How To Motivate Your Workforce
One of the greatest challenges that a managers
faces on a day to day basis is keeping their employees motivated and
focused. As morale drops within your work force, productivity is certain
to fall as well. In order to keep work flowing, it falls on the management
of an organization to keep work flowing by ensuring that all of their employees
are as productive as possible. In doing so, you are stabilizing your
workforce so that your business can do well, and minimizing turnover.
Comfortable Atmosphere
The first step in
motivating your employees is to create a comfortable atmosphere. Open up windows, hang some art around the office, and
make sure the building is well lit. Allow your staff to bring in some
personal touches from home, but don’t overdo it. The trick is balance
comfort with professionalism. Casual Fridays are a fun example of this –
it allows for personal expression and relaxation, while maintaining a
professional dress code the rest of the work week.
Friendly Competition
Another way to motivate
your staff is to offer incentives. Divide up departments into teams, and
establish a contest. Whichever team accomplishes more for the month,
season, or sales period wins the prize. Not only will everyone work
harder to win the prize offered, but your employees will bond with their team
mates. Bonding is good because it will encourage everyone to work hand in
hand. You can also structure the competition on a solitary level.
This allows individuals to shine, and management to acknowledge the workers
that are doing well.
Promote from Within
Prizes such as gift
cards or pizza parties are good for quick motivation, but long term motivation
needs to be considered as well. One of the best incentives for employees
is the opportunity to advance through the ranks. The opportunity to make
more money is what gets most people out of bed and to their job every
day. If you establish a promote-from-within system, you are benefitting
your employees and your company. Everyone will be motivated to work
harder because they will view the job as a long-term investment. This
will benefit your infrastructure because it will lessen turnover and
significantly reduce the amount of training necessary for staff members as they
climb the corporate ladder.
Work Together, Play
Together
Teambuilding exercises
don’t need to be limited to the workplace. Seek out opportunities to
strengthen your team outside of the workplace. You can host company
picnics, bowling nights, or corporate retreats. Retreats are an excellent
way to combine relaxation, brainstorming, and leadership training. By
sharing ideas you can establish new ways for your management team to structure
your company and potentially explore new, more effective ways to generate
profit. Another way to team build is to sponsor a team in a charity
event, such as a fun run.
Rally the Troops
There’s no time like the
present to hold a company-wide event to motivate everyone. Whether you’re
celebrating your successes or rallying everyone to bounce back after cutbacks,
large meetings are an excellent opportunity to strengthen the company.
You can hire inspirational speakers to motivate your staff, injecting a
positive current into the work week.
These are just a handful
of ideas on how to motivate your workers. Explore some different methods
and find out what works best for your workers!
Author Bio:
John Beeson is having
some problems with a few of his employees. He decides to learn some ways to
make his office atmosphere more enjoyable.
