Top Secret Ways To Motivate Your Employees

Money, bonuses, and extra vacations are well-known methods to motivate your people to work better and harder. However, not everyone at your workplace can be and should be motivated only by materialistic stuff.

And what is even weirder, employees who choose your company only for benefits and money will soon feel a lack of motivation to keep on going with good work too, just like every other worker without proper motivation. This is the reason why motivation at work is much more than just bonuses and paid leaves.

Today we gathered a couple of secret methods that will help you to learn how to motivate your staff properly. Some of them may seem too simple or trivial, but all of them are absolutely effective. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Ask for Honest Feedback, But Do Not Push It

One of the best ways to motivate employees in your company is actually giving them a voice. We really think that surveys can be a good way to get constructive feedback, but sometimes it can be a negative thing.

If your employees are very busy and can’t find time for lunch, giving them this stressful task at the top of their work is a bad idea. It is better to give them time to think about what they would love to change and schedule personal meetings with everyone on your team. Give them an opportunity to speak their word, but make this experience extra safe.

Appreciate Everyone’s Achievements

If you have a blog, you can dedicate a piece or two a month to the personal achievements of workers or do an interview with an employee of a month. However, this type of motivation is not for everyone, so be careful with your candidates.

If you have competitive employees who love participating in various contests, you can make competitions for them with a valuable prize in the end. Be clear about the terms and do not force anyone to participate. This should be a competition for those who love it and not torture for those who hate it.

Encourage Speaking Up

Individual unique ideas push your company forward, and they are (plus hard work, of course) will give you success.

For example, if you need to create a new design for a corporate blog, you can encourage your employees to tell what they think and make it a part of teamwork. You can get more extraordinary ideas than you think and make a simple design of your blog look absolutely fabulous.

“When You Lead, I Will Follow”

Be a good example! One of the most important tips for managers that we have in our arsenal is this: you are the captain, and you are responsible for your crew’s misbehavior because you are a bad example.

If you set any rules in your office, you must follow them too. If you demand punctuality, don’t be late yourself. If you have a “no-eating-at-the-table” rule, quit snacking too. You are all in the same boat, and you need to be a leading example in any case.

Help Your Employees to Grow

Motivate employees to deepen their knowledge in their profession and always tell the workers that they can do more. Encourage them with paid online learning and courses, help them to learn more to make them more skillful employees.

But be the one who learns too, and take a couple of courses yourself. You can use a screen recorder and capture the lectures and webinars, then crop unnecessary information leaving the most crucial moments to make the small video aka excerpts from to course to show it later to the workers. After that, you can discuss the material and maybe even find other enthusiasts that will later participate in the lessons with you.

Collaboration is Key

Your company’s business success depends on the input of every single employee. Individual input is crucial, but teamwork is where true brilliance is born.

Encourage teamwork and give projects to multiple employees to help them build relationships with each other. Always appreciate both teamwork and individual effort of every worker in the end.

Let People Show What They Can

We are sure that most of your employees have valuable knowledge in their occupation that the others would love to know about.

Encourage your workers to create webinars, presentations, and lectures for other employees that will help everyone to deepen their knowledge in the company’s niche. You can even make a couple of reward programs for workers who regularly share their expertise.

Have Fun Together

Yes, a good old-fashioned team building enters the conversation. Not everyone is thrilled about the idea of spending their day off with co-workers, but you can actually make this day better, even for those who hate team buildings.

Just don’t make it too hard to do: maybe it is better just to order a pizza and not go kayak rafting. Also, ask people what they would like to do. Maybe they love kayaking, or they prefer going to the movies. In any case, do something fun that everybody finds enjoyable.

Give Employees the Freedom within their Personal Space

A truly unorthodox method to increase productivity, still it works!

We understand that some companies need more strict rules and no teddy bears at your workplace. However, if you can make these rules more people-friendly, do it!

Encourage family pictures, cute stuff, and personal things on the workers’ desks to help them feel more like home at work. A relaxed workplace brings more joy to workers and more profit to you!

Say Thank You When it is Needed

This is such an easy rule, but many managers ignore it. If someone did a good job, say “Thank you” to show them how you appreciate their work.

It’s called a “magical word” for a reason, so use it!

Conclusion

We have even more tips for managers that will help you motivate employees, but in conclusion, we would like to advise you to experiment and see what works best in your particular office.

Every person is an individual, and you need a personal approach to learn what will motivate them. You can try different methods, and your effort will pay off eventually and give you happy and motivated employees. Good luck!