How to raise employee motivation successfully?

While qualified and trained personnel are very important for the growth and sustenance of a business entity, the presence of motivated employees is the key to success for any organisation. Qualifications and training can all go for a toss when interest and motivation levels of employees are low. This is because motivated employees are high on energy, enthusiasm and commitment to the achievement of the business goals vis-à-vis the unmotivated ones. The greater the number of motivated employees in an organisation, the higher is the level of employee engagement and better the chances of the company skyrocketing to the zenith of success.

Motivated employees are actually people who are thoroughly aligned to their organisation objectives, are focused on their job at hand, are ready to take on new responsibilities and overall are satisfied with their professional life and career. These are people who are satisfied with what they earn and are equally satisfied with how they earn it. Getting such employees into the organizational setup can do a lot of good to the overall corporate culture of the organisation.

How to increase employee motivation levels?

The answer is to work toward better employee engagement. And, how to do that?

There are many things that the HR and the training departments of corporates work upon to achieve the desired employee motivation levels. Some of them include — celebrating achievements, recognizing good work, empowering them, giving them greater autonomy, helping them meaningfully manage their work-life balance, setting up measurable goals, ensuring dynamic leadership and team management, and giving breaks to employees. While vacations and holidays are personal breaks, professionally, top companies believe in taking their employees out for corporate offsite and engage them in training activities to fuel their enthusiasm and energy levels.

Three entities within each business unit have crucial roles to play when it comes to raising employee motivation. They are the Human Resources Department, the Training and Development department and the team leader. It is important that these three entities work sincerely and in perfect synchronization to create the right environment at the workplace to get the employees engaged to the optimal levels.

The Role Of Company or Corporate Team offsite

Company offsite is an event that is fast becoming a part of the corporate culture everywhere. Offsites typically are two-three days residential programs giving employees the chance to mix with each other at an informal level. How it affects employee motivation is that such offsite help employees break ego and personal barriers to interact, share and mend bridges with others in their team and other departments. The result is a friendlier environment where team members feel relaxed and not apprehensive with each other. There is a camaraderie that is set up amongst teams and within departments that could never have been possible in the formal high-tensed environment of usual office setup.

Offsites are fun and time to relax and rejuvenate. They are also the ideal time to indulge employees in team building activities that further strengthen the inter-personal bond and also reinforce the organizational goals and objectives. While offsite are good, they demand handsome investment in terms of money and time. Day training programs conducted on-campus or off-campus are also helpful in enhancing relationships between employees, making them unite as a team, imparting life skills, training on technical improvements and empowering employees and team members to work better as a single team.

Also Refer: What are ways to create employee engagement?

How Team Building Activities Can Help?

Some outstanding and innovative team building activities that can be held in the outdoors are activities like Raft building, the Pyramid Building or the Remote Car challenge. All these games come with some critical learnings that focus on aspects like improving the collaborative efforts and staying focussed to achieve higher objectives. Some result-oriented indoor team activities that can be tried at corporate off-sites are Triggertronics, Glass Walk Challenge and the Rod Bending exercise.

Getting employees high on motivation should be the primary aim of all HR and training professionals. This is because organizational goals can be best achieved when the team is thoroughly and meticulously focussed and work in an engaging manner.

Tips To Spice Up Employee Engagement

Here are a few of the most effective ways to spice up employee engagement and motivational levels of employees: -

1. Monetary reward giving is one of the oldest and tried methods of motivating employees. This works exceedingly well with the lower spectrum of workers and staff.
2. Appreciation of good work and recognizing employees in front of the team is one of the best ways to make the employees feel wanted and cared for. The fact that the appreciation comes from the top or senior managers goes down well with the employees and there is an instant kick to their self-esteem and morale.
3. Giving more autonomy or decision-making powers to employees. This surely needs to be related to the levels and designations of employees but at each level when members are given more powers to decide, they are more involved with their work.
4. Taking feedback from employees. When the team manager or leader ensures that everyone has a say and that everyone is heard and respected for their views, there will be greater initiative taken by the team members.
5. Ensuring that the team leads and managers respect and indulge in best practises so that all team members are given equal importance. This encourages collaborative work to take place and discourages all sorts of animosities or rivalries within the team.
6. Brainstorming sessions are held regularly where all employees get to share their creative inputs and suggestions. This way employees are assured that their intrinsic talents and interests are taken care of by the employer.
7. Ensuring that the company culture is positive and healthy. A lot here depends on the owners, the senior and the middle management on how the culture will be and how it can be bettered to ensure that workers and staff members feel valued and cared for.
8. Another novel thing to do is make the physical work environment relaxed and more fun rather than stressful and demanding. Many organisations play piped music, keep green plants around and incorporate eco-friendly practises to naturally uplift the motivational levels of their employees.