How to Engage Employees: Tips for Improving Employee Motivation and Engagement

With employees at their most disengaged and unhappy in there jobs now more than ever, you need some strategies that are proven to improve the situation. Keep reading for steps you can take today to engage and motivate employees.

Not only does this lead to unhappy and stressed workers, it also can severely decrease productivity. 

The good news is there are very simple and actionable steps that you can take in order to improve this situation for your business and for your employees. Worker productivity is obviously important for a company, but you also want to make sure that your employees are happy and healthy.

This article is going to discuss many simple steps that can help you and your employees thrive at work.

• Go Green

While it’s definitely encouraged to implement sustainable and environmentally friendly practices at your company, we mean this point very literally. 

Office plants and interior plantscapes have been shown to greatly reduce stress levels, in some cases a reduction in stress by 60 percent was reported! Employee productivity has also been shown to increase when there are plants in the office by as much as 15 percent.

This increase in productivity combined with a huge decrease in stress levels leads to engaged and happy employees and employers. Whether you add a few plants around the office or use an interior plant service to plan your office plant design, you’ll be helping employees feel and work better.

• Encourage and Allow Remote Work

Studies predict that by 2021, about 30 percent of the entire workforce will be working from home a great majority of the time.

There’s a reason for this: 66 percent of companies allow workers to follow a flexible schedule with remote work. And while many people have the preconceived notion that working from home yields less work and distracted employees, the opposite is true. 

90 percent of remote workers say that they get more work done when the work at home vs work in the office and 66 percent of non-remote employees say that they think they would be more productive and engaged if they worked from home.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to have all employees work remotely all the time. Simply allowing employees the option, even if it’s just one day per week, gives employees control over their work life and allows them to get work done in a way that works best for them. This will increase engagement, motivation, and productivity.

• Mentor and Teach Employees Essential Skills

Boredom is one of the top reasons why people don’t feel engaged at work. The average employee is bored for more than 10 hours per week at their job. That’s more than one-fourth of the entire work week!

It’s no wonder people feel disengaged when they’re not interested or stimulated by their work.

To keep employees engaged and stimulated, offer mentoring, coaching, and skill-building training and coaching. Allow employees to choose what they learn more about or what they train in as well.

This does a few things. First, it allows employees to build skills and learn about things they’re interested in, which automatically means they’re engaged as a rule.

Fostering an environment that encourages learning and growth gives employees new challenges and information to keep them from getting bored or in a rut in their position. All of this also benefits employers and businesses as you’ll be getting more highly skilled and trained workers. 

It’s a win-win!

• Give Each Employee Individual Attention

This is a good point to stop and clarify that not all of these tips are going to work for each and every employee. While they generally work for most people, each person is unique. Their working style, what motivates them, how they learn, how they interact, etc. All of these things are going to be entirely different from person to person. What might help one person become more engaged might make someone else less engaged.

That’s why it’s so important to get employee feedback and listen to individuals. Make sure managers and supervisors are speaking with employees individually and really getting to know them and understand how they work best.

This helps you shape your business to engage each individual employee. It also helps employees feel heard and seen by their company, which can increase productivity, engagements, and loyalty.

How to Keep Your Employees Motivated in the Workplace

One of the most important things in running a good business is to keep your employees happy,making them feel they are truly a key part of the business. Employees at all levels alreadyknow that no one is indispensable, however, true leaders don’t show or tell their employees that they can easily be replaced.

Remember most employees are likely to reflect and showhow they feel about theirjobs or company in the way they treat theirclients and even their coworkers.

