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Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security

Employee Engagement

Unlock Your Team's Potential: How to Motivate Employees for Success

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Image Source: Unsplash‍

Employee motivation is an important factor in any business operation. It can have a positive effect on employee morale, productivity, and job satisfaction. In this blog post, we will discuss the importance of motivating employees and provide some tips on how to do it effectively.

What is Employee Motivation?

Employee motivation is the process of providing incentives and rewards to employees in order to increase their performance and engagement. It is a key factor in employee retention and productivity. Employee motivation is a complex and multi-faceted process that depends on a variety of factors, such as job satisfaction, recognition, and rewards.

When employees are motivated, they are more likely to be engaged in their work, and this can lead to better performance, increased productivity, and higher job satisfaction. The key to motivating employees is to understand their needs, objectives, and goals and to offer rewards and incentives that cater to these.

Benefits of Motivating Employees

There are many benefits to motivating employees. Here are some of the main ones:

  • Increase in employee engagement: When employees are motivated, they are more likely to be engaged in their work, which can lead to higher job satisfaction and better performance.

  • Increase in productivity: Motivated employees are more productive, as they are more likely to go the extra mile in order to get the job done.

  • Improved morale: When employees are motivated and rewarded, they are more likely to be happy and satisfied with their work, which can lead to better team morale.

  • Improved customer service: Motivated employees are more likely to provide better customer service, as they are more likely to be engaged and attentive to customer needs.

Employee Motivation Statistics

Research shows that motivated employees are more productive and have higher job satisfaction. Here are some statistics to back this up:

  • According to a Gallup survey, only 13% of employees feel engaged at work.

  • According to the same survey, 68% of employees are not motivated to work.

  • According to the same survey, 25% of employees feel no connection to their work.

  • A study by the University of California found that motivated employees are 30% more productive than unmotivated employees.

  • According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, 39% of employees feel that their job has a negative impact on their health.

These statistics show the importance of motivating employees and the need to create an environment that encourages motivation.

Understanding Employee Motivation

Motivating employees is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Each employee may need different incentives and rewards in order to feel motivated. It is important to understand the individual needs of each employee in order to create an effective motivation plan.

Employees may need different incentives and rewards in order to feel motivated. These can include recognition, rewards, and other forms of motivation such as financial incentives, flexible working hours, or additional vacation days. It is important to understand the individual needs of each employee in order to create an effective motivation plan.

The Manager’s Role in Employee Motivation

Managers play an important role in motivating employees. They should be able to identify what motivates each employee and tailor rewards and incentives accordingly. Managers should also provide feedback and recognition to employees in order to show that their efforts are appreciated.

Managers should also create an environment where employees feel valued and respected. They should ensure that employees have the resources and support they need to do their job effectively. Furthermore, managers should provide employees with opportunities to grow and develop.

Common Employee Motivation Strategies

There are a variety of strategies that managers can use to motivate their employees. Here are some of the most common ones:

  • Recognition: One of the most effective ways to motivate employees is to recognize their efforts and achievements. This can be done through verbal praise, awards, or other forms of recognition.

  • Rewards: Rewards are a great way to motivate employees. Rewards can be either monetary or non-monetary and should be tailored to each individual employee.

  • Flexible working hours: Flexible working hours can help to motivate employees, as it shows that the company is willing to accommodate their personal needs.

  • Training and development: Providing employees with training and development opportunities can help to motivate them, as it shows that the company is investing in their growth and development.

  • Supportive environment: Creating a supportive environment where employees feel valued and respected can help to motivate them.

How to Encourage Employee Motivation

Encouraging employee motivation is an important part of managing a team. Here are some tips to help you do this effectively:

  • Set clear goals: Setting clear goals and expectations will help to motivate employees and ensure that they are working towards the same objectives.

  • Provide feedback: Providing feedback on a regular basis will help to keep employees motivated, as it shows that their efforts are appreciated.

  • Offer incentives: Offering incentives such as bonuses or rewards can help to motivate employees and encourage better performance.

  • Show appreciation: Showing appreciation for employees’ hard work and dedication can help to keep them motivated and engaged in their work.

