How to Motivate Employees: 10 Empowering Ways!
Motivating employees in the workplace is not always easy!
Every workplace wants to ensure those who work for them perform their best, stay motivated, and are committed to the company mission.
But how can this be achieved?
We’ve compiled 10 empowering ways to motivate employees along with actionable tips.
Contents
10 Empowering Ways to Motivate Employees
I Gave This Employee the Ultimate Motivation Hack (Video)
10 Empowering Ways to Motivate Employees
1. Inspire
This sounds like a great buzzword, right?
But many employees want to feel inspired to come to work.
What inspires employees to perform their best work?
Why should they work hard on their next project?
These are questions that employers should be asking themselves.
And no, “because I’m paying them” isn’t a good enough answer!
Employers can help to inspire their workforce in many ways.
Companies can hire inspiring speakers within their relevant industry to motivate and encourage staff.
Share stories of team members who have made significant contributions and how it’s helped their career.
Finding ways to inspire employees should be relevant to your industry and company culture.
An inspired workforce is a motivated workforce.
2. Give Purpose
Having a purpose in life is one of the reasons many of us get out of bed in the morning.
Employees with purpose can be significantly more motivated to get on with their work.
Do employees understand how their role contributes to organisational success?
Is the importance of their role highlighted to them?
When employees understand this, it helps to give them a clear sense of purpose.
They know that their role contributes to the broader goal of the company.
Having a purpose can serve as a great motivator for all team members.
Imagine a website management job role.
How can you showcase that their role isn’t just typing content online, or making sure everything works?
Their role is vital to ensure new leads come in.
Their content creates new partnerships.
This then allows your company to continue growing.
Of course, this is just a random example.
But how can you ensure employees are aware of their impactful job roles?
How can you give them purpose?
3. Promote Health
As a wellbeing speaker, one of my favourite lines is “Without our health, we have nothing”.
And this is no different for employees in the workplace.
Promoting health in the workplace is beneficial for everyone.
When individuals are motivated to look after their health it can have a positive knock-on effect on many other areas in their life.
When employees feel their best, they perform their best!
So how can you promote health awareness in your workplace?
It could involve organising wellbeing workshops, company health challenges like the 7-day wellness challenge, providing healthy meals, or other health initiatives.
Promoting health and wellbeing is essential to help keep staff motivated.
4. Provide Development
Companies that invest in the development of their employees send a clear message.
“We care about your future”.
When employees feel cared for, supported, and as if their employer has their best interest at heart, this can boost motivation drastically.
Imagine working somewhere that didn’t provide development opportunities, didn’t care about your future, and was not trying to help you grow as an individual.
How would that make you feel?
Probably not very motivated.
Development opportunities could involve a range of methods.
Whether it’s a “Building Confidence Workshop”, or “Setting Goals Webinar” these are just two examples of providing development opportunities that can help to motivate employees.
5. Create Community
Many employees spend a massive chunk of their week at work.
Even for remote workers, a large part of their day is taken up by their job.
Having a place where employees feel valued and supported by their managers and colleagues can act as a great motivator.
When there is a positive company culture employees are happier, and more motivated throughout their day.
Can you remember a time in your life when you dreaded going to work?
Was it the workload, the community, or something else that put you off?
When employees feel a part of a community, they are more motivated to want to help that community.
Creating a community involves making the workplace somewhere employees enjoy being.
LinkedIn has a good article on “How to Build a Community at Work”
6. Acknowledge and Reward
Imagine working tirelessly to get a project completed, staying late, and making sacrifices, only for it not to be recognised or rewarded.
Frustrating right?
When employees don’t feel they are being acknowledged or rewarded for their efforts it can drastically reduce motivation.
Why put in the extra effort if it’s not being acknowledged?
To keep individuals motivated, employers must do their best to reward employees who deserve it.
This can help to increase employee motivation in two ways.
Those who receive the reward feel motivated to continue their hard work, as it has been acknowledged.
On the other hand, those who see that hard work is rewarded are now potentially more motivated as they’re aware of the benefits.
Rewarding employees can come in a range of ways, whether it’s gift cards, paid time off, or organising something nice for the team like an on-site massage.
Find what works for your workplace, but to keep employees motivated, ensure their hard work is rewarded.
7. Appreciate
Just like acknowledging and rewarding employees, appreciation is important for motivation too.
Appreciation allows employees to feel respected and valued.
Have you been in a situation where you felt your efforts were not appreciated?
How did it make you feel?
Probably not very motivated!
Appreciation doesn’t have to be a big grand gesture.
It can be as little as a “thank you”.
Appreciation meets the basic human needs of validation and recognition.
Employees may ask themselves
Is what I am doing appreciated?
Yes! Okay, I’ll keep working hard, and continue to do my best.
No! Okay what’s the point, nobody appreciates it anyway.
Check out our blog with 27 employee appreciation ideas.
8. Set Goals
Goal setting is a fantastic way to encourage employees to stay motivated.
When employees have clear goals, they have something to work towards.
Setting goals provides direction and focus.
These goals don’t strictly have to be work-related.
They can be personal goals to help improve their health, circumstances, or other things.
One of the most effective ways of sticking to goals is having accountability.
Who can help employees to create accountability to stick to their goals?
This could be employee resource groups, management, or colleagues.
Additionally, goal setting can encourage employees to stretch their abilities and develop new skills.
So how can you help with this in your workplace?
A good place to start is by organising a goal-setting workshop, whether delivered by someone internally or by an expert.
Give employees the tools to succeed, enhancing their motivation.
9. Show Trust
Trusting employees and giving them autonomy and responsibility in their job roles can be a great motivator.
When companies showcase trust to their employees it can empower employees to take ownership of their tasks and perform their best!
Think of the last time you were micromanaged.
You needed authorisation for every small detail.
Your boss didn’t show any trust in you.
How did this make you feel?
If you’ve been fortunate enough not to experience this then lucky you.
However, for most, this is extremely de-motivating.
When employees feel trusted it can help to boost their motivation, loyalty, and more!
To showcase you trust your employees, stop micromanaging and encourage autonomy.
Give employees the freedom to approach how they work and encourage them to make decisions within their areas of responsibility.
Feeling trusted is a great motivating factor.
10. Listen
Listening to employees to understand rather than to respond can act as another great motivator.
When employees feel listened to, they are more likely to feel motivated, appreciated, and valued.
Listening helps companies understand the challenges employees may be facing allowing them to come up with adequate solutions.
Employers can listen more by conducting regular feedback and reviewing them properly.
Hold one-to-one meetings, facilitate focus groups, and organise town hall meetings or other sessions that involve listening!
Encourage a motivated workforce by opening ears and understanding viewpoints, concerns, and issues.
At Loving Life, we help companies support the health and wellbeing of their employees.
If you’d like to explore how we can work together, click here.
I Gave This Employee the Ultimate Motivation Hack (Video)
Author
Tyler Lowe – Health & Wellbeing Speaker
BSc Sport & Exercise Rehabilitation
