Maybe you already do really well when it comes to motivating your team, but if you’re struggling to balance the business and keep the spirits of your employees high, you’re in the right place!
Discover the reasons
Motivating staff can be challenging at times, and it can also be difficult to pinpoint why members of your team may be underperforming or low in morale. There can be several reasons why your employees don’t feel motivated and aren’t working to their full potential, but it’s not difficult to resolve as long as you know the reasons why. Demotivated employees can be caused by anything from feeling a lack of direction to a change in personal circumstances, with a whole lot of factors in between.
What’s vital is that you work closely with your team and identify why they don’t feel motivated. After all, you need a happy and motivated team to make a successful business. So, you must establish a way of getting employees achieving excellent results and staying motivated, especially when you aren’t there.
How To Motivate Your Team
Be motivated yourself
Your staff need to see you as motivated and strong, and this is a great example to make. By being upbeat and hardworking, your team will hopefully learn from you and feel motivated with your support.
Set realistic but challenging targets
If you set achievable but challenging goals within the team, it can be really positive in creating a little healthy competition to lift spirits.
Give praise and recognition when it’s due
This is so important! Most hardworking staff feel undervalued when, in fact, they are not! Sometimes a little ‘well done’ or ‘good job’ can go a long way in boosting morale.
Reward employees when they do well
Pizza Friday’s? Half-day on their Birthday? There are loads of ways to rewards your staff, and a little treat every now and again shows them that you believe in them. This will spur them on to work harder going forward.
Communicate
Communication is absolutely vital. This is why we suggest having weekly, bi-weekly or monthly catch-ups on what’s working and what could be even better with a little tweaking. Inviting open and honest conversation is really important and can really help motivate employees. But don’t be offended – you are asking for feedback so take the good with the bad and look at how you can resolve any issues.
Regular feedback about performance
Set up one-ones and other regular catch-ups so you can have conversations about performance and how things could be different to help motivation. These catch-ups are also great opportunities to discuss growth or development opportunities.
There has been so much research on how to keep employee morale high, but findings suggest that feeling valued plays a massive part in the mood and behaviour of your employees. Yes, you can offer unlimited free drinks and throw in some other fashionable perks, but the bottom line is that if your staff don’t feel secure in their job and valued as an employee, they will lack motivation.
One of the most important things is that you come across as approachable and willing to help and support where you can. The wellbeing of your employees is just as important as your clients, so nurturing them is pivotal to their performance.
image:istock.com/jacoblund
