15 Ways to Motivate Your Employees
15 Ways to Motivate Your Employees
Over the years, I have observed leaders trying many ways to motivate their people to higher levels of performance. Even the best leaders have experienced the frustration of trying to lead someone who seemed to refuse to live up to expectations. Ironically, their people were probably feeling the same way. The reason: Motivation develops internally from a personal desire to achieve goals that are important both to the individual and to the organization. Motivation is the force that prompts you to take action. If you are having trouble getting someone to achieve your goals, you are probably failing to understand what theirs are.
A lot of research has been conducted over the years to identify the factors that have the most dramatic impact on productivity. While pay, fringe benefits, and working conditions are important, research has shown that absence of these factors produces a lack of motivation, but their presence has no long-range motivational effects. Long-range motivational factors are recognition of a job well done, sense of achievement, growth, participation, challenge, and identification with the company’s goals and vision.
In spite of these facts, leaders and managers spend a lot of time trying to find ways to motivate employees through fear and incentive. The very essence of fear is negative and over time has diminishing effects as employees develop attitudes that lead to a decrease in quality, commitment, and productivity. Fear can be highly motivating, but does not produce positive results for any length of time. Incentive, on the other hand, is a positive motivator, that is, a reward in exchange for a specific behavior. This also has diminishing returns as employees expect fair compensation based on their contributions, and, many times, there is a disconnect between what the employee desires and what the employer is willing to pay. Over time, employees start gravitating toward desiring more of the intangible rewards such as respect, growth, knowledge, prestige, and recognition (to name a few) that ultimately govern their internal motivation. The challenge lies in recognizing each individual’s unique desires.
Here are 15 ideas proven to provide for long-term motivation:
1. Create a clear vision. Identify the organization’s mission and goals, and make sure that everyone understands the rationale behind them and how they contribute toward achieving them.
2. Clearly communicate departmental objectives, and solicit input from your employees on what they can do to help achieve them.
3. Make an effort to compliment each of your direct reports on at least a weekly basis.
4. Make employee development and retention a primary objective of each manager and leader and reward their success accordingly.
5. Ask employees for advice in areas where they have expertise.
6. Involve everyone at all levels in the goal-setting and planning processes, particularly if they are responsible for the results.
7. Let people know what is expected of them, and do everything you can to make them successful.
8. Develop a “servant leader” attitude, and be there for your people rather than having them there for you.
9. Treat everyone with dignity and respect.
10. Stand behind your employees and back their decisions.
11. Show the courage to let your employees learn from their mistakes.
12. Take time to listen carefully to other people’s interests, opinions, concerns, and goals.
13. Meet individually with your employees; help them clarify their personal goals and values; and assist them in identifying the skills they need to achieve their goals.
14. Find ways to enrich the jobs of your employees by increasing their authority or span of control.
15. Encourage employees to expand their comfort zone.
Reference and excerpts taken with permission from Leadership published by Resource Associates Corporation, Mohnton, PA
15 Ways to Motivate Your Employees - To learn more about this author, visit Howard Shore's Website.
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In today’s business environment, it is essential that we find ways to make our organizational resources more productive. In many organizations, the most prominent and expensive resource we have is our people. As a result, a lot of time is spent on creating processes and conditions that drive and motivate our employees.
Over the years, I have observed leaders trying many ways to motivate their people to higher levels of performance. Even the best leaders have experienced the frustration of trying to lead someone who seemed to refuse to live up to expectations. Ironically, their people were probably feeling the same way. The reason: Motivation develops internally from a personal desire to achieve goals that are important both to the individual and to the organization. Motivation is the force that prompts you to take action. If you are having trouble getting someone to achieve your goals, you are probably failing to understand what theirs are.
A lot of research has been conducted over the years to identify the factors that have the most dramatic impact on productivity. While pay, fringe benefits, and working conditions are important, research has shown that absence of these factors produces a lack of motivation, but their presence has no long-range motivational effects. Long-range motivational factors are recognition of a job well done, sense of achievement, growth, participation, challenge, and identification with the company’s goals and vision.
In spite of these facts, leaders and managers spend a lot of time trying to find ways to motivate employees through fear and incentive. The very essence of fear is negative and over time has diminishing effects as employees develop attitudes that lead to a decrease in quality, commitment, and productivity. Fear can be highly motivating, but does not produce positive results for any length of time. Incentive, on the other hand, is a positive motivator, that is, a reward in exchange for a specific behavior. This also has diminishing returns as employees expect fair compensation based on their contributions, and, many times, there is a disconnect between what the employee desires and what the employer is willing to pay. Over time, employees start gravitating toward desiring more of the intangible rewards such as respect, growth, knowledge, prestige, and recognition (to name a few) that ultimately govern their internal motivation. The challenge lies in recognizing each individual’s unique desires.
Here are 15 ideas proven to provide for long-term motivation:
1. Create a clear vision. Identify the organization’s mission and goals, and make sure that everyone understands the rationale behind them and how they contribute toward achieving them.
2. Clearly communicate departmental objectives, and solicit input from your employees on what they can do to help achieve them.
3. Make an effort to compliment each of your direct reports on at least a weekly basis.
4. Make employee development and retention a primary objective of each manager and leader and reward their success accordingly.
5. Ask employees for advice in areas where they have expertise.
6. Involve everyone at all levels in the goal-setting and planning processes, particularly if they are responsible for the results.
7. Let people know what is expected of them, and do everything you can to make them successful.
8. Develop a “servant leader” attitude, and be there for your people rather than having them there for you.
9. Treat everyone with dignity and respect.
10. Stand behind your employees and back their decisions.
11. Show the courage to let your employees learn from their mistakes.
12. Take time to listen carefully to other people’s interests, opinions, concerns, and goals.
13. Meet individually with your employees; help them clarify their personal goals and values; and assist them in identifying the skills they need to achieve their goals.
14. Find ways to enrich the jobs of your employees by increasing their authority or span of control.
15. Encourage employees to expand their comfort zone.
Reference and excerpts taken with permission from Leadership published by Resource Associates Corporation, Mohnton, PA
15 Ways to Motivate Your Employees - To learn more about this author, visit Howard Shore's Website.
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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