Keeping Your Employees Motivated Part II Look outside - the sun is shining, the weather is beautiful and your employees are counting down the minutes until the work day ends. Ahh, summer is here. Family picnics, vacations, garden parties and cookouts are on everyone's minds. It is no surprise that this is the time of year that employee motivation takes a sharp dip. Last fall, Doherty sent out an article on the topic of employee recognition programs and how they help to encourage a positive working environment. With the summer months in full swing, we wanted to give you other tips to encourage and stimulate employees before the end of the season. A Time to Encourage Obviously, businesses need motivated employees. They work more efficiently and produce better results. The good news for employers is that for the most part, every person has a bit of self-motivation within. The challenge lies in managers figuring out how to create an environment in which employees are inspired about the right things, like work priorities. Companies may fail to pay attention to the employee relations, communication, recognition, and involvement issues that are crucial to motivation. Key Areas Here are four areas managers can focus their attention on to successfully create an encouraging environment: Employee Relations By helping employees feel they are more than just a number, the result is that they feel they are truly offering something important. Distinguishing your employees is oftentimes an overlooked tactic. To help encourage employees, a manager could start recognizing them on the personal level, and not solely on the professional level. Get to know about their families and their interests aside from work. It doesn't mean prying into their personal lives, but simply knowing what interests employees have outside of work Spending time with your employees should be a top priority as well. Take a few minutes out of your day to talk with them and give them the opportunity to voice their opinions, concerns or simply ask them how their week is going. It helps to demonstrate your level of empathy. Also, leave your door open as it is hard to be a leader from behind closed doors. Encourage your employees to visit you. Any type of positive conversation, even a casual one, is a great way to increase employee motivation. Communication Sharing information about not only what to do, but also why it is important, is a great way to motivate employees. Goal-setting and providing of feedback about performance are foundations of effective workplace leadership. But beyond being able to speak, a manager must also be able to listen. Listening encourages employee motivation by assuring the employee that you are engaged in the information they are sharing with you. It is important to make an effort to understand people's attitudes by careful listening, questioning and giving them the opportunity to express themselves. Recognition Most employees suffer from insecurity at some time. This type of anxiety can impede anyone's motivation. To build confidence in these individuals, recognition plays a huge role. As mentioned in the previous article (weblink here), effective recognition reinforces the outstanding work that many employees perform which leads a successful business. To begin an effective recognition program, it is important to always reward top performance. Be as clear as possible to your staff on just what you consider top performance. You must also have a plan and culture that motivates less-than-top performers to strive to do better. Before launching a recognition program, decide on the reward. If you've relied on cash bonuses or prizes in the past and they have been effective, then continue to use them. You may want to consider keeping a log of your employees' progress or achievements to distribute these rewards fairly. A few common, but effective, employee recognition programs are: Hold competitions for one month. If the employees reach a certain goal, reward them with a team outing or cash prizes. Have an on-the-spot award to recognize teamwork, project completion, a new or modified work practice, exemplary effort, employee appreciation, etc. Display plaques in which employees names will appear for special service awards and recognition. Example: employee of the month. Include a prize along with the presentation of the name on the plaque. Have awards for attendance, safety, customer service, productivity, outstanding achievements, etc. Create an award for employees who go "Above & Beyond the Call of Duty". As the prize, offer logo items such as a t-shirt or mug. Hold a raffle for members of an outstanding work group and award cash or gift certificates. Involvement People think of employee motivation as something that is done aside from their "real" work within a company. One of the best ways to motivate is to get employees involved. It does not necessarily mean teams, special committees, or suggestion boxes. It is rather the expectation that an employee is competent enough to make their own decisions about their work every day on the job. When an employee comes to you for your direction in a situation, ask him what he thinks he should do. If you can assist the employee to find a better answer, act as a consultant without assuming the responsibility for the project. This approach reinforces the employee's belief in their decision-making ability. People want and need to feel their contribution is valued, unique and the decisions they make will result in positive gains for the company. Summary It is important that a manager creates a working environment that is beneficial for the company and supports its growth, goals and strategic plans. If you focus on these key areas to help increase employee motivation, rest assured you will have a good working relationship with your staff, while at the same time boosting your company's productivity. Motivation and success go hand in hand. Employees' rate of success is linked to how they are directed, reviewed, rewarded, trusted and motivated by their managers.
Doherty Employer Services As one of the Midwest's largest Human Resource Outsourcing organizations, Doherty Employer Services provides human resource, benefits, risk management, safety and workers' compensation and payroll services to employees in 48 states. Accredited by the Employer Services Assurance Corporation (www.esacorp.org) and a member of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (www.napeo.org), Doherty is nationally known as an innovative employment services and staffing firm.		If you do not wish to continue to receive our monthly newsletter please click on this unsubscribe link to be removed from our distribution list.