1. Recognise and reward your employees for doing good work
Clearly identify your valued behaviours and goals and appropriately reward teams and individuals. There are great rewards and recognition programs that give employees, supervisors and managers recognition for achievements. Reinforcing positive behaviour has a sustainable effect on engagement and productivity.
2. Plan for success for all
Work well with your colleagues if you want your employees to work well together. Develop a success plan with each employee or team in the company. Hold weekly, monthly or quarterly meetings to discuss plans and goals, and praise great work that is working towards achieving those goals. Provide a focus point and demonstrate progress towards it.
3. Train your employees and keep them up-to-date
Employees need to be equipped to handle their responsibilities competently. The right employee training, education and development results in greater contribution to the business and willingness to learn. It also develops productivity and loyalty.
Encourage and support extracurricular studies and learning. If budgets are tight develop internal learning programs that draw on the expertise of your own team. When people are learning, they feel like they’re growing their personal value and making good use of their time.
4. Build a culture of employee appreciation
Cash incentives and public recognition, while nice, don’t always make your employees feel totally appreciated. Take some of your short-term morale boosters, like recognising good work with a handshake and a smile, or idea sharing, and turn it into a business lifestyle. Thanking employees face-to-face on a regular basis also helps improve their ability to accept constructive criticism.
5. Make the space comfortable
Make small adjustments to your lighting scheme and bring in fun desk lamps if you can’t banish the overhead fluorescent glare. Keep the office temperature at a comfortable level, and make sure all the technology needed to do the job is available and working.
6. Recognise special events
Birthdays, weddings, births, the accomplishments of employees — if you have a reason to celebrate, do it. This could be as simple as buying a round of coffee for the morning shift. Gather employees and have the office sing to all the birthday people from the current month. It’s corny, and maybe a little embarrassing, but it helps put smiles on faces.
7. Encourage idea sharing
Keep your employees informed about business developments so they feel that they contribute to broader goals.
8. Build a culture of trust
It is essential to build and cultivate trusting business relationships for success and survival. To build capability trust , let people make decisions, involve them in discussions and trust in their opinions and input. For contractual trust, keep agreements and manage employee expectations. Enhance communication trust by sharing information, providing constructive feedback and speaking with good purpose about others.
9. Encourage work breaks
Work goes much faster when you are refreshed and ready to take on the assignment after a break, and it keeps employees from going stir crazy.
Have stubborn workaholics in your office? Make breaks mandatory. Put out some treats in the office kitchen and call everyone over for a snack. It’ll get people interacting with their co-workers, and give everyone a much-deserved break.
10. Develop ‘people engines’
Strategically placing passionate and inspired individuals around your organisation to help keep other employees focused, motivated and happy is a great way to keep staff motivated. When you find people with these characteristics, use them wisely. They’ll certainly make your job easier – remember personality is of huge importance when recruiting.
11. Have fun
Introduce quarterly themes in to the business and reward with team-building exercises – from weeks long murder mysteries to an all day off-site activity. Be creative and create some friendly competition between colleagues.
12. Smile more
The social environment at work is a big contributor to burnout. The CEO’s demeanour can directly affect the staff as workers read the mood of the boss for clues about performance and job security. So, smile more often, talk about fun things like hobbies with employees, or crack a joke — just make sure it’s done in good taste.