Employee incentives are designed to reward their performance in the workplace; they highlight individuals that work hard and get the job done in an outstanding manner. Here are few tips any company can use to keep their staff motivated:

• Show appreciation: It should be the starting point; appreciation can be shown verbally, letting your employees know that if the business is doing great, it was because of their hard work, and that they could benefit from that accordingly.
• Offer special bonuses or rewards:this isthe most commonly used incentive by companies and it works most of the time. However, not many companies are willing to increase the rewards once their employees keep achieving the established goals, since what they do is only raise the goal, most likely creating some type of discomfort for the employee.
• Time rewards also count: Sometimes lessis more. Companies can use time as an incentive based on performance, giving a paid half-day or a day off is definitely a good incentive that everyone can appreciate and work hard to achieve.
• Reward great ideas: Listen to your employees and reward their ideas.They usually have a better insight on what truly is going on in a business and on how they can improve it, so make sure you listen.
• Have a casual day: Working in a corporate environment can be tiring, especially on Fridays. Allow your employees to dress casually on these days to make them feel more relaxed, so they can feel the weekend has already arrived.
• Be creative: Many things might come to mind regarding incentives. Try to use some type of entertainment to reward your employees, such as rewarding their efforts with restaurant gift cards, subscriptions to some type of software, etc.

Don’t let that daily work routine bring your employees down; change it up a bit and everybody will definitely appreciate it. Always remember that when you use incentives, try not to only raise the goals, but the rewards as well, or otherwise,you can drive away your best employees.

Give your employees new challenges and tasks to grow professionally and create new opportunities for them to excel and keep on rewarding them from what they do.

There will be time in an organization when the employees could not perform as per the expectation. at that time company need to motivate employees to do good work. Here are some of the points you should consider to motivate employees in the organization. 

We are humans and unlike robots we cannot remain robust to changing circumstances around us. And when it comes to our employees, we cannot expect them to be recharged and fuelled all year long. There would be times when our employees would radiate energy like a happy child and at times even the most exciting opportunity wouldn’t motivate them to get their enthusiasm on scale.

We have curated this list of simple and effective ways to boost your employee morale by folds.

• Transparency is the key 

Your employee invest 40-50 hours of their week at your workplace. It is a natural need for them to feel inclusive. And the only way to make them feel inclusive is by maintaining transparency in your organization. Your employee should not spend time scratching head, thinking about the discrepancies in an organization. Devise a clear and effective system of communication and involve them in decision making wherever it is possible.

• Acknowledge and appreciate 

Employees feel disengaged because they aren’t appreciated for the efforts they put in. A yearly bonus benefits won’t work as a constant motivational source throughout year. It is advisable to devise appreciation and rewards strategies in a way that an employee performance is acknowledged from time to time. It might be a recognition as an employee of the month or an appreciation for tremendous achievement over a project or monetary incentive over a ground breaking deal, rewards and appraisal is amongst the best ways to motivate your employees.

• Create an optimistic and happy environment 

Believe it or not, energy spreads. Be it negative or positive. As an employer it is your responsibility to create positive environment. Happier your work place, happier your employees and more productive your outcomes. Create a vivacious work environment by devising some group activities every now and then.

• Set small measurable goals 

It’s better to have a big picture. But what is more important is to curate and devise small measurable goals, which would lead to an accomplishment of long term goals. Having a set of small achievable goals motivates your employees to put in extra efforts. Create milestones and celebrate in your own tiny way whenever a milestone is accomplished.

• Encourage healthcare 

Well, health is wealth and healthier your employee, healthier your workplace. Create an environment where your employees are encouraged to keep a tab on their health. To bring in a reduction in mental stress, avoid keeping a tight hold on work environment. Create fun and not strenuous work environment. If possible create a small space for recreational activities.

• Speak constructively 

We understand the loss bought in by an inefficient employee. However, instead of criticizing and punishing them for their inefficiency, try to talk them through. Understand the crux behind their resultant inefficiency and try designing a solution on mutual grounds. Your tone of voice should always be constructive and should motivate the employees to perform efficiently.

There don’t exist a full proof strategy that would ensure that the motivation of an employee would be on track. However, this techniques directly address the crux of problem and implementing them would bring in positive results in your organization.

Also Read

Increase Productivity: Five Powerful Actions To Boost Up Productivity In Workplace

Ten Ways You Can Use Self-Development To Become A High-Flyer At Work