6 Tips For Improving Employee Motivation & Productivity
You can’t touch employee motivation and productivity, but you can absolutely feel it. It’s the hum that you feel when you enter an engaged workspace where each team member is working autonomously, while also collaborating in an efficient capacity. Employee motivation and productivity can be pursued by employers looking to maximize revenue and workflow, which can lead to some strategies that are not the most authentic and well-intentioned. If you are looking to bring real, long-term change to your workforce, here are 6 tips that will see a motivated and productive workforce.
1.Introduce some physical office perks
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most effective, and this is very true of office perks. Putting a bar fridge in the salesroom or some coffee machine rentals in the kitchen can really get your team engaged in the business, and then motivated to produce at a higher level. You could also look at putting on a BBQ lunch one day a month, or sending a different team each month to lunch offsite. These expenditures are inconsequential when compared to the huge impact that can make on your business in the future.
2. Review, retire or revise inefficient workflow processes
This is, of course, easier said than done, and there will always be company processes that need to remain. But what about all those other time-wasting behaviors that have lingered too long and are chewing those productive hours? This might be relying on print-outs instead of a second screen, a disjointed office layout or even not having a workflow app or platform that your team can communicate quickly and freely on.
3.Conduct an employee engagement survey
Employee engagement surveys have been around a long time, although they are starting to gain great traction again in many sectors. These surveys are designed to gauge the sentiment of your workforce, illuminating insights that lead to actionable change. Consider putting your workforce through this survey and find out what could be zapping their motivation and subsequent productivity.
4.Incentives
Who doesn’t love a good incentive to get you and your targets over the line? Your employees feel the same way, and there are so many ways in which you can introduce regular incentives to boost motivation and achieve lofty targets. The best part about incentives is that there is such a range you can offer, like half-days, bonuses, gift vouchers, complimentary meals, and literally anything else you can think of that will incentivize your team.
5.Fewer meetings
This might be a bit controversial, but meetings are an enormous time waster and very often can be summarised in an email memo. This isn’t the case for all, but many employees top down are losing valuable hours in the day for meetings that occur out of habit. Sit down with your team and discuss which meetings they get value from and whether those meetings can be optimized to be even more productive. Be sure to include a number of stakeholders in this discussion, as the opinions will vary with each role and commitment.
6.Encourage balance
It’s one thing to say you promote a work-life balance, but it’s quite another thing to walk the talk and make it a standard within your team. An overworked and resentful team is not a productive one, and that is true despite whatever salary they may be on. Set the rule that no one remains in the office past 6 pm, no emails after 7 pm and each member has to leave their desk for lunch. These are some basic rules you can implement, and you can even take it a step further if you have the flexibility to do so.
Motivation and productivity are so interconnected, but many employers fail to see how one fuels the other. Review the processes in your team, and start to implement measurable change.
