Get Your Team to Think Like an Owner
How engaged are your employees? Employee engagement has been linked by Gallup to customer loyalty, profitability and other business outcomes. In other words, it LITERALLY pays for businesses to have engaged employees. In the Gallup report on workplace satisfaction and employee engagement, statistics show that approximately two-thirds of employees are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged.
If that sounds like the people in your business, you have an annoying and very costly problem. Employee disengagement costs between $450-550 billion annually in the U.S. alone. So employees that are engaged and motivated is a huge asset.
Here are 7 tips to help you create a motivated workforce.
- Create an incentive program - This can be a powerful way to externally motivate your team, particularly for quota-driven roles But they can also be helpful for promoting specific behaviours.
- Encourage an ownership mindset. Provide your team with autonomy within the framework that you provide. Share the company vision and objectives and get everyone steering toward the same goal. Tell them how valuable they are and encourage pride in their work.
- Offer productive feedback. Employees begin to lose motivation when they feel like they are working in a vacuum. Offering regular, productive feedback through one-on-one meetings and mentoring programs is a powerful way to reinforce good work habits and to demonstrate that you care about the person doing the job as much as you care about the work itself. No one wants to work at a thankless job.
- Invest in training and professional development. This can be highly motivating, particularly when you understand your employees’ career goals and are helping them succeed.5.Provide a clear vision for the future. People are intrinsically motivated by having a sense of purpose. When you unite employees around a shared vision, it empowers everyone. Even the most motivated employee will get discouraged if there is no direction.
- Build strong teams where members bond. Socialization is an important part of what helps keep people motivated. When people are friendly with their coworkers and feel some camaraderie with them outside of work, they’re more likely to feel satisfied with their jobs. In fact, Gallup found that close work friendships boost employee satisfaction and productivity by 50%.
- Hire strong performers. The old adage goes that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and that is certainly true when it comes to building strong companies. Each employee is a link in the chain — from the entry-level customer service representative to the CEO. When employees aren’t engaged in their jobs, productivity levels, accuracy and customer satisfaction all take a dip.
- Take steps today to make sure your employees know they are valued, their work matters and they are part of the team - and watch their performance soar.