  • Create opportunities: Creating opportunities for employees to learn and develop can help to motivate them and show that the company is investing in their growth.

What Factors Motivate Employees?

When trying to motivate employees, it is important to understand what factors motivate them. Different employees may be motivated by different things, so it is important to tailor incentives and rewards to each individual. Here are some of the key factors that motivate employees:

  • Recognition: Employees want to feel appreciated and recognized for their hard work and efforts.

  • Autonomy: Employees want to feel like they are in control of their work and are able to make their own decisions.

  • Opportunities: Employees want opportunities to learn and grow in their roles.

  • Support: Employees need to feel supported in their roles and have access to the resources and tools they need to do their job effectively.

  • Rewards: Employees want to be rewarded for their hard work and efforts.

Getting the Most Out of Your Team

Managers should aim to create an environment that encourages employee motivation and engagement. Here are some tips to help you do this:

  • Create an open and collaborative atmosphere: Creating an atmosphere of collaboration, and open communication will help to foster motivation and engagement.

  • Foster a culture of recognition: Recognizing and rewarding employees for their hard work and dedication will help to keep them motivated.

  • Provide resources: Providing employees with the resources and training they need to do their jobs effectively will help to keep them engaged and motivated.

  • Set achievable goals: Setting achievable goals will help to keep employees motivated and encourage them to reach their full potential.

  • Offer rewards: Offering rewards and incentives can help to motivate employees and encourage better performance.

Conclusion

Motivating employees is an important part of managing a team. It can have a positive effect on employee morale, productivity, and job satisfaction. By understanding what factors motivate employees and offering incentives and rewards that cater to these, managers can create an environment where employees feel valued and engaged.

With this blog post, we hope to have provided you some tips and advice on motivating your team for success. By taking these steps, you can unlock the potential of your team and create a motivated and productive workforce.

Keywords: employee motivation, incentives, rewards, employee retention, productivity, job satisfaction, employee engagement, team morale, customer service, management, feedback, recognition, autonomy, opportunities, supportive environment.

Meta Description: This article discusses the importance of employee motivation in business operations, highlighting its positive effects on employee morale, productivity, and job satisfaction. It provides insights into employee motivation, benefits of motivating employees, strategies for motivating employees, factors that motivate employees, and tips for encouraging employee motivation to help managers create an environment that encourages employee motivation and engagement.

The Great Resignation: How Canadian Leaders Can Retain Talent and Navigate the Labour Shortage with Four Key Strategies

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

TL;DR: By implementing four key strategies, which include promoting a growth mindset, normalizing departures, and supporting employee engagement and recognition, Canadian leaders can effectively address the Great Resignation phenomenon and retain talent in the face of a labour shortage.

The Great Resignation is a phenomenon in which millions of employees have left their jobs searching for new employment opportunities. With Canadian organizations facing labour shortages, leaders must focus on hiring new talent and retaining existing employees. It is essential to recognize the value of remaining employees and support them during this challenging time to maintain stability.

In light of empirical research, we propose four strategies for leaders to address the Great Resignation effectively:

Recognize your influence. 

The actions and words of leaders have a significant impact on the perceptions and attitudes of employees. Examine your communication style to ensure you are not inadvertently exacerbating fear and uncertainty among your employees. For instance, instead of saying, "we don't know what the future holds," try saying something like, "we are prepared to weather any storm with our collective efforts." Understanding your impact will help you to lead your team toward a more positive outlook. For example, rather than highlighting a team's difficulties, leaders can focus on the solutions and the opportunities available.

Emphasize potential and opportunities

In times of change, a growth mindset, which emphasizes learning and potential, can foster resilience. For instance, when faced with a challenging task, people with a growth mindset might focus on the skills they can learn, while people with a fixed mindset might focus on the potential for failure. Encourage your employees to envision the best outcomes for your organization and discuss what excites them about the future. Feelings of fear and uncertainty can be alleviated by creating a sense of potential and opportunity.

Normalize departures

Respectful offboarding processes have been shown to improve the psychological well-being of remaining employees. Recognize the contributions of departing employees and express gratitude for their service. For example, hold a farewell party for an employee who has been with the company for many years and shares stories of their impact on the team. Considering departures as a natural part of the employment process can contribute to a more positive working environment.

