Motivating Your Employees

No matter how qualified or smart your employees are, if they’re not motivated, your business will be running on empty.

There are countless avenues to explore while you experiment with just the right formula to motivate your employees. Through it all, PEP’s employee leasing program can help you with employee administration such as payroll and benefits. Call us for information at 1-800-650-3002.

Happy employees work harder, are more creative, and are committed to your company’s success. When your employees believe in what they’re doing, they will work for your business as if they owned it themselves.

The only problem is that every employee is different when it comes to motivation. While one person is motivated by money, another wants a fancy title. Additional motivating factors might be a relaxed working environment or personal recognition.

Therefore, motivating employees is not necessarily easy. The key to motivating employees is getting to know each person and discovering what makes him or her tick. While this might take some time, the payoffs will be top-notch work, employee retention, and higher profits in the long run.

Other than increasing someone’s pay, here are some ideas to get your staff moving forward, full steam ahead:

• Remember that you alone cannot motivate employees. You can, however, set up a corporate culture that helps employees motivate themselves.
• Be fired up, excited, and enthusiastic about your own job and the company. It’s contagious.
• Offer training. Educational opportunities are a win-win situation. The employee gains skills to use on the job (or put on a résumé) and the employer gets a more knowledgeable team member.
• Personally recognize accomplishments with a note or face-to-face comment. It can be as simple as, “You did a great job on this, thanks.”
• Give your employees a fun project to accomplish as a team, such as arranging an office party or decorating office space.
• Show employees how their career path with the company can grow or change in a positive way.
• Start a program that allows employees to submit sales leads or ideas about ways to save money and increase profits. Reward the best submissions.
• Offer flextime if possible. For example, allow employees to work from home occasionally or adjust the hours they come into the office.
• Be very clear about what you want your employees to do. Most people are motivated by a job well done. Help employees do their job well by clarifying expectations.
• Tell employees the goals of the organization. When employees know what your goals are, they can work smarter as well as harder.
• Meet with employees individually. Get to know their hobbies and situations. Make a list of up to five things that will motivate each employee. Realize, however, that this list may change over time as personal priorities change.
• Once you get to know employees and their interests or hobbies, be original with perks. Some ideas include sports game tickets, gift certificates, and makeovers.
• Learn how to delegate. When employees take a stronger role in their jobs, they will be more fulfilled and motivated.