Today, it is widely accepted that workforce motivation is critical for higher productivity and success. Motivated employees are known to be highly productive and resourceful.
The importance of motivation in organizations can never be over-flogged. Motivation energizes and impel employees to go extra miles to meet and exceed employer's expectations for a long time.
Many managers are accustomed to using extrinsic motivators such as money, bonus, and commission. I think that is why creating a sustainable workforce motivation seems like a bumpy ride for them.
Money for instance, is not necessarily enough to spur an employee to perform optimally. At best, it can only keep him on the job a bit longer (with average performance). I guess that's not what you want, or is it?
While we can't ignore the importance of money in motivating employees, we should not forget that motivation built on external rewards is often short lived.
Successful companies don’t hire brainy people just to have them do routine jobs – they employ them to be active contributors of a formidable team. Smart managers know that the easiest way to foster team spirit in workforce is to treat employees as associate members.
Not only will a company benefit from a wider scope of unique knowledge, skills and ideas when employees are involved in decision-making, it will also enjoy improved services. Each time employees in a particular unit are involved in decision-making, they go all out to see the project succeeds.
According to a research conducted by Peter Baron Stark, there is a direct correlation between involving employees in decision-making and overall morale, satisfaction with jobs.
Whenever employees are involved in decision making, they feel valued, trusted and important. Everyone wants to feel important after all.
Any quality-oriented business will never forgo human capacity development for anything. As daunting as it may sound, the greatest contribution any leader can ever make in a workforce is to encourage personal development. Apart from being an important intrinsic motivator, this is also an investment with guaranteed returns (employees will reciprocate with values that commensurate this investment).
And the good thing about stimulating personal growth in a workforce is – you don’t have to break the bank to do it, you can even do it without spending a dime.
Here’s a few tips to help you get started:
• Setup a reading club: If you have some books – start with them. You may also encourage some colleagues to contribute or borrow the club some self-improvement books as the case may be.
• Allot some time (once in week) to employees to engage in self-development research. Here’s the catch – sooner or later, your company will become highly competitive and your employees will be more loyal and committed to you.
• Have meetings with your employees (at least once in a month) to share knowledge and brainstorm.
• Always share helpful links online with your employees
• Encourage employees to try some personal development progammes both online and offline. I’m going to share some powerful and effective (also free) personal development resources in my next post.
• Engage the services of professional facilitators to cheer and motivate your employees regularly.
One of the easiest and effective ways to create workforce motivation is to make work engaging and challenging. A crucial first step to make work interesting - is to set out comprehensive job responsibilities and performance targets for each employee.
Also try to make the mode of operations flexible - change formation once in awhile. Routine approch can be boring and demotivating sometimes.
In dealing with employees, always remember that people (generally) have different set of abilities, drives, strengths, and weaknesses - with this in mind, always delegate tasks to suited employees. Capitalize on their strengths.
Rotate leadership baton in every department on short intervals. This will improve your team strength as team members will learn some critical values like empathy.
Every organization has its unique culture. Organizational culture is a function of some shared assumptions, values and beliefs that govern people's behaviour in the organization.
John McLaughlin said organizational culture is composed of seven characteristics that range in priority from high to low. Every organization has a distinct value for each of these characteristics, which, when combined, defines the organization's unique culture.
The seven characteristics of organizational culture John McLaughlin are:
1. Innovation (Risk Orientation)
2. Attention to Detail (Precision Orientation)
3. Emphasis on Outcome (Achievement Orientation)
4. Emphasis on People (Fairness Orientation)
5. Teamwork (Collaboration Orientation)
6. Aggressiveness (Competitive Orientation)
7. Stability (Rule Orientation)
You may read the full article here : What Is Organizational Culture? Definition & Characteristics
You may want to switch to an organizational culture that works well for your team.
Please share your thoughts on this post using the comment box below. Also help me share this post with your friends, and colleagues. Thanks for stopping by.
