Even the best, hard-working employees need to be motivated and encouraged from time to time. Any work can become monotonous sooner or later. Your job, as an entrepreneur or a team leader, is to recognize these situations and to help employees regain their motivation. Here are some of the best, and most constructive ways of inspiring your disengaged employees, and putting them back on the right track.
Improve teamwork and communication
Not only that you have to talk more with your employees on a daily basis, but you should also encourage communication between different teams. Mutual collaboration is crucial for business success. Talk to your disengaged employees as much as possible, have an open ear for their problems, find the solutions, and encourage them to speak with other colleagues in the team. Also, support the connection between your teams, hear their ideas, and help them in achieving mutual goals. You will improve your results overall, and the atmosphere inside the company will be better.
Give them meaningful feedback
Employees usually want feedback, and you should give it to them on a constant, ongoing basis. Maybe the best way to ensure useful feedback is to talk to their supervisors and team leads first. Ask them about the strengths and weaknesses of their team and individuals, and what is their opinion on improvement options. Based on that, arrange a one on one meeting with the employees, praise their accomplishments, but also point out if they made some mistakes. Explain that there is always room for improvement and help them reach their full potential.
Provide career development opportunities
An excellent career path is one of the best employee engagement drivers. Always try to offer mutual benefits for those hard-working, dedicated employees. Recognize their potential and show them the career path option where they can reach their growth goals. If you lack options which suit their needs, design a more structured program for that role, and present it to them. As a result, you will have a strong base of skilled and motivated workers instead of always hiring new people. That way, you are also helping your HR team.
Recognize their effort and reward them
Everybody likes their effort and hard work to get noticed, appreciated, and rewarded. Therefore, don’t overlook those employees who show good results consistently. Talk to them, praise their hard work, and reward them from time to time with bonuses. In the end, everybody is working for the money, and you should secure that they get their salaries and individual bonuses on time. Also, eliminate all those unnecessary fees and paper checks, and try to opt for personalized payroll cards for employees. As a result, your workers will appreciate the fact that you’ve recognized and rewarded their dedication, and they will keep their motivation.
Invest in their personal development
This way of inspiring employees is huge since many CEOs and entrepreneurs do not understand it completely. For instance, one of your employees is writing articles and posts on both English and Chinese. He is hard-working and willing to learn, but his English is still not as good as Chinese, even though he is trying to make it better each day. Be there for that guy, recognize his efforts, and help him! Organize personalized classes for him every day. Even let him work one hour less, so he can have enough focus and concentration for the course. Benefits of that investments will be massive. They will become better, and most importantly, they will feel unique and important for the company. On the other hand, you will keep the hard-working person in your team, and your investment will affect the quality of his English articles.
Offer flexible working hours
It is okay if you have the rules regarding the working hours within your company. It can affect working discipline and can also represent a particular company culture. However, always speak to your best employees and see if they maybe need some changes. For instance, if they would prefer going to the gym or swimming pool after the first half of the working day, you should reconsider your decision about strict business hours. Even if you are not the biggest fan of flexibility, try to experiment with it. Test it for a month or two. If your employees start showing even better results, you should definitely change your decision and start offering flexible working hours. Satisfaction will be mutual, and you will both feel less stressed.
Organize exciting events
Everyone likes great and exciting activities. Whenever you recognize the fatigue and monotony in your team, motivate them, and organize a team building or a cool contest. Encourage them to be active at these events – let them dance, sing, or whatever they prefer. Not only that you’ll break the everyday routine and monotony, but the relationship with employees will be more friendly and natural.
The skill set of an entrepreneur or team leader has to cover multiple segments. Being a good pedagogue is one of these skills. Only with a proper approach and communication with each team member you can build and maintain a successful company and teams within it.
Keith Coppersmith is a business and marketing expert who has experienced both the rise and fall of many businesses. As a regular contributor at BizzmarkBlog, he enjoys writing and providing insight of the industry based on both practice and theory.
