Employee performance can be compared to student performance. Consider students with a love for gaining knowledge; they rarely miss out on classes and tend to engage teachers more with questions in the hope of expanding their scope of knowledge and ideas. In similar fashion, employees who love their jobs have lower cases of absenteeism, invest a lot more effort in their responsibilities and will go out of their way to team up with colleagues for the sake of achieving company goals.
When an employee feels that their direct boss and management in general have a vested interest in their personal welfare and not just the net business revenue, a sense of loyalty develops. They feel more embraced as a crucial piece in the company’s success and begin to buy into the mission and vision of the company. In this case, they will be propelled by a wave of positive energy to set and achieve higher goals, while embracing any challenges that come their way.
Company culture addresses all the six different factors that affect employee’s motivation to work. A culture that is committed to inspiring purpose, play and potential while suppressing economic pressure, emotional pressure and inertia is a winning formula that will result in higher employee performance and better customer service. This is true across all sectors of the job industry.
Having a great company culture will definitely enhance your competitive advantage as a business. It is the single best way of ensuring that all employees are equipped with the necessary tools for success and providing them with the optimal environment to work in and achieve the best they can be.
Employee Loyalty is based on the ideology of obtaining employees who are committed to the prosperity of their organization. Employees also believe that no other organization could benefit them more than the one they are a part of. So how do you encourage employee loyalty? How can you restructure your organization to start tapping into the emotions of your employees?
Establishing an Employee Loyalty Program is a key component to implement in today's workforce. It can a make a vast impact on retention, engagement and even recruitment. Organizations should start by ensuring multiple criteria are met. One would be ensuring that your organization has suitable job conditions for your employees. Whether it be from office cleanliness to a positive work/life balance, ensuring the comfortability of your employees when spending 8 hours a day at the office is key.
Recognition and rewards are additional items to consider when designing your Employee Loyalty Problem that will help build the loyalty of your employees. This may be an obvious addition to your program but there is a right way and wrong way of doing this. For example, rather than giving an employee a promotion you can gather the organization together during a meeting and publicly recognize them with an award in front of colleagues. Either way the promotion will be received but what is different is the lasting impact to your employer, as well as other employees watching.
When focusing on the retention of your employees, an important question must be asked. Is your organization providing opportunities for growth and development? Promoting from within encourages employees to work harder, as well as gives them a sense of opportunity within the organization. When employees notice that they can be promoted at any time within the organization, it creates a fire within them to give the organization their 100%
The program should also focus on ensuring fair treatment for all employers. It should encompass everything within the loyalty program. Ensure there is no favoritism in the workplace to avoid resentment from others. To ensure that the employee feels valued, listening to all your employees is key for them to feel like their feedback is important. Train your leadership to treat all employers like an equal.
The overall goal of the Employee Loyalty Program is to minimize or eliminate employee turnover. Employee turnover is notably costly and can affect your bottom line. So identify the reasoning behind the departure of the employees and utilize the information as a foundation to your program. Build the program from the foundation and up with your employees in mind and prepare for happier and more efficient employees.
Keeping staff motivated in an organization for them to remain productive can prove a daunting task for management. People are after all uniquely made and tend to react differently to different incentives within the organization’s framework. The best bet for business leaders is to establish a culture that is all-encompassing and one that shapes employee productivity through motivation and providing an enabling working environment. The following article looks at the role company culture plays in keeping employees motivated in their work.
What is Company Culture?
This refers to the set of rules, standards, processes, shared beliefs, and common practices in a company. It functions to align all company activities with its mission statement.
Before we establish the link between company culture and employee motivation, we need to understand why people go to work in the first place. Generally, there are six primary factors that would prompt an individual to work.
Positive Motives
• Play- when you realize self-fulfillment in engaging in the work itself
• Purpose- when the outcome of the work seems to be in line with your identity as a person
• Potential- when the outcome of work helps your identity by enhancing your potential
Negative Motives
• Emotional pressure- working because you are afraid some external force poses a threat to your identity
• Economic pressure- when some external forces compel you to work in order to achieve a certain reward
• Inertia- when you are confused by the lack of motivation in your work and personal identity
Employee Motivation and Company Culture
How to Be a Better Boss
Essential to any fruitful organization is strong leadership supported by a recognition awards program. One of the most valuable assets of an organization is their employees. Both employees and managers are the backbone of what makes companies operate successfully. Managers and other supervisors are tasked with ensuring they are overseeing a productive workplace while also finding various ways to develop relationships and motivate their employees. Quality managers can create a workplace in which employees strive be a part of and over perform their duties for the overall benefit of the organization. Becoming an effective leader and creating a more productive, cohesive workplace requires supervisors to gain a deeper understanding of their employees, motivate successfully and create an atmosphere where goals are reached.
Developing a loyal workforce is a task that many managers struggle with, yet it is possible to create. Finding ways to connect with employees, understand their individual needs and what motivates them, separates bosses who drive employees away and bosses who have earned employees allegiance. Through methods such as team building activities, individual check-in’s with staff members and regular recognition, managers have the ability to learn more about their employees and provide them the assistance they need to become successful. Becoming a quality boss also involves having simple traits that employees look for in their supervisors. These traits include various ways to ensure that employees feel they are respected and treated fairly.