The importance of motivation in organizations can never be over-flogged. Motivation energizes and impel employees to go extra miles to meet and exceed employer's expectations for a long time.
Many managers are accustomed to using extrinsic motivators such as money, bonus, and commission. I think that is why creating a sustainable workforce motivation seems like a bumpy ride for them.
Money for instance, is not necessarily enough to spur an employee to perform optimally. At best, it can only keep him on the job a bit longer (with average performance). I guess that's not what you want, or is it?
While we can't ignore the importance of money in motivating employees, we should not forget that motivation built on external rewards is often short lived.
Four Often Ignored Steps For Creating Sustainable Workforce Motivation
1. Involve employees in decision making:
Successful companies don’t hire brainy people just to have them do routine jobs – they employ them to be active contributors of a formidable team. Smart managers know that the easiest way to foster team spirit in workforce is to treat employees as associate members.
Not only will a company benefit from a wider scope of unique knowledge, skills and ideas when employees are involved in decision-making, it will also enjoy improved services. Each time employees in a particular unit are involved in decision-making, they go all out to see the project succeeds.
According to a research conducted by Peter Baron Stark, there is a direct correlation between involving employees in decision-making and overall morale, satisfaction with jobs.
Whenever employees are involved in decision making, they feel valued, trusted and important. Everyone wants to feel important after all.
2. Stimulate personal growth:
Any quality-oriented business will never forgo human capacity development for anything. As daunting as it may sound, the greatest contribution any leader can ever make in a workforce is to encourage personal development. Apart from being an important intrinsic motivator, this is also an investment with guaranteed returns (employees will reciprocate with values that commensurate this investment).
And the good thing about stimulating personal growth in a workforce is – you don’t have to break the bank to do it, you can even do it without spending a dime.
Here’s a few tips to help you get started:
• Setup a reading club: If you have some books – start with them. You may also encourage some colleagues to contribute or borrow the club some self-improvement books as the case may be.
• Allot some time (once in week) to employees to engage in self-development research. Here’s the catch – sooner or later, your company will become highly competitive and your employees will be more loyal and committed to you.
• Have meetings with your employees (at least once in a month) to share knowledge and brainstorm.
• Always share helpful links online with your employees
• Encourage employees to try some personal development progammes both online and offline. I’m going to share some powerful and effective (also free) personal development resources in my next post.
• Engage the services of professional facilitators to cheer and motivate your employees regularly.
3. Make Work Interesting And Challenging:
One of the easiest and effective ways to create workforce motivation is to make work engaging and challenging. A crucial first step to make work interesting - is to set out comprehensive job responsibilities and performance targets for each employee.
Also try to make the mode of operations flexible - change formation once in awhile. Routine approch can be boring and demotivating sometimes.
In dealing with employees, always remember that people (generally) have different set of abilities, drives, strengths, and weaknesses - with this in mind, always delegate tasks to suited employees. Capitalize on their strengths.
Rotate leadership baton in every department on short intervals. This will improve your team strength as team members will learn some critical values like empathy.
4. Rebuild Your Organizational Culture:
Every organization has its unique culture. Organizational culture is a function of some shared assumptions, values and beliefs that govern people's behaviour in the organization.
John McLaughlin said organizational culture is composed of seven characteristics that range in priority from high to low. Every organization has a distinct value for each of these characteristics, which, when combined, defines the organization's unique culture.
The seven characteristics of organizational culture John McLaughlin are:
1. Innovation (Risk Orientation)
2. Attention to Detail (Precision Orientation)
3. Emphasis on Outcome (Achievement Orientation)
4. Emphasis on People (Fairness Orientation)
5. Teamwork (Collaboration Orientation)
6. Aggressiveness (Competitive Orientation)
7. Stability (Rule Orientation)
You may read the full article here : What Is Organizational Culture? Definition & Characteristics
You may want to switch to an organizational culture that works well for your team.
Please share your thoughts on this post using the comment box below. Also help me share this post with your friends, and colleagues. Thanks for stopping by.
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