Employee Engagement – 5 Ways to Keep Staff Feeling Motivated & Appreciated

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It can be hard enough in today’s fast-paced world to keep your finger on the pulse of day-to-day business operations. Throw disgruntled or unhappy employees into the mix, and your life as a business manager or owner just became that little bit harder. Keeping your staff happy is a priority in business, if not for their happiness in their job, but for your bottom line. If you want satisfied, productive and long-term staff, here’s how to get them:

Tokens of Appreciation

While you might believe that paying their salary every week should be enough to keep them happy, in many cases a non-monetary gesture in the form of corporate gifts and rewards can be even more effective in letting employees know how much you value and appreciate them. Whether in recognition of professional, personal or performance milestones, holidays or acknowledgement of a job well done, a thoughtful gift or reward can say much more than money.

Measure Employee Engagement

If you’re a business owner or manager, a certain degree of arms-length from the coalface of business can leave you unaware of complaints, staff unhappiness, or discontent. All you might see is low productivity that leaves you scratching your head. Disengagement costs organization up to $550 billion per year, so there’s every reason to find a solution. It pays dividends to look into software that provides a platform for staff to speak their mind in a safe and non-threatening medium. In doing so, you’re able to identify areas of employee dissatisfaction and lost productivity and develop strategies to address them.

Provide Opportunities

While you may have hired your team to do a specific job, that doesn’t mean they won’t feel the need to upskill. By offering educational and training opportunities to your staff, you have a higher chance of retaining valuable employees. Almost half of the millennials surveyed left their last job because there was no opportunity for growth. Help your staff to feel appreciated and motivated by actively encouraging education and upskilling. The long-term benefits to your business of the increased skill levels will likely far outweigh the short-term costs.

People Not Numbers

In large corporations, it can be challenging to see your team as more than just numbers. After all, if you have several hundred employees, knowing them all on a first name basis would be tough for anyone. However, viewing your team as more than just numbers can help to make them feel appreciated and motivated.

For smaller businesses, this process is simple. Arrange meetings with each person to find out what their goals are in life and business, and what they require improve their experience on the job. In larger corporations, assign the task to department managers. If you show personal interest in how your staff operates, they are more likely to feel appreciated in their job.

Incentive

Most people love a little bit of healthy competition, particularly when it can involve team bonding, camaraderie, and improved productivity along the way. Therefore, you may find that including contests, incentives and milestones into your workplace dynamic could help your staff’s motivation levels, while simultaneously boosting your bottom line. It’s important that the competition doesn’t lead to unhealthy rivalry and animosity. However, when structured wisely, most employees will thrive when such an option is available, making for better levels of motivation and engagement.

You can’t expect your staff to feel motivated and appreciated through regular income alone. It takes thinking outside of the square and being a responsible leader. Any of these five tips above can more than help to improve your workplace productivity while benefiting your employees at the same time.