Your employees are the backbone of your business, so you want to keep them as motivated and eager to come to work every day as possible. After all, motivated employees are more likely to stick around, take unnecessary sick days, and do their best to enhance your business and what it offers. If you have noticed a dip in the morale within your workplace and you’re ready to get things back on track, these strategies for motivating your employees can help.
1. Offer a Big Incentive
Think of something big that will make your employees more likely to be productive, hit their sales targets, schedule more estimates, etc. Booking a Hawaii cruise for the winners could get the results you want. You may also want to consider big incentives like cash prizes, gift certificates, and other prizes that will get your employees motivated to work.
Make sure you implement practices that ensure the incentive is awarded fairly and after a certain period of time. In addition to this incentive, you may also want to offer a variety of prizes to ensure people feel like they have a fair chance at the big prize in addition to others.
2. Give Positive Feedback
It is hard to stay motivated at work when you have no idea if you are doing a good job or not, especially if you are new in the workplace. For this reason, focus on giving your employees plenty of positive feedback about their performance in addition to constructive criticism. This can help your employees know where they stand, what they can do to refine their skills, and work towards big incentives you might offer, like cruises, gift cards, and other prizes.
3. Encourage Teamwork
Going to work every day can be tough when you feel like you don’t know the people you work with very well or you don’t work very well together. Make it a point to encourage teamwork within your workplace to help your employees feel more motivated and satisfied with their jobs.
For example, you may develop more projects and initiatives that require your employees to work collaboratively. Or, you may host more team building days where you take your employees away from the workplace for a day and conduct exercises that promote trust, friendship, and understanding.
4. Listen to Requests
Has one of your employees ever made a request about their job and you either forgot about it or ignored it? When you see your employees as people with valuable feedback, they are more likely to stay motivated and work hard to get good results for your company.
When one of your employees turns to you with a request, listen seriously to them about it. Then, try to find a way to implement it. If their request is not feasible, try to offer an alternative to make them feel heard. You can also encourage your employees to reach out to you with ideas and encourage a work environment that promotes open communication and collaboration.
5. Set Up a Rewards System
Most likely, your employees want to be rewarded for a job well done on an ongoing basis. Although your praise and feedback goes a long way, you may also want to set up a rewards system that provides tangible recognition for your employees’ efforts.
This system can include anything from awarding points to go towards prizes for good reviews or ratings to an anonymous feedback system that makes sure good work does not go unnoticed. Keep in mind that while this system may work well at first, you may have to redesign it on occasion to keep things interesting and your employees engaged.
There’s no right or wrong way to motivate your employees. As long as you work hard to motivate them and keep trying to find methods that inspire productivity in your workplace, you’ll notice the results of your efforts sooner rather than later.