Tips for workplace motivation

There are many times during the year that the workplace tends to get stressful and morale among employees starts to drop.  Once the morale starts to drop, motivation to get things done lowers and people stop being productive and no longer produce great results.  When this happens it is important to concentrate on keeping your employees motivated.

Practice what you preach:

Instead of telling employees that they need to communicate – communicate better with them.  By starting and developing on two-way conversations your employees will feel more comfortable to speak their mind.  Make sure you are listening to understand – not just to respond.  This will show your employees that you are a leader who cares and is willing to listen.

Be Supportive when you need to

When you find out what the employees need from the management team, they will start to feel more valued.  No one likes talking to a brick wall, when employees realise that their ideas and concerns are being taken seriously by management – they will feel more motivated to work for the organization.  Devise incentives and a reward system for those who do exceptionally well to motivate the teams to keep working hard.

Have the end in mind and share it with others. 

Great leadership comes with knowing the end goal.  By sharing this with employees you are giving them a direction of what they are working towards.  Also, by letting them know where they are going – they are able to share their ideas on how they could make the process better.  This will make them feel like they are part of the bigger picture and feel more motivated to get to the end goal.

Build teams that work together

People in teams don’t need to necessarily like each other, but they do need to know how to work together.  It is proven that teams that are diverse and different in many ways, tend to get the work done quicker – but only if they know how to work together.  There are many teambuilding activities where teams can get together and find their strengths and weaknesses and how they can complement each other.

Keep encouraging creativity. 

When you have a friendly and motivated work environment, employees won’t be afraid to take risks and their creativity will soar.  Employees have great ideas, yet some are afraid to voice them because they do not want to be humiliated.  Some leaders take on a “Hall of Shame” approach where they meet with their teams and they all share a mistake they made that week and how it was overcome.  This is a great way to show that everyone makes mistakes and it will allow employees to feel more comfortable to voice their opinions.

What are some of the techniques you use to keep your staff motivated?  We want to know!