Motivating employees

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Throughout any period of change ensuring your staff remain positive and motivated can be quite a challenge. With the introduction of FSA employees may well be experiencing significant changes to their working practises and those of the business in general. This can generate negativity or just general concern.

Motivation is the reason we do something. This can be a financial reason, such as a bonus or reward, or it could be a personal reason.

Although potentially more costly, businesses tend to find motivation through the payment of bonuses and rewards to be the most obvious solution and also the easiest to implement. However, financial motivation usually only offers short term benefits. Once a bonus has been paid, or an individual becomes used to receiving a bonus, the benefit can be seen to be of less value.

Whilst the financial factor should still be recognised there are other positive steps managers can take to encourage staff to feel motivated. These can be adopted as part of your management disciplines.

The big picture

As much as possible try to share the big picture with your staff, If each individual fully understands why a particular task is required it will have much more meaning and they will feel more inclined to do it well if they understand its purpose.

Imagine yourself in the front of a large mirror. You see yourself and what ever is around you. That should be the view an employee has of the company. The whole picture and where they fit into it. However, what we tend to do is smash the mirror and give each member of staff their little bit.

Communicate and provide feedback

Firstly, always state the obvious as it may not be obvious to someone else. It is easy to assume people are more aware of what is going on than they actually are. Even if they did know, it can be reassuring to hear it again.

Secondly start looking for what is right. It can be quite usual to produce 9 out of 10 excellent pieces of work yet only hear about the 10th. This can be a significant factor to feeling de-motivated. When working in a busy and demanding environment it is easy to highlight matters that seem to be problematic rather than those that are being carried out well. However, we all like to, and sometimes need to, know when we are doing well. Take time explaining the right way to do a piece of work rather than spend the time running though all that is wrong with it.

Agree performance standards and goals

This is the foundation stage of being able to effectively monitor and manage performance and being able to provide regular and valuable feedback. Also it helps people to see and feel the impact of their contribution.

Remember to break down goals or objectives. Consider a football team. Their aim is to be the overall winner at the end of the season which takes 10 months to achieve. The Manager breaks down this objective into smaller ones (i.e. each individual game). The Manager talks to the players before every game about their tactics, half time to discuss progress and after every game to review performance, which will include the good aspects of the game and where improvements could be made.

Use negatives positively

If you have an employee who has, what you perceive to be a negative characteristic, try to think of how that characteristic can be used within the business to have a positive effect rather than trying to change it.

For example, if an individual is stubborn, what type of work would this characteristic suit and may even benefit?

Whist a total reorganisation of the company is not always a good idea, nor feasible, taking a step back and having a second look at the functions people do within their present role is possible. And it could work to your and their advantage. People tend to work better when conducting tasks they feel they are most suited to. This is part comfort factor, part job satisfaction and they will feel they are performing well.

Choice

Allowing your staff to contribute to what they do and the way they do it can have benefits. How much choice you allow them will depend on each individual’s knowledge, skill or ability and level of competency.

Remember; delegate the task not the procedure. Let them chose how they work to achieve the result. As a manager your way may not be the only way and, dare I say it, may not necessarily be the most effective way. As long as the end result is correct and it’s achieved compliantly, does it matter that it was conducted in a different way?

Give them a challenge

Would you look forward to planning tennis with someone who had never picked up a tennis racket before? Probably not.

Generally, people like a challenge. If they are not stretched the task can be boring. Challenges mean people have the chance to learn new things and acquire new skills. They also maintain interest and encourage staff to work more effectively and productively.

Opportunities for challenge could be offered through ‘multi-skilling’ or job rotation. Friendly competition and recognition as a whole can also be important motivational factors.

Motivating your staff doesn’t have to hit your pocket. It also doesn’t have to take much time. However, it may mean you need to think about how you deliver news, provide feedback, communicate in general and delegate work. Most people tend to behave in the way they are expected to behave. Most people tend to want to work hard for those managers they respect and admire. Applying some simple but effective management ‘tactics’ may help to achieve this.

This article was written by Elizabeth Mills, Director, Broker Network
An edited version of this article was published in Insurance Times