Spoiler alert: the salary is not enough. It all comes down to employee motivation. It is hard to find a good job, but every employer knows it is even harder to keep a good employee. As an entrepreneur, you have to make sure people come to your company every day happy to go to work. And not just because they get a salary.

If you are an employer and you have not yet realized from experience – everything that is essentially needed for the motivation of employees is to give them someone who is worth their respect to lead them and tasks that are valuable of fulfillment.

However, we believe that only that is not enough. And you should be constantly looking for new ways to maintain and increase productivity but also to motivate every employee, at the same time, to make his maximum. Why do you need to do that?

We’ll Tell You One Great Truth: There Are More Unmotivated Employees Than Motivated

Research has shown that only 1 in 4 employees is motivated and productive. If we take that into account, you will agree that you should always work on improving employee motivation techniques. Since the connection between the employee and his superior is the most important in creating motivation, the responsibility falls on the superior to increase the level of employee motivation. Motivating employees is not easy, but it is necessary if they want to progress and be satisfied with their job. Motivation is what makes people work harder, be more productive and, after all, stay in your company.

Factors Which Can Improve Employee Productivity -

With all this in mind, we must note that there is no uniform strategy that will magically motivate your employees and maintain their motivation. Each employee is unique, has unique attitudes and ideas, and if you want to successfully get all employees to action you will need to apply multiple strategies to encourage each employee individually.

These are, in our opinion, the most important factors for employee motivation that will help you make all employees happy, satisfied, and always strive for success:

Pay Attention to Each Employee Individually

While teamwork is important to a company’s success and, although grouping your employees contributes to creating a sense of community and building a team mentality, nothing is better for motivating employees than when you pay attention to each individual. This is especially true of large firms where employees may feel unimportant and isolated in the ocean of other employees. Members of some teams within the company can feel alone more than others, such as administrators, whose job boils down to communicate with website visitors (the former), or programmers, who have to build a website and maintain its functionality as a great-looking and visited online platform. As such, it can serve to deepen the traffic through employing the possibilities e-mail marketing and tools around it (e.g. Benchmark) has to offer. So take the time to talk to each employee separately, because it means a lot to them and makes them feel valued.

The best way to motivate an employee when it comes to paying attention to an individual is to praise him directly when he does some work properly. Not only will that individual feel like you appreciate him or her, but you will initiate other employees in the company or organization to do the same. Yet paying attention to each individual is not just about praise. If someone is working below their means, take the time when they are not with colleagues to instruct them a little better, help them overcome obstacles, and do their job better.

This even distribution of your attention will show each employee that you care about them and not just the work they do. It is amazing how much this can affect the motivation of all your employees.

Motivate Employees With the Opportunity to Advance

When their job is always reduced to the same work or when the work is a dead-end, it starts to suffocate the employees. The same work, the same position, without any indication or chance for advancement can demotivate even the most ambitious. But you can turn it around. Your workers would be encouraged to work harder and be more effective if you give them the opportunity to advance.

Here is a simple tip – instead of hiring someone new, just promote someone who is already employed by the company. Promotion, on the other hand, does not necessarily imply a pay increase or a new job title. Training and seminars can also be used for that purpose. Offer your employees the opportunity to improve their knowledge and develop their skills, raise their motivation and productivity that way. They would be even more excited about working with you as a result.

Get to Know Your Employees and Take an Interest in Their Lives

It is not enough to be interested in their working progress. Motivate your employees by showing and proving to them that it is important to you that they also enjoy their private life. Show that you are interested in their career. It is simply amazing how much energy an employee gets for work when he feels that his superior really cares about how his career is progressing.

Respect that balance between work and private life. And show them that. Give them a dose of freedom and flexibility. Be understanding when they have family responsibilities, medical appointments, and so on. If you show that you have an understanding here as well, they will appreciate you more and in turn, will be more productive at work. Small gestures can make a big difference.

Supporting New Ideas

Factors Which Can Improve Employee Productivity -

When they come to you with a new idea or solution that they believe is good for a project or company, support them. It is a sign that they care about the success of the company and the project. If the idea is good, adopt it. This will be a great motivation for all other employees in the organization.

By supporting the employee’s idea, you give them the opportunity to stand out and that will motivate them for further work, regardless of whether their proposal turns into a success or not.

Motivate Each Employee by Acknowledging Their Work

Ultimately, each person makes their contribution. By acknowledging their individual efforts, you motivate and inspire employees to do their best to succeed in their work, no matter what their role in the project is. And that will lead to exceeding your expectations.

