Motivation is the driving force in one’s life. It is the reason that makes us get up and do what we need to do. Sure, we all have different things that motivate us, but there are some universal factors that most people can relate to.
We are motivated to do what we like, what we feel will make us better people, and because we’ll earn something from it. Basically, there are two types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation means working for personal satisfaction or enjoyment. People are intrinsically motivated when they enjoy the activity or have a personal connection with it. Extrinsic motivation means working for rewards such as money, grades, or praise from others.
People are extrinsically motivated when they do something in order to get something else that they want or need. In other words, intrinsic motivation comes from the inside, and extrinsic motivation comes from the outside.
Now that we know the types of motivation that exist, what should we do to motivate our team? Should we just raise salaries and offer more bonuses? Believe it or not, that might not be the right answer.
Although money is indeed a huge motivator for many people studies have shown that money can actually demotivate people. Working with solely money as a goal will make your team lose focus on what’s truly important and feel like they are working for the sake of getting paid and not because they enjoy the job, and want to do a good job.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t offer monetary motivators, just that they shouldn’t be the only ones you offer in your organization. There are many Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to motivating your team, but before getting onto them, I want to show you why is important to motivate your team and what you’ll be gaining from it.
Why Is Important To Motivate Your Team?
Let’s picture a regular worker whose motivation is particularly low today. They usually work more slowly, put off tasks and duties for later, spend more time on their phone, are highly unfocused and aren’t putting any energy into their work.
This is not normally a problem of only one employee; low motivation can have a setback on the whole company, affecting other employees even more when the unmotivated employee is a key piece of your team and not allowing your company to keep producing high-quality results and/or meeting important targets.
Whereas a motivated employee is driven, eager, and takes pride in their work.
They accomplish tasks quickly and want to do a good job for themselves and the organization.
What Are The Benefits Of Employee Motivation?
Increased Productivity
It’s no surprise that a motivated employee is a productive employee. Employees who enjoy what they are doing and are eager to do it are going to give their all, their 200%, to finish their task as soon as possible, with the highest quality achievable. This will result in better revenue outcomes for your employees and also for the company. Not only that but it also promotes higher satisfaction to customers and improves the business overall.
Increased Innovation
Motivated employees will always want to challenge themselves, and with the right support, you can create a culture of innovation in your organization. Innovation stimulates growth and it should never be underestimated. Your organization should always be looking for ways to innovate processes, and people who recognize the importance of innovation will surely get to see the best result.
Increased Level Of Attendance
As we have been saying, motivated employees are eager to do their part at the company, so they are proven to miss fewer days at work when compared with regular employees.
This is only achieved when leaders manage to get the best out of their teams and they are supportive instead of critical.
When a leader cares about their team’s workload and well-being, absence levels tend to be lower as employees feel less stressed and overwhelmed.
Increased Employee Retention
Money is not everything when you work for a company. Other companies can match your company salary and send offers to your employees, however, your employees shouldn’t be in the company solely because of the salary.
A good salary should indeed be offered, but it’s the benefits and support you offer to your employees that make them want to stay. If you manage to have it all, employees receive perks, and reward incentives, your team will be highly motivated and will be unlikely to look for another role. Especially, if other companies can’t match your compensation package.
Increased Reputation And Stronger Recruitment
When your employees are motivated, they are happy to spread the word. They’ll tell their friends and acquaintances about the great place they’re working in, and that if they are interested, they should apply as well.
This way you’ll make your recruitment team’s job easier by being able to interview high-quality candidates with just mouth-to-mouth promotion from your employees. This highly improves if you offer some sort of incentive such as a referral bonus. Happy and motivated employees both retain and attract top talent.
Remember that it doesn’t matter if your company is the best in the world or if you are just starting, employee motivation is a serious and important matter. The moment it drops, so will your profits and revenues.
So in order to keep your team motivated and profits on the rise, we gotta learn what to do and what not to do to motivate our teams.
What To Do (And Not To Do) To Motivate Your Team
Check out these do’s and don’ts to motivate employees and see how they fit in your organization.
If You’re Trying To Motivate Your Team, Avoid This:
Most of the time employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Learn the don’ts of motivating your team and become a manager that leads by example:
1. Don’t Let Anger Control You
Anger is a natural emotion that everyone experiences, mistakes happen, and stuff may go sideways sometimes. However, this doesn’t mean that we should let our anger out onto our team, mistreating or even insulting employees after a mistake causes huge damage to your team’s morale and wellbeing, especially in the workplace.
When you are a team leader is extremely important to learn how to manage anger effectively in order to make stressful situations in the workplace a lot easier to overcome. Some quick tips I can give you to manage your anger are:
- Breathe deeply and count to ten to relieve
tension and help you focus. - Take a moment away from the workplace.
- Talk it out with someone you trust.
- Write down your thoughts to help you process them before sharing them with someone else.
2. Don’t Dwell On Past Mistakes
Being stuck in the past and reminding your team of past mistakes or letdowns won’t encourage a positive workplace culture.
