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Motivate Your Employees with By Terry Bragg Managers often ask about motivating employees. Although managers like to think money is the key motivator, it’s not. At best, money is a short-term motivator. Interesting and challenging work is a top motivator in the workplace. The work itself is a stronger motivator than the compensation for the work. In my management seminars, some participants disappointingly ask: What if the work isn’t interesting and challenging? What if it’s mundane or boring? Then you have to manage the work environment. Many employees continue with jobs that are not interesting because they like the company they work for or the employees they work with. You can do some things as a manager to make the job and the work environment more interesting and challenging. • Define the employee’s job and the results you expect. Don’t assume that you and your employee have the same idea of what their job is and the results of their work. Unclear or conflicting expectations about performance can destroy a work relationship and demoralize workers. • Encourage and use employee suggestions. Don’t just pay lip service to this. Warning: installing a suggestion box is different from encouraging employees to offer ideas for improving your company. Most suggestion boxes don’t work. Personally ask employees how they think they can improve work processes. Have a dialogue with your staff. Listen to them and use ideas that are practical. • Encourage employees to use their full potential. Invest in employees by offering training and learning opportunities. Show that you really consider them an asset by investing in their development. • Show appreciation. Praise good work and show employees that you value them as people. Look for incremental improvements in performance and show appreciation for the improvements. • Encourage people to work together as a team. Build working relationships by doing things together outside work. Have lunch together or engage in sports activities. This allows workers to get to know each other as people not just as bosses and coworkers. • Assign short, small projects that challenge employees. Give them an assignment that stretches their abilities or requires them to learn something new. Keep the projects short and small so workers get variety in their work. You don’t want to overwhelm them with their new assignments. • Delegate. Show your staff that you trust their judgment and abilities by giving them new responsibilities. Make sure you delegate with dumping on them. Give them the authority to make the decisions necessary to successfully complete their new assignments. • Get involved in the community. Assign employees to projects that help improve the community you live in. Help make your community a nicer place to live and work. This will also help you attract good workers. • Measure results. Establish performance benchmarks. The best benchmarks are ones workers can measure themselves. That way they always know where they stand. Track and publicize key indicators of the organization’s performance. Remember, you get what you measure, so make sure you measure the right things. • Give them a project they don’t like. Temporarily assign them to a different team or department to work on a critical project in an area they don’t like. This offers them the opportunity to learn new skills and to apply their current skills differently. Make sure you explain to them what you are doing and why you are doing it. Take a positive approach. Show them what’s in it for them and for your organization. • Offer new challenges. People like challenges when they believe they can meet the challenge, management will support them in meeting the challenge, and the organization will reward them appropriately for meeting the challenge. Unfortunately, not all work is inherently interesting and challenging. To keep your employees motivated you must continually look for ways to keep their interest and offer them new challenges. Terry Bragg and Peacemakers Training offers a variety of tools for promoting, maintaining, and recognizing excellence in your workplace. We also offer tools for helping you achieve and maintain personal excellence. To learn more about these tools, click here: Tools for Workplace and Personal Excellence To find out more about Terry's book, 31 Days to High Self-Esteem, click here: 31 Days to High Self-Esteem To learn more about onsite seminars and workshops for improving interpersonal relationships, resolving conflict, and promoting and maintaining excellence in your workplace, click here: Seminars & Workshops ©2001 All rights reserved Terry Bragg•Peacemakers Training Terry Bragg runs a company called Peacemakers Training in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is the author of the book 31 Days to High Self-Esteem. He works with organizations to create a workplace where people want to work, and with managers who want their people to work together better. If you want your organization or your people to have more energy, more trust, more respect, and more meaning, please contact him at: Peacemakers Training Subscribe to our Free |
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