Key Points:
- Employees are known to work 20% more efficiently when motivated.
- Having employees who strive to produce successful results will create a more profitable workplace.
- Effective communication distributes information employees need to complete projects while building relationships of trust, respect, and commitment.
Hiring top talent is the first step to creating a more productive workplace. From there, focusing on the employee experience is crucial to retaining that top talent. Cultivating a motivated workplace is the best way to make sure your top employees stick around. According to TeamStage, employees are known to work 20% more efficiently when motivated, which will rapidly increase the productivity of your business. A motivated employee is satisfied, enthusiastic, driven, and productive. By understanding effective ways to motivate your employees, you will have a more engaging and productive working environment.
What are the Benefits of Increasing Employee Motivation?
Every business owner should prioritize employee happiness in the workplace. Not only does it create more productive employees, but it also fosters a culture of trust that serves as a foundation for a truly great work culture. Below, we’ve listed some of the most important benefits of motivating your employees. Later on, we’ll discuss some of the best ways to motivate your employees.
Increased Employee Engagement
Putting a focus on motivation and engagement helps unlock an employee’s full potential. Engaged employees enjoy and take pride in their work, having employees who strive to produce successful results will create a more profitable workplace and promote better customer service and business reputation overall.
Lower Turnover Rate
High levels of employee motivation will increase engagement, leading to significant productivity and decreased turnover. According to Workplace, low-engagement teams typically endure turnover rates that are 18% to 43% higher than highly engaged teams. When your employees feel motivated and driven, they derive more satisfaction from their work and—as a result—are less likely to seek other employment opportunities.
Higher Productivity
Motivated employees are creative, dependable, and engaged in their work, so the higher the level of motivation, the higher your employee’s productivity will likely be. For example, if you create an incentive for a well-done job—like a bonus or even just the chance of verbal recognition—your employee will likely complete their task with their best foot forward. Offering rewards for a job well done is one of the most effective ways to motivate employees.
Healthier Employer-Employee Relationships
Your entire company will benefit from a healthy employer-employee relationship. Respecting your employees and working to motivate them will increase employee loyalty, reduce the chance of workplace conflict, improve your employees’ confidence, and ensure a better workplace culture. Effective communication and motivation are the best ways to create a healthy relationship with your employees.
Better Reputation
Who wouldn’t want to work in a happy and motivated workplace? You are helping to build a reputable company by creating an environment where your employees want to work. There are many ways to ensure your employees are motivated while increasing their satisfaction. You can increase motivation and engagement through positive and inspiring communication, offering rewards and recognition for a job well done, or encouraging teamwork in your organization.
5 Ways to Motivate Employees
Identify Problem Areas
The first step to fixing anything in a business is understanding what needs to change. It’s not always easy to find what isn’t working, but considering your HR metrics and business analytics is a powerful first step. Think about how you address your team and what leadership skills you strive for—as well as those you don’t.
For example, you notice your customer service ratings are lower than expected, which indicates that your employees should be more involved in their company role. Try motivating your customer service representatives through different training opportunities.
Rewards and recognition
At a sporting event, everyone cheers when a team executes a great play. Why shouldn’t that be the same in the workplace? Recognizing your employees’ hard work or big sales is the perfect step to motivate them to continue to achieve their goals. This can include verbal recognition in meetings or recognition through email or other messaging systems. Offering rewards to those hard-working employees could be as much as a small raise every year they remain with your organization. Another example would be offering extra paid time off to an employee who makes a large sale. If your employees are made to feel good when they do well, they are likely to better focus on their work to receive that recognition again.
Communicate more effectively
Communication is the foundation of any company. Communication is the key to distributing information employees need to complete projects. Plus, great communication builds relationships of trust, respect, and commitment. Effective communication can be anything from feedback to explaining future company goals. Overall, workplace communication is an essential tool to create a motivated and productive team.
Focusing on effective communication in the workplace has become more important than ever since the introduction of remote work. Remote work has increased to 58% of the workforce (about 92 million employees), according to Forbes Advisor. Whether your team is fully remote or hybrid, digital communication will continue to be a necessary tool in the upcoming years.
Offer training and development
Motivating your employees is a challenge if they feel like they are stagnant in their position. Introducing training and development opportunities to your organization is a driving tool to increase employee motivation. Training and development opportunities include programs or activities like continued education through online courses, research-based assignments, increased duties and responsibilities on a training level, or a workplace mentor program.
Carry out regular check-ins
Making time for regular check-ins with your team ensures that all of your team members are on the right track. Regular check-ins and open communication between you and your employees will continue to strengthen the relationship and help your employees feel like a vital part of your organization. During these check-ins, ask your employees what they need from you to feel more motivated and thrive at work.
Motivate your employees with SentricHR
Managing your employees while ensuring they stay motivated and satisfied isn’t easy. A company can’t be successful with employees that aren’t interested in or motivated to complete their work. For more ideas on ways to engage your employees, check out the SentricHR blog!
