by Joni Bain
As a leader one of the hats you have to wear is that of a cheerleader. While it doesn’t literally mean you have to bust out a pair of pom-poms, it does entail keeping your employees motivated. Employee motivation is very important as it plays a critical role in keeping the organization running effectively. Here are three reasons why:
#1: Increased productivity
Employees are much more productive if they are aligned with the company’s vision, and have bought into it. When your staff is motivated and satisfied with the team, they have more desire to finish their tasks. The Fast Company points out that there is a 12 percent boost in productivity in employees who are happy with their work. The ones who are dissatisfied tend to experience a 10 percent decrease in productivity.
#2: Boost engagement
Engagement here means the level of commitment that a member has towards the team or organization. Making sure that they are included in the decision-making processes is an important step to increasing engagement.
“Employees whose managers involve them in goal setting are more than three times more likely than other employees to be engaged,” according to the findings of a study by global analytics firm Gallup.
Of course, it’s not enough that you keep your team in the loop with what’s going on. It’s important to ensure that they have a platform to voice their opinions and ideas regarding matters that directly affect them. This is organizational leadership in action. Maryville University highlights that connecting to the ‘human side of organizations’ is vital to initiate change in leadership roles. By ensuring that employees are heard and visible throughout the company, you are taking steps towards creating an organization that gives value to every single component, from rank and file employees to project managers and top executives. Hopefully, it will help the employees understand the specific roles they play in reaching the team’s objectives and overall vision. Feeling as if you are valued will go a long way towards reinforcing one’s commitment to achieving that vision.
#3 Maintain Workforce Stability
The third reason is to maintain or increase workforce stability. Employees who are not satisfied with their current work are likely to leave, and research shows that high turnover rates are very costly. In an outline of employee turnover costs by The Balance, the main expenses mentioned are for hiring/recruitment, training and opportunity costs. All in all, it’s a very expensive process that can hurt the revenue and profitability of the company. On top of that, it can upset the workplace morale by overworking employees to compensate for the diminishing workforce. And because some workers will have to take on other people’s responsibilities, it can impact the quality of the products or services offered by your company. This forms a vicious cycle that may seriously affect the organization, or even cause it to fail entirely.
Management 3.0 has a list of tools for keeping employees motivated, which mainly focuses on improving communication lines. We also like to gamify things, so why not find out what motivates you by playing Moving Motivators with your teammates? The bottom line is that motivation boosts productivity, engagement, and workforce stability, factors that are all essential to the organization’s success and sustainability.
Why do we need to motivate employees? Are the unmotivated when we hire them? What needs to happen is that we stop demotivating them! Let’s go back a (re)read Deming.
Management is not about finding people with good motivation, only to wonder why that motivation has evaporated one, two or three years down the line, when other factors have intruded or the turn of events has not worked in the company’s favour. Motivation is something that needs refreshing when times get hard or outlooks are gloomy. If you neglect it, it will wither away and won’t be there when you need it the most.