Before talking about how to motivate workers, very often the first thing we need to do is stop employees from burning out. In many companies there are employees who are genuinely burned out, perhaps because of their working conditions, perhaps because of the job they do, or perhaps because of their life in general.
But be careful: you can stop a worker from burning out and still have that worker lack motivation. In other words, a person can be neither burned out nor motivated.
According to sociologist Robin Simon, work is good for our mental health, because it makes us feel useful, lets us develop and apply skills and also gives us financial peace of mind. But sometimes work becomes the main source of the problem: it burns us out, wears us down and consumes us. Sometimes the problem starts at the root.
1. It all starts on hiring day. Look for excellence and don’t settle for less
It is hard to hire great professionals. That is exactly why you should never hire until you find precisely what you are looking for. Many recruiters don’t choose the person they were looking for. Sometimes companies hire the least bad of everyone who applied.
The best way to miss your goals is to abandon your hiring plan, especially if you let the wrong person into your company. Sometimes it’s better to have empty seats than to put the wrong butt in them.
This is the advice of Michael Bird, founder of NetProspex, who boasts that every euro he spent on extra hiring rounds paid for itself many times over. But to find excellence, we sometimes have to ignore absurd requirements that have nothing to do with the job we are asking the employee to do.
2. Free food isn’t the answer, but you probably need to provide it
In most companies people work a split shift, and some employees barely have time to get home, eat and come back to work. Being able to eat at no extra cost in the company canteen or in an outside restaurant that has an arrangement with the company, and letting workers choose between a relaxed lunch near the office or going home, already counts for something.
These are some of the benefits employees appreciate. While it won’t make a good employee stay when a competitor makes a great offer, they will at least keep this and other benefits that make their working life easier in mind.
Note: Spanish working hours are among the most inefficient in the world. We Spaniards are among the countries that work the most hours, and yet we are much less productive than other countries that put in fewer hours. In other words, the Spanish working day is designed to burn out anyone who works only for a paycheck.
3. Make employees feel part of something: set goals
An employee is not a number, nor a cog that we will use until it rusts and can easily be replaced. Many companies never get round to calculating what it costs to train a new worker after letting a competent professional who was already trained go.
Employees need goals and targets. Nobody can be motivated without anything at all to aim for. Everyone should have goals, and rewards for exceeding them.
(Read: Leadership: 3 things you may be getting wrong that nobody dares to tell you)
4. Have the resources, tools and autonomy to reach those goals
Some bosses are so foolish that, deep down, they don’t really want their employees to reach their goals. They want them to get close but fall short. That way the company saves on incentives, bonuses or commissions, and they believe the employee will be even more motivated to hit the target next time.
You have to give people the resources and tools they need to reach their targets. Having a company behind you that supports you at all times and gives you what you need instead of putting obstacles in your way: that is motivating.
5. Money isn’t everything, but it is 70% of motivation
Some people say or think that money isn’t the most important thing when it comes to motivating workers. But that isn’t true, especially for a manager, executive or salesperson. Employees can also value benefits such as work-life balance, promotion, recognition for their work and career development.
Every goal and target should come with a financial reward if it is met. Two workers doing the same job, one well and the other badly, should be distinguished by their pay. Money has proven to be the biggest source of motivation for competitive professionals.
6. Real chances of promotion
Our work should be a constant challenge. Nobody wants to hit a ceiling, so employees need to know that the company will value the work of its best people. Although it may be necessary to bring in an expert in a particular field to lead a team, as a general rule the person best prepared for a position of responsibility is usually already in your company.
A company with more than 100 workers that can’t “produce” a manager from within its own staff must be doing something very wrong somewhere in the process.
7. Ask your employees
Outside Spain, companies often hold what is known as “brainstorming”, where every so often any worker in the company can put forward their own ideas on how to improve a department, an area or a process…
In the same way, you will hear hundreds of ideas to do with growing and expanding the business. Since we are still green in this respect in Spain, at least start by asking your employees the most basic questions.
What do you think isn’t working, what do you think could be improved, how could we improve it?… And once you have asked, take careful note, listen to them, and let your employees see that you have made changes based on their arguments.
8. Forget pre-scheduled meetings
In a forum for managers, someone asked which day of the week would be best for a weekly meeting. Some said Tuesdays, others Wednesdays, and the craziest ones Fridays. I’m sorry, but only bad managers have a fixed day for a weekly meeting.
Routine meetings have been shown to be a complete waste of time, and they help demotivate employees even more.
You shouldn’t have a fixed day on the calendar for a meeting. Sometimes we won’t need a single meeting for a month, and other times we’ll need two meetings in one week. Meetings are for dealing with important matters, not for making us feel important. When is the best day and time to go to the bathroom? When we need to.
What’s more, routine meetings are among the ways managers make their employees less productive.
9. A family spirit in the company
It may sound like business romanticism, but turning a company into something more than a business, so that colleagues feel like one big family, is what can make a company unbreakable.
Although, seeing how hard it is to create a family spirit, let’s at least try to create a team spirit, where everyone feels part of something bigger and more important than themselves, and where, just as in the army, you watch someone’s back knowing that someone else is watching yours.
Further reading
- 7 truths about leadership
- Myths and truths about leadership
- Lessons from the army to apply to business, life and your career
- The keys to success when things get tough
- Jack Welch: 10 wise lessons on business and leadership
Featured image: Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