Believe it or not, you don’t need to remind your team constantly about past mistakes to avoid future failures. This could even act as a self-fulling prophecy and kill team confidence altogether.
It’s much more effective to focus on the positive things your employees do and what your business does. Constantly remind employees of past wins encourage them to keep going at it, and give them that little bit of inspiration they might need. Positive reinforcement will be far more efficient when it comes to motivating your employees and achieving more results.
3. Don’t Micromanage
One thing that can make every employee feel unmotivated is being overly micromanaged.
Skills, talent, experience, your employees were hired because they brought something valuable to the table, and being on top of them 100% of the time and observing every move take make will lead to a breakdown of trust between you and your employees, also creating a culture of dependency on others rather than encouraging the confidence to perform tasks on their own.
Poorly established micromanaging will create a lack of trust in your team, and constant interference can lead to people simply walking away from their roles, taking with them their valuable skills and experiences.
Learn how to communicate effectively so that you don’t need to be on top of your team members and trust that your team will complete their tasks before the final deadline.
4. Don’t Set Unrealistic Goals
Your employees need specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely goals in order to work their best.
This doesn’t mean that your business won’t have a huge target and goals to attain, of course, you are going to have long terms goals to look forward to, however, if you consistently set goals for your employees that are extremely difficult or unrealistic will destroy your employee’s motivation in an instant.
When an employee keeps on not reaching their targets, again and again, they are more likely to give up and not even put the effort of trying to reach them anymore. Causing productivity to plummet, confidence to run out of the building and you may even find yourself changing your team time and time again.
Instead, inspire your employees to achieve greatness with achievable targets and let them know what’s expected of them. Once targets are reached and if they feel they can do more, discuss more challenging targets with them as long as they know what’s expected in the future.
5. Don’t Be A Bad Example
At the end of the day whatever happens is your responsibility. You shouldn’t expect your employees to work harder than you, or to be more motivated than you. Lead by example and show excitement for your company goals, be in a good mood, don’t focus on negatives, and be what you want them to be.
Do’s Of Motivating Your Team
1. Be Clear With Your Expectations
Employees work their best when they are clear as to what is expected of them and when they need to do it.
Your organization may use micromanagement as a type of management, however, if your employee is clear on the deadline they have you shouldn’t be sending chaser emails during the day as this can simply add unnecessary pressure.
If your employees are clear on what is required from the beginning, you can trust them to deliver.
2. Offer Rewards & Incentives
Take your time to know your team and try to go above and beyond to maximize employee recognition with a more personal reward that resonates with them.
When you know your team is not necessary to buy expensive gifts to make them happy. Little things like being able to go out early, lunches, movie tickets, or gift cards can be the perfect gift for your employees. If you know your team you’ll be able to treat them with something they absolutely want.
And these types of tailored rewards and incentives are fantastic motivators! They not only allow you to inspire employees to go that extra mile but they also help you to show your employees that you value their contributions.
Once you start to spread in your organization that hard work and positive behavior are rewarded, your employees will feel eager to become the best version of themselves and start to love their jobs more.
3. Have Open Communication
In order to promote a motivated and healthy work environment, you need to keep communications with your workforce open and transparent.
When things get hard, don’t let your team isolate and encourage communication so that everyone can contribute and share their ideas as to what can be done differently to improve the current situation and achieve shared goals.
Communication is the direct road to collaboration, innovation, and personal development. Open and regular communications with your workforce can offer the opportunity to fully engage with your most valuable and creative resource.
When the road gets tough, you have to be a leader and support and motivate your team the most.
4. Support Your Team Through Thick & Thin
Life is not peaches and roses. Sadly, not everything your company does is going to be successful.
It’s in these hard times when you should support your team the most and avoid bringing up someone’s mistake in public since that can destroy their confidence and can also be viewed as you want to shift the blame.
Any feedback, disagreement, or comment you may feel communicating to your employees should be done in private and constructively.
Allow failures and mistakes to become a learning opportunity, an opportunity for your employees to improve. This will encourage your employees not to restrain themselves, explore new things, and push themselves without the fear of failure hanging over them.
5. Smile & Have Fun
Your employees will be willing to work longer and give more effort if they are happy at work. Staying positive and injecting some joy into the workplace may feel like an uphill battle at first, but once accomplished it can encourage long-lasting engagement.
My last tip to you is to be yourself! Try to have fun at work, smile, and laugh more. These emotions are far more conducive to a positive working environment and can also keep your mental well-being in check.
I’m sure following these do’s and don’ts will help you improve your employees’ motivation, job satisfaction, and productivity. But first, let’s take a step back and understand why these factors are important.
Motivation is what drives an individual to achieve their goals and perform at their best. As a business owner or manager, it is crucial to keep your employees motivated in order to maintain high levels of productivity. Employees who are motivated have higher job satisfaction which leads to increased retention rates and lower turnover costs for the company.
Good luck!
See more articles by Ender Cárdenas.
