Motivating your team to increase job satisfaction
When your employees feel valued on the job they will be more valuable to your organization. Express your appreciation and they will respond positively.
It’s no secret that when employees are happy, they tend to work harder for you and stick around a lot longer. Here are a few great ways to motivate your team to encourage their satisfaction on the job:
1. Be generous
We are all (for the most part) money-motivated, especially those who are in sales, management or supervisory positions. Paying your team on the higher side of the average pay scale is often a good reason for these people to stay in their position. Incentives, quarterly bonuses, and commissions on sales are great ways to thank them for a job done well.
2. Share your long-term vision
The long-range vision you have for your business is what keeps you going. Your employees also need to be able to buy into that vision and make it their own. If you have not yet articulated it or put it into writing, there’s never a bad time to do so. Once you have fleshed it out, share it with your employees so that they can better understand where the company is headed and climb on board.
3. Communication is key
Most problems in the workplace can be put down to breakdowns in communication. While you may have thought that everybody heard you the first time, if you have something important to say, don’t leave it to chance. Call a meeting, circulate a memo or post a notice where everybody can read it. reinforce your message by checking in to make sure the message got across to the right people.
4. Show your appreciation
When all of your employees understand how their job fits into the bigger picture it makes their job more meaningful. Ensure that each member of your workforce gets how what they do enables others to do what they do. Each job is as important as the next and when that message is delivered clearly it sets the stage for great things to happen.
5. Listen to what they have to say
People everywhere, no matter what kind of work they do, want to be heard and understood. Your managers and supervisors should always be able to take the time to listen when a team member has something to say. Though it may not be important to you, or even an issue you think you can solve, it is important enough to this person that he or she is broaching the subject to you. Take the time to hear them out. To encourage discussion, make sure everybody knows your door is always open.
6. Random acts of kindness
Every once in a while, break the monotony of the routine by doing something unexpected. Bring in breakfast one day, or after a particularly tough job, schedule a team dinner or give them all gift cards so they can take their spouses out on you.
7. Give people what they want
Some people may value time off more than extra money on their paychecks. They may be in high-stress positions and have little time to themselves, so a surprise day or afternoon off would be greatly appreciated once in a while.
8. Be flexible
If you can, offer your employees the option of working from home once in a while. Or, offer flexible schedules so that they can avoid a brutal rush-hour commute. For some, this could be the difference between a job they endure and one they love. For you, it could be the difference between eventually losing a good employee or having them on board for the duration. The ability to offer a flexible work schedule can also help you to attract high-value personnel who would not otherwise be able to accommodate a standard work schedule.
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