As any good business leader knows, the employees working at their company are essentially the backbone of the business. Without good employees providing excellent services, you will never have a good, reputable business. This is why it is important to keep hold of valued employees, and one of the key ways of doing this is to ensure your employees are motivated. Whether you run a sales based business or a retail business or whether you provide a more niche service such as the ability to carry out background checks online, you need to have motivated employees.
As a manager or business owner, once you’ve checked through applications, carried out the necessary checks, and offered a position to a candidate, you may think that’s the end of the matter. However, it is not just about recruiting the right people but also retaining them. Some businesses end up with extremely high staff turnover rates, and this is often because the employees are not motivated and not happy.
Key steps to effective employee motivation
There are many steps that can make a difference when it comes to motivating your employees. One of these is to ensure your employees receive realistic and achievable goals. Goals are important because your team needs to have something to work toward in order to benefit from a sense of direction and achievement. However, setting unrealistic goals can be counterproductive and leave your employees feeling despondent. This is why you need to ensure that the goals you set can be achieved and that your employees are comfortable working with them.
Another way in which you can motivate your employees is through encouragement. Many employees may be keen to see their career progress, and if you encourage them it can help to motivate and spur them on. You could provide encouragement by enabling them to shadow another team member or department, enrolling them in relevant courses and training, and providing advice and resources to help them further their career. Hopefully, this way they will want to stay with your company as their career progresses rather than moving on elsewhere.
Rewards are another important point to consider when it comes to motivating your employees. Nobody wants to slave away, achieve their goals, and receive no acknowledgement or thanks for it. So, in order to keep your team motivated, have some sort of rewards scheme in place. This could be anything from ’employee of the month’ in working environments such as sales to bonuses or team building events to reward the staff.
It is important to remember that employees will follow the example set by their superiors, so you need to lead by example. As a manager, it is important to show that you are able and willing to do everything you expect of your employees. You should help and nurture them through effective leadership and make sure that you are an approachable leader rather than one that people are afraid to speak to. This will make it far easier for you and your staff to discuss issues that may be impacting motivation and even staff morale. It also makes it easier for you to tackle any issues before things get out of hand and you end up losing valued staff members.
