Often, managers or organizational leaders do not realize that the level of employees’ motivation directly impacts the extent of their productivity.
The extent of the productivity of one employee multiplied by the total workforce of an organization will result in the organization’s performance.
In a nutshell, unmotivated employees will breed poor productivity in organizations, irrespective of the industry. Therefore, as a manager or an organizational leader, it is vital to understand how your employees can be motivated to do better.
Employees and Motivation
Motivation is the factor responsible for spurring an individual to perform a task, especially with enthusiasm, focus, and energy, until the required output is achieved. It involves the reason behind employees’ actions (positive actions in this case).
That is to say, employees who are unmotivated lack the impetus to strive and produce results. This is the reason why some organizations, especially the small ones, never grow beyond certain levels.
Most organizational leaders often believe that increasing employees’ salaries is the way to motivate them to work effectively and efficiently, but it has been discovered that we are all motivated by different factors in life, even in our places of work.
Everyone is not inspired or motivated by the same things; some employees are motivated by their paycheck; others are inspired by pay rise; another set can be motivated by recognition, and so on.
However, there are fundamental factors that can motivate employees altogether regardless of their values and the specific things they believe to be their motivations. The subsequent section provides factors that can inspire any employee anywhere.
7 Ways to Motivate Employees to be Productive
The following are proven factors discovered to be the basis for motivating employees globally in any industry.
· Well-defined goals
Organizational Structure gives directions to employees in organizations; hence, they know where to focus. This is one challenge that is common with small organizations; no systems, no structures.
Employees who fall under various parts of an organization’s entire system have different goals to pursue; this gives them a sense of focus.
When the goal of a department or a unit in an organization is appropriately defined, the employees will be motivated to achieve such goals because they know where their performance will be assessed at the end of the day.
· Use the magical words
Having defined the job circumference of employees, it is not ideal to allow them to jump into performing their tasks daily without words of encouragement, praise, and admonition.
The following are some magical words that easily motivate employees; “Thank you,” “Please,” “I’m sorry,” etc. Some employees work with the mentality of being totally subject to and lesser than the organizational leaders.
Organizational leaders will do better next time when they develop a culture of thanking employees for doing a great job. When managers learn to use the word “Please,” as in; “Please, can you make that a little better?” employees will feel respected and motivated.
It is also essential for organizational leaders to apologize to employees when it is apparent that they were wrong. A manager who claims to be right always will soon be surrounded by unmotivated staff. So, use magical words all the time.
· Acknowledgment/Awards
Words will not always do the magic; it is also necessary to acknowledge employees’ contribution to the success of an organization. This is more than a million dollars to some employees.
Organizational leaders must learn to acknowledge employees’ performance and reward them appropriately through periodic awards or letters of acknowledgment and appreciation.
Awarding a particular employee “Best sales personnel of the year” has a long way to go in motivating such an employee to keep up the excellent work. It will also challenge (motivate) the other sales staff to do better in the coming years.
· Simplified work system
Most employees hate working under poor conditions, whereby there is poor equipment or slow processing equipment. This is common with organizations that fail to upgrade their operations.
Employees will be discouraged to know that their counterparts work under extremely excellent working conditions where the equipment help to simplify the job. Such discouraged employees may resolve to resign and go to a better company.
Organizations need to flow with the trend by upgrading. Using manual systems when your competitors have upgraded to computerized systems will discourage employees.
Accounting software helps to make the computation of figures, recording of financial transactions, and other financial operations easy for Accountants.
At the same time, an easily accessed cloud database makes managerial functions easy in accessing the necessary data for decision making.
· Delegation
Delegation is another factor that motivates employees. It gives the employees a sense of worth or importance to the organization. Delegating tasks to employees, especially tasks undertaken by staff that are superior to such employees, will trigger a leap in the employee’s self-esteem.
For instance, taking a regular employee along for a management meeting just for observation will necessarily boost that employee’s self-worth.
Also, giving lower-level employees the opportunity to brainstorm and contribute in the form of suggestions to organizational decisions will go a long way to motivating with a sense of belonging.
· Satisfactory salaries
Money is essential in ensuring that employees are motivated for maximum productivity. Employees that are poorly paid will most times be unmotivated to work since their extent of contribution to organizational growth is not adequately rewarded financially.
It is essential to determine what your competitors pay and pay at least precisely the same amount or more. Otherwise, employees can be discouraged to switch to working with their competitors since it is the same industry with higher pay.
· Provide extra work benefits
Extra benefits like monthly, quarterly, or yearly bonuses and training opportunities can also boost employees’ morale in their jobs.
Also, a life assurance policy cover can motivate employees to work effectively and efficiently because they believe that they will be indemnified in case of accidents, emergencies, etc.
Employees feel secure when they know that their interest is a priority to the organization where they work. Providing additional financial and material incentives can go a long way to motivate employees for high productivity.
Conclusion
An organization with a consistently motivated workforce is a healthy organization. It is vital to give your employees the enabling environment to strive and excel.
Providing upgraded work systems like software and other equipment will go a long way to simplify employees’ jobs and boost their motivation level. Upstack is committed to assisting organizations in achieving a motivated workforce through systems upgrades.
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Originally published at Upstack.co on Dec 29, 2021 by Lucky Ezeinuaku.
