If you’re an entrepreneur, you know that you have plenty at stake in the early stages of your start-up company. You need to focus on meeting crucial deadlines and maintaining forward momentum. One of the major factors that can help you accomplish this is the degree of motivation your employees feel on the job.
Here are a few ways that companies can attract, retain, and motivate their teams.
1. Understand your employees’ perspective
As a chief executive officer, meeting your business goals might involve one set of priorities. However, your employees may be looking for very different motivating factors. You should concentrate on celebrating those ways in which your staff members help you to raise productivity, increase sales, and obtain awards and positive press for your company.
2. Don’t contribute to burnout
Experts say that it’s counterproductive to attempt to boost productivity by demanding that employees work long hours or otherwise increase the pressure to perform. They point out that staff members who are burnt out simply aren’t up to the task of producing high-quality or high-volume work. Overworked and overstressed staff members aren’t working to their full capacity. They may be overlooking new opportunities or finding their focus shifting away from their overall goals. Management needs to provide for slower times in between the very busy seasons and to pause to recognize collective successes in product creation, marketing, and public recognition.
3. Promote openness and communication
You can also develop your employees’ productivity by communicating with them in the same way you would a group of investors. By being transparent and offering them the same type of information you would give an investor, you will likely find that your staff members become increasingly loyal to your business interests.
4. Help your team profit from change
Allow for flexibility and changes in course as an integral part of your long and short-term planning. You should foster a culture that embraces the positive aspects of change at every level of your organization. Many companies and their CEOs fail to live up to their potential or collapse entirely because they either fear change or see it as a negative and step up their efforts to counteract it. Give your staff complete information about how change is affecting your organization, and make sure they understand why you are making decisions to either stay on track or shift your focus. By doing so, you dispel the power of rumor and empower your team to contribute their best efforts.
5. Harness 21st century technologies
Use cutting-edge platforms to help you and your team communicate in real time. By digitizing your communication processes, you can offer your staff a more dynamic and detailed picture of your company’s overall operations.
6. Understand workplace psychology
Numerous studies have demonstrated the toxicity of a high-pressure workplace. Your staff members want to feel inspired and energized by their work. They want to feel what they do contributes to the team’s mission.
Widely publicized psychological studies have revealed that companies focused on developing employees’ knowledge, participation, and level of responsibility tend to have higher levels of employee satisfaction. This type of job enrichment is perhaps the leading factor in fostering job satisfaction.
However, the factors that contribute to employees’ satisfaction at work show little relation to those that create dissatisfaction. Or, to put it slightly differently: even if you improve your workplace environment and address employees’ complaints, you won’t necessarily see their level of job satisfaction increase. All you will have done is eliminate their source of dissatisfaction.
On the other hand, when you try to promote employee knowledge and engagement, as well as provide opportunities for advancement and recognition, you are more likely to develop a tightly knit company culture and increase motivation.
7. Provide continuing education
Your employees will appreciate greater possibilities for gaining education and training, particularly when accompanied by tuition reimbursement programs. They will also benefit from any formal mentoring programs you can offer. By providing your employees with the opportunity to broaden and deepen their skill sets, you will be showing them that you care about their long-term career advancement. And the benefit to you is obvious: A well-educated workforce is more likely to be motivated to produce more and better work. Your area’s colleges and trade schools, as well as organizations associated with your industry, may offer cost-effective programs that can benefit both you and your employees.
8. Share responsibility
The trust you place in your employees will be a major factor in boosting their motivation and desire to take on more responsibility. You should avoid micromanagement and allow your team to develop their own leadership skills by giving them a fairly wide latitude in decision-making whenever you can and by increasing their project management responsibilities. Remember to maintain a good balance between increasing opportunities for job enrichment and responsibility.
9. Support staff ideas
When a member of your team approaches you with a new idea to try or a proposed solution to a problem, it means that he or she is invested in the continued growth of your company. When you encourage your employees’ desire to develop new plans, you are signaling a level of trust and support that can be highly motivating.