Acknowledge and support your employees

Retention and organizational success are strongly correlated with employee engagement. Reconnect with your employees, discuss their aspirations, and recognize their efforts during difficult times. For instance, take the time to appreciate accomplishments made by team members or colleagues and thank them for their contributions or check in to see how they are doing. Make sure your organization's compensation and recognition systems are fair and transparent. Engage employees in problem-solving and decision-making processes to enhance their engagement.

Conclusion

Finally, Canadian leaders must address the challenges of the Great Resignation and focus on supporting their existing employees. Ensure that employees are heard, understood and valued to create an atmosphere of inclusion. This will help ensure that employees remain committed to their work and their teams. Giving employees autonomy and control over their work will empower them to make changes and drive innovation. Companies should also invest in training and development opportunities to ensure employees have the skills to stay competitive. Finally, providing benefits and rewards that recognize hard work and effort will help show employees they are appreciated.

#GreatResignation #CanadianLabourShortage #EmployeeRetention #LeadershipStrategies #GrowthMindset #PotentialAndOpportunities #NormalizeDepartures #RespectfulOffboarding #PsychologicalWellbeing #EmployeeEngagement #Inclusion #FairCompensation #TransparentRecognition #ProblemSolving #DecisionMaking #AutonomyAndControl #Innovation #TrainingAndDevelopment #TalentRetention #OrganizationalSuccess #EmployeeRecognition #EmployeeAppreciation #WorkforceManagement

It's time to evaluate your company

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

As we pass to the second half of the year, many companies start their annual merit review cycle. It is an opportunity for your leaders to evaluate the corpus of your work and determine how much value you delivered to the company (thus deserving a salary adjustment).

What employees often forget is that they too should use this period as an opportunity to determine if they are doing the right job, in the right company & at the right compensation level.

Read my blog entry The “You” Brand

The 4 power questions

  1. Do you like what you are doing?

  2. Do you like who you are doing it with and where you are doing it?

  3. Does your company offer a path your desired future job?

  4. Are you fairly compensated

As we walk through each of these questions, it is important to remember that there is no "perfect" life partner and there is no "perfect" company. What we are trying to determine is: "Is this company the right one for your at this moment in time".

It is important to evaluate the questions in the order I have presented them.

Do you like what you are doing?

Ask yourself if you (honestly) are excited about the work you are doing. When Friday comes along, do you turn off “work mode” until Monday morning? If you do then you have a job, not a career. It means you are not passionate about your chosen profession and it may be time to figure out “what you want to be when you grow up”.

Do you like who you are doing it with and where you are doing it?

Many leaders would probably break this question down into 2 separate ones (one for people and one for the company) but I believe they work better together.

You may like your job but do you like the people you are doing it with? There is no perfect environment but overall, do you enjoy collaborating and working with most of your co-workers? Are you surrounded by like-minded people who challenge you and respect you? Do the people you work with care as much about you, as you do for them?

In the same vein, do you like working for your company? Do you share the vision, mission and core values of your company? A 2017 MetLife survey found employees (9/10) would rather work for a company that shared their values than one that offered higher pay. The survey also found that employees were willing to take a 21% pay cut to work for that better-aligned company (jumped to 34% for millennials).

This is also the category I include work-life alignment in. Does the ratio of work-life balance the company expects to, align with what you are looking for?

Obviously, every employee’s requirements are different but the importance of this alignment is undeniable.

If you love your job (question 1) and you love who you work with (where), then work doesn’t feel like work. You can enjoy going to work and living your best life.

Does your company offer a path your desired future job?

Not everyone is looking for career advancement but most of you probably are. Does your company offer a supportive, nurturing environment where you can learn and grow? Are executives willing to take a chance with less experienced employees, allowing them to develop? Are executives willing to coach and guide employees to develop their skills in preparation for future promotion? Last, but not least, does the company promote from within or do they hire most leaders from the outside?

Are you fairly compensated

The question about compensation was purposefully left until the end. Every other question we have examined will feed into this one.

