Every boss that has ever wanted to be successful has wanted their employees to use their talents to the fullest, to reach great heights and produce high-quality work. However, this goal is not achievable. Employees are not robots, they are people susceptible to ups and downs – good days and bad – and this will affect their performance.
As a business leader – or manager – it is part of your responsibility to help your employees overcome these dips in performance, and bring them back up to their best. The more engaged they are the greater the results they will produce, but if you don’t get your motivation and tactics right then you could have an even more negative effect on their performance.
As such, we have spoken to a group of successful business leaders about how they go about encouraging their employees to maximize their productivity and efficiency.
Ask And Listen
The greatest conversationalists in the world are those that listen instead of talk, and a lot can be learned from that. In businesses, your employees are a hugely untapped source of information that can boost your company’s productivity and revenue. But this isn’t all, because by asking them what they think and believe about something will give them a sense of value, and that will encourage an increased engagement. People want to feel valued, and listening to them and taking an interest in their views is a great way to achieve this.
Empower Them As People
There is no better way to make your employees efficient than through empowerment. Empowerment encourages happiness, and happiness means efficiency. One way to do this is to let them set their own goals and their own strategies to reach these goals, then leave it up to them. This will see them do their best to reward your trust because, instead of being told what to do, they are being allowed to achieve of their own determination.
Offer Them Support
Life is stressful, and work is one of the most stressful facets of this equation. That is why being able to offer them support will be so valuable to their well-being, and thus their engagement. One way to do this is to look into Employee Assistance Programmes. Almost 50% of the UK workforce is now supported by an EAP, such as that offered by Health Assured, representing 13.79 million people. The reason for the rising popularity of these programs is that these services are dedicated helping employees deal with any problems they may be facing.
Upgrade Your Communication Technology
The industrialized days are over, and with it have gone centralized workforces. This means that it is more important than ever to invest in the right technology to allow better communications. One of the most direct results of this upgrade will be individual employee success. People no longer just work from offices. There are flexi-hours and work from home options available in almost all successful companies, and that means a collaborative platform is imperative to the success of your staff.
Invest In Training
People have a lot of inherent similarities, and one of the most prominent is our need to improve as people. We go to school at an early age, rise up through the education system and then into further education. This means that we are trained to be educated and used to bettering our knowledge, so latch on to this. Employees tend to get frustrated – and down – when they feel they are no longer valued, or not given the chance to grow and become more useful to the company they work in, which is why training is so important. But this isn’t just for their benefit. Increasing your investment will see your employees become more engaged, and more qualified, both of which will see improved results in productivity and quality.
Have A Cause
The majority of the workforce these days is made up of Millennials, and a major personality trait of a Millennial is their need to do something worthwhile. If they believe they have a purpose or are part of a good purpose, then they are going to be more engaged with their role within a company. That is where having a cause comes in. By simply partnering up with a charity, or a philanthropic cause will give your employees that feeling of worth that will only be replicated in their work. Look at the biggest brands in the world; Tom’s, Stella Artois, Microsoft. All of these companies have realized the importance of having a cause, not only in the eyes of the public but in attracting the best employees too.
