform their best, then you must empower them. Want to inspire your employees? Empower them by letting them have more of a say in the work they do. Don’t dictate to your employees. Instead, ask for their opinions and get suggestions on how their performance can be improved.
Often, employees would know what is required for them to become more efficient at their job, but they won’t share this with you unless you specifically ask for it. So, do just that and have meetings with your employees where you ask for their opinions and suggestions on how to make them more efficient at their job. This is one of the best ways to empower your employee and an empowered employee means an employee motivated to be their best at work.
Give Incentives for Completing Tasks
If you give your employees a reward for a job well done, then they’ll be motivated to repeat the same performance in the future as well. In short, you need to give your employees incentives for completing tasks to the best of their abilities or better than the others. One of the oldest and most tried ways of motivating workers, positive reinforcement can take many shapes and forms including movie tickets, free-lunches, small gift-items or even gift cards that convey to the employees how much they are valued. By doing this, you will not only motivate employees to work harder, but will also inspire a bit of heathy competition in the workplace, which in turn will increase your company’s chances of growth.
Offer Career-Growth Opportunities
Employees will not stay long at a company where they see little career-growth. Whether it is a fresh graduate or a person with years of experience, every person who is eligible for employment would want to work for an organization where there is huge potential for career growth and advancement. When they are working towards something, employees tend to be more motivated. No one wants to work in a place where even years of hard work will lead to nothing or to be specific—no career advancement.
Even if they aren’t many opportunities for growth in your company, you need to exhibit to your employees that they can advance their careers by being with you. Offer them training and arrange career counselling sessions at the workplace. Groom your employees to be future managers whether it is at your company or somewhere else. If you do this, you employees will be motivated to be with your company for long and do their best while they are with you.
Include Them in The Big Decisions
When major changes are made to the work policies or big decisions related to a project are taken without their input or consent, employees get disappointed to say the least. If you want to encourage rather than discourage your employees, then include them in the big decisions. Don’t let your employees feel unimportant and isolated because if you do that, it won’t be long before they hand in their resignation letter.
By asking for their insight on big decisions, you show to your employees how much you value them. On the other hand, when you discount their opinion completely when taking important company decisions, you lower their loyalty and trust towards your company. So, do the sensible thing and ask your employees for their opinions and suggestions when making big or important company decisions.
There are many other ways to inspire employees. However, the ideas above have proven to be the most effective ways of inspiring employees and motivating employees to perform their best.
by Bobby J Davidson
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