Five Ideas To Help Motivate Your Staff

There are a lot of tough jobs associated with owning a small business. One of the biggest is motivating your staff and keeping them motivated.

This area is difficult for several reasons. First, it’s intangible—you can’t always see the results, at least not immediately. What works for one person rarely works for another. Worst of all, it’s never ending. You can succeed wildly one day only to need more the next.

But as we see in everything from sports to sales to theater, motivation is critical. Unless you’re a one-person business, motivating staff can be the difference between success and failure.

One of the most challenging aspects of workplace motivation involves the art of engaging people in your organization’s vision. Staff will engage in your business much more actively if they are also engaged in the organization’s goals and vision. Ensuring that staff members see themselves as part of a team, working toward a vision, is simply good leadership.

There are probably as many paths to this goal as individuals pursuing it, but here are a five practiced techniques to consider:

1) Talk with and, especially, listen to your staff. Use this dialogue as a way to ask staff members about their work environment, challenges and hopes. Make them feel safe while talking to you and you can often learn valuable information about your organization and how it functions. Just by listening, you’ll create an environment with positive morale and increased productivity.

2) You might consider formalizing this communications process with something like quarterly lunches or other get-togethers with selected staff members. Make these efforts relaxed and informal, but scheduling them can help you maintain communications. Larger group meetings should also be scheduled, though not as frequently.

3) Keep staff involved in decision-making. Especially in areas where they are involved, this is critical. Many avoidable issues develop when someone overlooks this. Equipment or software purchases, even furniture that is in employee areas, are good examples. Staff members will often have valuable insight into the environments where they work. Letting them have a hand in these decisions can be an important motivational tool.

4) Don’t be afraid to push! Few people enjoy being stretched beyond their limits—pushed out of their comfort zone. But if you’ve developed good relationships and staff members feel they have your support, it will be much easier. This lets you introduce new challenges that, after all, are certain to come.

5) Above all, don’t forget to say “thanks” and recognize achievement. Everyone loves to be praised, and acknowledging staff success is an important part of your efforts and your organization’s success. It may be the most important part.

There’s more of course, but simply recognizing that motivation is one of your most important jobs is, well, important. And unlike Hollywood movies, speechmaking and posturing aren’t really that helpful, but sharing your vision with staff can help your office succeed.