Boredom Kills the Motivation of Your Employees

Don’t let them get bored of work. Neither you nor they have unlimited concentration. Nor motivation to work. Find a way to break the monotony and motivate employees. Organize competitions or have different employees hold a meeting every week. These are some of the easiest ways to get your team into action.

Celebrate Everyone’s Personal Achievement

No matter how many employees you have, try to mark everyone’s personal achievement. It does not have to be an achievement related to work, like five years in your company, but it can also be someone’s engagement or birthday. Trust us, it works wonders for motivating every employee and they never get bored with it.

Socializing As an Additional Motivation

Most try to keep their private and business lives separate. And that is smart in most cases. Not everyone can be friends privately. But that does not mean they should not talk about things that are not work-related. The same goes for you.

A friendly relationship with your employees strengthens the bond between all of you and encourages teamwork. The job then looks less mechanical and everything seems like a natural consequence of teamwork. Encourage people to socialize by organizing events outside of work, i.e. team building. It can be a group activity: a party, lunch, or a fun competition where everyone will be able to relax and talk to each other in a relaxed atmosphere.

Listen

Factors Which Can Improve Employee Productivity -

This advice is easy. Just listen carefully to your employees. Listen to their problems, worries, frustrations, conflicts, dramas, etc. When you take that stone off their heart (or back), your employees will be motivated and will go to work relieved.

Of course, your goodwill should not be abused. Listen quickly to those who are sluggish in doing their work and send them back to continue with their obligations. Pay your attention to hard-working employees who simply do not have their day.

Let Employees Know You Trust Them

If you let your employees know that you trust them and believe in them, they will do everything to justify your trust. So, trust motivates employees. Tell them how you believe they can do some work and it will rarely happen that you will regret saying that.

Insert Your Positive Energy

Spread positive energy in the office. Be enthusiastic and let that enthusiasm infect your employees and serve as their motivation. Play motivational music to company employees, joke, and play games during breaks.

Set Clear Goals and Share Feedback

Your employees will be more motivated to work if they know exactly what is expected of them. Clearly explain your company’s goals and vision, and inspire and motivate employees to put them into action. Then reward them when they achieve that goal. Give them a free afternoon or throw a party. An additional motivation for your employees is the fact that everyone will have something out of it if they work hard.

In addition to setting clear and feasible goals, it is important to motivate your employees by providing feedback. Just as success is to be commended, so is the attention to mistakes and failure. Not by punishing, but by reaching a common solution for overcoming obstacles and managing crises in the future.

A Broader Picture to Motivate All Your Employees

It is important that everyone sees the bigger picture because then they will realize that what they are doing contributes to meeting the ultimate goal. And that serves as a great force for motivating every employee. When assigning them tasks and responsibilities within a project, make sure they understand how their share fits into the bigger picture. Those talented team members will surely give their maximum and exceed your expectations.

The Way You Treat Them Matters

When it comes to treating employees, it is simple as that but is also extremely important for motivating your employees. How you treat them is just as important today as it was 100 years ago. Treat them with the respect you would want others to treat you. Respect everyone as a person and respect their work.

Be Open to New Approaches

Factors Which Can Improve Employee Productivity -

For starters, the age of the Internet is constantly changing our lives. We cannot all keep up with all the changes. So, instead of avoiding them, adopt new techniques, methods, and approaches even when someone who is, let’s put it that way, subordinate to you, proposes something to you. Only in this way will you ensure that your business does not fail and that your employees are ahead of the competition.

Employees Need a Reason to Come to Work – Every Day

Use your company’s culture to motivate your employees. But remember, there must be no negativity if you want the success of projects and companies. A positive work environment depends solely on the superior. Coming to work five days a week with the attitude to exceed everyone’s expectations requires a level of loyalty that can only be achieved with high motivation to work.

Conclusion

Why is employee motivation so important for productivity? All people are unique and unpredictable. In other words, everyone is a story for themselves. So no matter how perfectly you imagine everything in your head, there is no one piece of advice and one employee motivation strategy that can be applied to every individual.

Make an effort to motivate your employees, find out what drives each of your employees, and keep in mind that you will need to adjust and tune each of your motivation techniques if you want to find out what works and what does not. Refine your strategies with each new knowledge about the individuals in your team. In this way, your employees will be motivated and inspired, and will reward you with their dedication and hard work.

Last Updated on August 31, 2021

Author

Elizabeth is a Senior Content Manager at Scaleo. Currently enjoying the life in Prague and sharing professional affiliate marketing tips. She's been in the online marketing business since 2006 and gladly shares all her insights and ideas on this blog.