Low-cost ways to motivate your employees

from BDC.ca


In a Canadian labour market with shrinking resources, many young people today are in an enviable position when it comes to choosing an employer. They can afford to be highly selective and tend not to stay with companies for the long haul.

Meeting the demands of this new generation of employees is now at the top of the agenda for businesses. You'll have to motivate employees to stay loyal to your firm with more satisfying jobs, ongoing training and anything else that makes you stand out from your competitors.

Yet despite the popular belief that wooing employees is a costly venture for businesses, the reality is that employee motivation can involve little or no cost.

Make the job motivating

Pressed for time, few entrepreneurs prepare written job descriptions. However, experts agree that improvising is not a winning strategy. The more accurate and realistic you are about specifications and job requirements for the position, the more likely that your people will feel motivated to do a good job. It's important to:

-Get your employees involved in writing their job descriptions, so they feel they have genuine input

-Put the emphasis on active, engaging verbs such as "analyzes", "sets up" or "operates"

-Build in clear goals, so employees can see visible progress and results and how they can contribute to the big picture

-Ensure that the work is challenging enough for the employee: don't hire somebody with too many skills for the job

-Give your employees enough leeway to be independent and assume stretch assignments, which encourages personal and professional development
Compensate your employees based on their performance

Give employees feedback

Feedback allows your employees to evolve, improve their skills and do more for your company. And that's why it's important to assess your employees' performance regularly and fairly. For starters, make sure they understand why performance feedback is necessary. Frank discussions will help obtain the best possible results, it's important to show empathy and flexibility.

-Be open to suggestions that could improve the efficiency of your company's operations. Ensure that you:

-Be systematic about performance evaluation for every employee, no matter what level in your company

-Link the performance evaluation to your compensation program so employees take it seriously

-Give honest feedback often - both praise and constructive comments
First, review positive aspects; then, cover areas for improvement; help employees find and implement solutions

-Encourage your employees to evaluate themselves; this gives you an accurate picture of how they view their performance and it can also reveal where improvement is needed

-Establish realistic performance objectives for your employees and make sure they understand and agree

-Rely on simple, ongoing feedback techniques, such as:

-Personal congratulations for a job well-done
-Personal notes from managers to mark a good performance
-Recognizing employee performance and promotions in internal
newsletters
-Showing your team confidence, so that they feel motivated to give
more

Manage your top performers

Your star performers may be a little more demanding than your average performers. They tend to leave companies if they feel they're not getting enough attention. Factor these points in:

-Give your top performers some leeway. Avoid micromanaging and give them the room to do their best

-Get their input often. If you don't seek their ideas, they'll stop giving them to you

-Reward excellent performance with extra perks

-Point out where they need to improve; you want to encourage even your best performers to strive harder

-Praise top performers when they excel. Don't assume that they know they're doing a good job

Give employees innovative perks

In today's demanding business world, many employees are looking for perks beyond monetary compensation, stock options and profit-sharing.

-Consider options such as flexible hours

-Give employees "downtime" for work well done. Employees tend to want perks such as more time-off rather than more money

-Allow employees to work from home

Reinforce team spirit

Motivated employees, who all sing from the same song sheet, contribute their best. Keep these ideas in mind in order to reinforce team spirit.

-Encourage people to interact outside the office environment, i.e., dinners or sports events

-Put employees at ease by holding informal gatherings at your home

-Assign a buddy for new employees to help them during orientation

-Avoid creating hierarchy by assigning perks such as more office space and free parking

Ultimately, your employee motivation strategies can be built into a sound human resources plan. To help you develop that plan, you can contact me.