For the longest time, companies have tried to keep their employees motivated by offering them monetary compensations. Companies want their employees to be perfect on the job assigned and hence they feel that by offering financial perks they are motivating them to do so. But little is understood that this is just the tip of the iceberg and this goes much deeper.
Offering financial perks for mechanical jobs may still be a good way to motivate them but for jobs that require more analytical and creative skills offering monetary benefits hardly motivates them to perform better.
To ignite the flame in employees and to spark their creativity organizations need to do much more than simply offer money. Here is a list of 10 actions that may have an impact on teams' motivation in 2022:
Next 24 Hours - For the next 24 hours let your employees work on whatever they want to, give them the liberty to choose anything they want, any project and work with anyone in the organization just as the company Atlassian (a software company) did and displayed amazing results when offering its employees the possibility to work in any of the ongoing projects for part of their weekly time.
Provide Opportunities - The world is constantly changing and employees also need to continuously be upgrading themselves and a failure to do so can impact them tremendously. So to keep them motivated they should be given opportunities to get better at what they do.
Non-monetary Perks - Feeling respected and appreciated is important to stay motivated which can be done by providing them with public recognitions (ovation) and appreciating them for the work they have done both in public and in private.
Intrinsic Motivation - Apart from everything done, it is important for the employees to feel motivated from within, this can be done only if they love to do their jobs, have clear set goals and they decide how to do their work.
Collective Goals- Having clearly defined goals for all the parts of the organization will help the employees of a particular team stay motivated collectively to achieve the assigned targets - these collective goals should be available to all team members.
Don't Spoon-feed - Every employee has something in mind while joining an organization and they want to grow as individuals while working and might have a few plans already in mind so offering them flexibility, avoiding spoon-feeding and letting them take credit for their self-growth will keep them motivated.
No Traditional Meetings - Move away from the conventional methods of conducting meetings where only the boss speaks and everyone else listens instead let the employees put across their points as well as encouraging them to contribute. These meetings should not belong - stand up meetings of less than some minutes - to make a round of a specific project.
Ask Questions - Asking open-ended questions to your employees during meetings and encouraging them to think and come to conclusions by themselves will keep the fire ignited and give better perceptions as well.
Your Idea You Do - Making people feel confident about their ideas and giving them the authority to make them happen will give them a boost of motivation.
Take a Half Day - On some days just go back home from work and let your employees take charge of the work, they will feel that they are responsible and you might just see a newfound motivation in all of them.
Taking these micro-steps and testing some of them to find the sweet spot of your employees will help them stay motivated and give their best at work. You get someone to work with heart and mind by giving purpose and the autonomy to achieve it along with the required skill set.
Prasidhi Poddar
Digital Communications Associate
Bessern
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