We’ve entered a new year and with that comes the opportunity to set new goals. As a business owner, you’ll want to find some ways to help your employees stay motivated throughout this year. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be as difficult as you might imagine.
Here are some tips to get you started so you can boost employee productivity:
1. Set a clear vision of your team’s goals
About 63% of employees say that they waste time at work because they don’t know what their priorities are while there. Inc. says this is because oftentimes they’re given so much work and so many mixed messages. The only real way to fix this is to set clear goals for your employees. When you take the time to do this and everyone sees and understands what you’ve done here, you’ll find that your employees are more willing to concentrate on work instead of wasting time goofing off.
2. Encourage happiness
When employees are happy, they’re also enthusiastic and this leads them to naturally make positive contributions to your workplace. Their attitude will also be infectious. Of course, the opposite is also true: Unhappy employees will make the workplace miserable.
3. Make the break room enjoyable
Your employees go into the break room to unwind and take a break from work’s challenges. This is why it’s important that they enjoy spending time there. When they do so they’ll be motivated to return to providing the high-quality work you expect from them. As such, you should make sure that your break room offers activities that employees can use to forget about their stress for a bit. It should be an area that offers games or physical activities (e.g. table tennis). When you offer such an atmosphere, you’ll be able to:
- Boost morale
- Offer quick way employees who are struggling can break away for a while
- Enable authentic team building
- Help improve your employees’ mental health and their overall physical health too
4. Show your appreciation
Everyone needs to feel appreciated. Your employees will respond to receiving appreciation and having this fundamental human need fulfilled by providing you with high-quality work. This is because they see that you value what they do for your business – something that yields higher satisfaction and an increase in productivity for you too.
5. Show enthusiasm towards your team
It’s important that every time your business reaches a milestone, you share its celebration with your employees. This is a great way to show them how much you value their contributions towards this success.
In the same way, you should also celebrate your employees’ birthdays, anniversaries, births, and promotions – anything they’re celebrating, you should join in the celebration with them. Sometimes, you may want to take your employees out for lunch or a drink to help them celebrate these things.
Employees value the small “thank you” gestures. It can go a long way towards encouraging them to continue striving towards creating the type of workplace everyone wants to work in.
6. Schedule team-building activities
Keeping your employees motivated will require more than simply giving them more money or offering them additional vacation time. Your employees must be able to work together as a team to achieve your business’ goals. The best way to do this is by having everyone engage in team-building activities together. These are beneficial in numerous ways, including:
- Everyone gets away from the office to do something fun together
- You can choose to contribute to a charity together and thus help improve society
- You’ll get to know each other on a more personal basis
Make sure whatever team-building activities you choose to engage in not only bring your employees together as a team but that they also:
- Improve communication skills
- Develop team values
- Increase problem-solving abilities
- Are activities that are fun
- Help them work on leadership skills
7. Communicate progress regularly
Communication is the key to success in many areas of life – from relationships to business. You need effective two-way communication so you’re successful. Your reward will come in the form of an engaged, productive workforce. Unfortunately, this is something that many companies are missing out on because according to one study, about 80% of the conversations that occur in the workplace are spent focusing on past failures. This means that only 15% of the conversations focus on what’s currently happening. What’s even more disturbing is the fact that this only leaves about 5% of the time to discuss solutions and future possibilities.
Instead of looking backwards, we should be focusing on the future. This demonstrates where our commitment lies while also helping us find the right solution to what’s currently happening. Of course, you can’t ignore your past failures. Instead, you must learn how to look at them in a way that’s both positive and productive. For instance, when you hold a meeting about something that’s going wrong, you should begin by pointing out what’s going right. In this way you can become a role model for positive, open communication – something your employees will then want to learn about so they can follow your example.
8. Improve employee skills with training
It takes more than simply hiring and on boarding new employees. If you want to make sure they’re productive, you should consider using conference speakers to encourage them to be more efficient and productive. This isn’t only true for new hires, but also for employees who’ve been working for your business for quite some time now.
Now you can enter the New Year with confidence when it comes to setting the goal of helping your employees remain motivated throughout 2019 and beyond. You can see that there are many small ways you boost employee productivity – ways that don’t take much time or effort on your behalf. While you may have imagined that this would be a year-long struggle for you, now you can feel confident that it won’t be this way at all. Enjoy this new-found confidence as you enjoy your new year. May it be a happy and prosperous one for you, your loved ones, and your business too.
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Author: Mila Jones
Mila Jones is a Senior Business Consultant, with rich experience in the domains of technology consulting and strategy, she works with both established technology brands and market entrants to offer research inputs and insights on leveraging technology as a source of strategic competitive advantage. She is a prolific author and shares her expertise with tech enthusiasts on popular digital publishing platforms. She loves not only to write about several topics but also loves to explore new ideas about Lifestyle, Travel blogs and many more.
