Motivating Employees in Most Effective Manner

Employee motivation is an intrinsic and internal drive to put forth the necessary effort and action towards work-related activities. Motivation can be thought of as the willingness to expend energy to achieve a goal or a reward.

Motivation at work has been defined as ‘the sum of the processes that influence the arousal, direction, and maintenance of behaviors relevant to work settings

Individual Motivation Matters

Taking a moment to speak to an individual alone and personally can make him or her feel truly appreciated.

Offer Opportunities for Progression

Your employees are more motivated when they know they’re working towards something. If they think there’s no opportunity for advancement, they don’t have much to work for. Nobody wants to work a dead-end job. Motivate your employees by offering training that gives them the skills they need to climb their career ladder.

Support and Acknowledge Their Contributions

Back them up. When things go wrong, the buck stops at your desk. Do not deal with problems by telling your superiors how awful your supervisees are. Tell how you will go about preventing a re-occurrence.

Let them be confident that when you pass their suggestions and contributions up the chain of command you will acknowledge the members of your team as the source.

Take Time for Your Employee

When a supervisee comes to you, stop what you are doing, make eye contact. If you can’t be interrupted, immediately set up a later time when you will be able to pay full attention to them. Otherwise people may feel that they are bothersome to you, and you may someday find yourself wondering why no one tells you what is happening in your own department.

Don’t Micro Manage

Let them know the plans and the goals, that you trust them to do their best, and then let them have the freedom to make at least some of the decisions as to how to do what is needed. Morale and creativity nosedive when the flow of work is interrupted by a supervisor checking on progress every two minutes.

Empower Them

Give your employees more of a say in how they do their job. Ask for their input and get suggestions on how they can improve their performance.

Let them work to their strengths. We all like to feel good about our work. If we can do something that we do well, we will feel proud. If you believe supervisees need to strengthen areas of weakness, have them work on these, too, but not exclusively.

Praise in public, correct in private. Nothing undermines morale as effectively as public humiliation.

Motivation plays a key role in keeping your best employees, too. If you don’t consistently motivate your employees, you’re sure to experience a higher amount of turnover.