Top Five Ways To Motivate Your Employees
In today’s competitive global economy the difference between the success and failure of any business can often be attributed to employee satisfaction and retention. With slim margins and high overhead, saving dollars on the repeated training of new employees can make a huge difference to the bottom line. A business that has satisfied employees has higher staff retention and is continually building on training and experience rather than having to find new staff with similar experience over and over. That then begs the question, what are the best ways to value and motivate your employees?
You might be surprised to learn that communication is among the most effective ways to keep a connection with your staff that helps them to feel motivated. If you are the business owner or a manager, consider taking 15 minutes at some point each day to say hello to every employee in your direct vicinity. Address them by name, ask them how they are and try to remember even one personal fact about them each time. An employee that feels heard and is greeted in a genuine and friendly way by their employer will feel valued and pleased and will want to foster that positive give and take with quality work.
While you are speaking with each staff member they may occasionally take a minute or two to offer feedback and suggestions as to how to improve workflow, productivity or solve an ongoing problem that may have occurred. Who better to listen to than the people who are hands on and performing the tasks that run your business every day? Obviously you are not going to implement every idea and change that is presented to you but what a great resource that knowledge bank would be. You can make note of suggestions and bring them up to upper management whenever it may become appropriate. When positive changes are put in place because of an employee’s idea, make sure that they are made aware that they have been given credit for a good idea. That feedback can go farther to creating goodwill than any other kind of incentive.
Offering regular and relevant training that employees can take advantage of is sometimes an unexpected way of allowing them to feel more motivated. Training is an obvious way of improving the skill level of staff members and that impact on your bottom line seems like a logical result. However don’t overlook how much employees value the chance to take part in training and to improve their skills. Training implies that you believe in them and as a result you are investing in them as a valuable contribution to your business. This is a win win situation and every business should be implementing training as part of their staff success programs.
An effective and tangible addition to the above strategies of employee motivation is the increasingly popular tactic of putting an employee recognition and rewards program in place. Programs like these reward longevity of time at a business as well as work ethic that goes above and beyond the base level of expectations.
The bottom line is simple; valued employees produce better work and stay longer at a job. Cultivating as many ways as possible of showing your employees that you value them is time well spent and will only serve to grow your business in the long run.
