Increasing Motivation and Engagement in Today’s Market

The employee market has been a rollercoaster at best over the last couple of years. For managers, maintaining a motivated workforce is more crucial—and challenging—than ever. As businesses constantly adapt to current changes, employees may become disengaged. To help leaders manage their staff, we have provided four strategies to reignite motivation and keep their teams engaged.

Communication is King

You have probably heard us say that employees crave communication and recognition at a much higher rate in times of high change. The problem now is, define high change? Some would say that high levels of change has become the new normal. If that is the case, what is the right amount of communication? The fact is that your employees will all crave communication at different levels. Some are good with an occasional check-in or monthly update, while others can never have enough. The goal is to ensure that employees are informed about company goals, challenges, and changes that may affect them directly. This can be done through regular updates at team meetings, email updates, or newsletters. When employees know where to look for the information and the intervals it will come in, this will reduce the rumor mill and build trust.

Recognize and Reward Contributions

Recognition is the counterpart to communication. Acknowledging hard work boosts morale significantly and reduces employees’ worries about how they are doing. We commonly hear from an employee that they only know how they are doing when they have their annual review. This is the worst-case scenario. You want to operate on the goal of no surprises.  Meaning, at the annual review, employees should have a good idea of how they are doing prior to this meeting. To accomplish this requires you to recognize and provide feedback to employees on a regular basis.

Invest in Professional Development

The most engaged employees indicate that professional development opportunities are among the top things they look for in a job. Encouraging growth by investing in your employees’ futures with development opportunities will enhance your team’s bandwidth and reinforce loyalty toward the company—a win-win! Another way to help develop your staff is to delegate routine tasks. This helps free up your time to work on more strategic tasks and develops their skills, resulting in a team with more depth and knowledge. 

Create Meaningful Connections

Employees want to work for a leader who genuinely cares about them. To build strong relationships with your team, make it a habit to check in with staff to see how they are doing and ask how you can help support them. This will go a long way to increasing their engagement and loyalty. 

Consistency is key when implementing these strategies. Keep open lines of communication flowing regularly so everyone feels included. By implementing these four strategies, leaders can help staff re-engage in their jobs and feel confident in their work and company. They will also be building a stronger team that is capable of more! The stronger your team is, the more you can accomplish together.