The old 1980's corporate mantra was :

"Employees work just enough not to get fired. Employers pay just enough so employees don't quit".

As stupid as this mantra sounds today, some older leaders still espouse this as a "nugget of wisdom" (do the companies values align with yours?).

The modern strategy of salary management dictates that companies must pay enough so employees aren't stressed about money and spend their mental energy on doing what they do best.

The real-world equation is more complicated and is a subjective evaluation of fair pay within the company (often difficult to judge because the information is not readily available), and compare to other organizations offerings for similar roles.

It is easy to understand why a company that compensates you properly, probably also values your skills and expertise properly.

Remember the MetLife survey, where employees were willing to work for less if the company's values aligned with their own? This is also true about the other 3 questions we previously discussed.

If you feel that the company's values don't align with yours and/or that the company doesn't offer career advancement and/or you dislike the people you work with, you may decide to stay but may demand a higher premium for the extra "suffering".

Conclusion

Ultimately this is a deeply personal introspection and one you must do honestly (regardless if you are a new graduate or a seasoned executive).

Your company evaluates you annually to decide if you are worth keeping, you should do the same and decide if the company is worth staying at.

Rebuilding broken Employee Engagement

GeneralEdward Kiledjian
Image by GDS-Productions used under Creative Commons License

Image by GDS-Productions used under Creative Commons License

Employee Engagement was incredibly popular in most mid to large organizations, then the recession hit and organizational survival become the modus operandi. It's not that employee engagement isn't important but rather less important than ensuring the survival of the company. 

With business and employee confidence back on the rise and the economy stabilizing, it's no wonder that HR departments and the organizational leadership are now trying to dial back into employee engagement (we are seeing employee engagement discussed at fireside chats during conferences, written about again in management magazines and discussed in HR oriented online forums.)

In the past couple of years, some organizations stopped measuring employee engagement for 2 reasons:

  • cost saving 
  • fearful of the results

The first point is fairly obvious, surveys cost money to prepare, deploy and analyze. In survival mode every penny counted and "superfluous" or "luxurious" items were the first to be cut.

The second point is the sheer fear HR departments and company leadership had about the results. When you cut staff, reduce pays, cut bonuses and otherwise get rid of most perks (from toys to training), you should expect it to hit employee engagement. Whether you measured it or not, the impact of these strict controls are very real on employee engagement and it will take time to fix all the damage.

Communication is often the chief complaint from employees and stressed out leaders tend to communicate less. Reduced communication leads to clouded visibility (by employees) and often feeds the rumour mill. Employees start to question the decisions made by their leaders. They feel ignored and unimportant. Some become extremely vocal about their unhappiness that I nickname them the "prophets of doom". 

“It is during these times of difficulty and turbulence that real leadership is discovered. Regardless of the challenges a leader is facing, he must be willing to keep the communication channels open and must be available to his people”
— Edward N Kiledjian

As a leader you must "pull up your pants" and keep communicating openly and honestly with your employees. Tell them what you can and don't make promises you can't keep. It's especially important not to hide in your office behind a closed door. The more difficult the situation, the more you must be available. Sure some confrontations will be painful but it's our job as leaders to take the good with the bad.

How to improve employee engagement?

Assuming you fell into the above mold, how can you now fix your employee engagement problem? First step is building the lines of communication. Honestly and sincerely communicate with your people. There is no such thing as over-communication. Be honest and share (within reason of course) the challenges being faced, the decisions being taken, why they are being taken and the opportunities you see. Share as much as you can about Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT). Show fortitude of character to take the heat in the tough times not just the glory in the good times.

Employee-employer trust is likely broken because of all the hard decisions most companies have had to take and like situations of infidelity, rebuilding trust takes time. Accept the fact that this is likely something you will have to work hard at for a while. Sincerity and honesty go a long way here. 

“Do what you say and say what you do.”
— Edward N Kiledjian

Like a 12 step program, be honest of any mistakes you (or the organization) have made and explain how you plan on correcting them. Your people are more resilient than you think and often times they can come up with much better and more creative solutions to your problems. Remember that two heads are better than one.

The rest of the solution is to constantly measure employee engagement and fine tune your plan.