Communicating With and Leading Employees
Employees like to feel a sense of purpose in their work. The responsibility falls onto managers to convey the reasons and benefits of tasks that are assigned to their staff. Through straightforward communication, employees can gain a better understand of what is expected of them and effectively complete them knowing they have the support and assistance of management, if necessary. Building a deeper understanding of daily activities can, in itself, make a great difference in the productivity of employees. Creating an “open-door” atmosphere encourages workers to approach supervisors with concerns or questions and allows for productive dialog to be had.
Effective communication allows managers to lead and shape the workplace atmosphere to cater to their employees. Transparent communication between employees and supervisors closes the gap created by hierarchy and can provide, for example, an insight into how decisions are made and why. One method of transparency in the workplace is to provide employees the opportunity to understand the thought process behind decision making. Instead of simply delivering instructions to employees after decisions are made, take the approach of creating an open dialog with employees and allowing them to be involved or up-to-date on decisions being made. Lead in a way that eliminates gaps, and creates a cohesive environment.
Motivating communication and encouragement through generosity and fairness equates to loyal employees. Individuals work to make a living, and while there may be less desirable tasks, or ones that go beyond the scope of an employee’s job description, people need to be motivated and recognized for their time and efforts. Communication in these instances is more important than ever as it allows supervisors to determine the best method for inspiring.
Motivation in the Workplace
Each individual is motivated differently. The responsibility fall onto manager and supervisors to know their employees well enough to determine the best and most effective way to encourage them. Whether the workplace morale is lackluster or employees are excelling in their roles, there is always room for inspiration and showing appreciation for hard work and effort. It is proven that employees who feel respected have a greater level of happiness at work and are less likely to look for alternative employment. To reduce turnover, managers are encouraged to take a look at their current methods of motivating employees and whether or not they are effective. Some examples include:
- Incorporate fun: Consider looking into different ways to bring employees together during the work day and engage in fun activities. This allows employees to relax and enjoy their day instead of feeling as if they are simply there to get a job done, creating a greater sense of unity in the workplace.
- Give awards: Custom, corporate awards can be ordered for any occasion and given out to show appreciation to employees for their efforts, for reaching a milestone or achieving company goals. These awards are a way for employees to have a lasting memento of their successes at work and a reminder of the respect managers have for their team.
- Bonuses: Monetary incentives, if possible, provide employees with the ability to utilize the benefits they were awarded. Organizations can offer this type of motivation in several ways including sales competitions or outstanding customer service reviews. Regardless of the reason, bonuses are a great way to motivate staff members.
- Positive Recognition: In company meetings or other events, managers are encouraged to take the time to personally recognize any employees who have exceeded in accomplishing specific tasks or any other reason to call out individuals for their successes in front of their peers.
- Show Results of Efforts: A simple and cost effective way to show appreciation is to show employees the outcome of their work. If an individual is responsible for a small component of a project, when it is complete, being able to show what their work ended up producing can be a great strategy to motivating.
There are a variety of ways to acknowledge and show appreciation for the hard work employees do to maintain an effective workplace. Whether an individual has reached a company goal, gone above and beyond their job duties or they provide excellent customer service, part of being an effective manager is making employees feel appreciated. Start motivating employees today by sending a clear message excellence with custom corporate recognition awards from EDCO. Corporate awards build excitement and inspire employees to continue on their path towards success while also proving that their efforts are recognized and valued by their managers.
Employee recognition is vital to giving employees incentive to perform their job efficiently. An employer can give their employees added conveniences that are not expensive at all. Applying just a few of these ideas will greatly increase productivity in the work place.
1. Peer-to-Peer Recognition
Every time an employee helps another employee out, add their name on a piece of paper to a bucket list. The one with the most recognition slips is most likely to win a free meal, or whatever prize, at the end of the week.
2. Social Media
If an employer has a social media website, such as on Facebook, they can give their employee free publicity online. Highlight what they've accomplished so that everyone will know. If the employee consents, they can have their picture put up as well.
3. Birthday Celebration
Any employee would highly appreciate a day off on their birthday, so surprise them with a day off on their birthday, plus maybe a birthday cake the next day. Alternatively, they could know in advance, so they can make birthday plans.
4. Surprise Treats
A surprise treat can be something like a candy bar or some other great snack. When they accomplish an exceptionally productive day, reward them with a surprise snack. To be safe, give these surprise treats to the individual privately.
5. Employee Recognition Day
Better yet, the employer can treat it as a group effort, rewarding employees with an employee recognition day, where they spend the day eating, gaining awards and doing team activities. This event could be spent at places other than the work facility, such as a simple park.
6. Wall of Fame
A great, original way to reward employees and increase incentive is to put their name and picture up on an employee of the month wall, or something to the like. This will encourage employees to compete with each other in a positive way.
7. Trophy Award
There are many cool employee trophy awards that one can buy at EDCO Awards & Specialties. The awards come in many different designs, colors and levels of recognition. If one wants, they can add a bonus check as well, even if it's just 50 dollars.
8. Daily Refreshments
Just daily refreshments alone, such as donuts in the morning and cool drinks in the hot afternoon, will go a very long way in boosting employee productivity in many ways. Breaks have been shown in numerous studies to boost productivity as well.
9. VIP Parking Spot
The employee of the month can get rewarded with VIP parking to their job for the time they're employee of the month. Employees will strive for that VIP parking.
10. Annual Vacation Time Award
This is a great method for employers to increase long-term productivity of their employees. Simply award the winner, however the system may work, with a whole week of work-off vacation time once a year.
