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Employee Motivation Matters. How Can Leaders Help?

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You’re a business leader. You believe in your company with all your heart. Your commitment to the organization’s mission drives you to aim high, work hard, and put in your best effort. However, that’s not the case with your workforce. You want your team to be as dedicated as you are, but employee motivation doesn’t happen by chance. And that’s where leaders too often miss the mark.

In an article about employee appreciation, Harvard Business Review briefly illustrates the problem:

An employee arrives at work on his 10th-year anniversary and finds a gift card with a sticky note on his desk. The note is from his manager, acknowledging his anniversary. Realizing the message doesn’t include a thank-you or congratulations, he rolls his eyes.

This missed opportunity speaks volumes. Just imagine the cumulative impact on morale when this kind of scenario plays out on a regular basis.

Layoffs continue to capture headlines as the economy sputters. Nevertheless, employers are still vying for qualified talent so they can stay competitive. But no one can effectively attract and retain stellar people without inspiring them. And the ability to inspire depends on your willingness to motivate people on an ongoing basis.

Connecting Motivation With Business Benefits

The power of motivation is undeniable. It directly influences multiple business metrics. For example, it can:

  • Boost Productivity and Profitability
    Because motivated employees are more engaged with their work, they tend to be more productive and deliver higher-quality results. In fact, research says highly engaged teams can increase business profitability by more than 20%.
  • Reduce Absenteeism and Turnover
    When motivation and engagement are low, people are more likely to call in sick or resign. The cost of both can be steep. On the other hand, Gallup says organizations with high engagement see significant benefits, with an average of 81% lower absenteeism and 43% lower turnover.
  • Improve Collaboration and Innovation
    Motivated people typically are more content with their jobs. As a result, they’re more open to teamwork and collaboration, which leads to better problem-solving and innovation. They also tend to be more efficient and willing to go above and beyond to achieve business objectives.

Most leaders understand the value of motivation. But motivating people is easier said than done. What can you do to fuel employee motivation? When work starts piling up and engagement is at a low ebb, try these 8 ideas to engage your team and steer them toward success:

8 Ways to Inspire Employee Motivation

1. Communicate the Big Picture

Regularly sharing information about your organization’s vision, goals, challenges, and achievements helps people feel more invested in its success. Here are some effective ways to keep people in the loop:

  • Articulate Your Expectations: This is essential. Unless people know how you define success, and understand how it relates to their roles and output, they have no way to gauge their status or progress.
  • Set Objectives Collaboratively: Work together to set clear, achievable objectives. This helps people grasp the purpose behind their work and how it fits into the company’s broader mission and strategy.
  • Provide Periodic Business Updates: Keep employees informed about how the organization is performing to plan. This is also an opportunity not only to focus on key issues but also to celebrate successes and milestones. Keep in mind that timely, specific public recognition is one of the most effective ways to motivate people.

2. Seek Employee Input

It’s easy to become so focused on top-down communication that you may overlook the value of employee input and feedback. Asking employees direct questions during a group meeting or private conversation lets them know you care about their opinions and are open to their ideas and concerns.

It’s also helpful to periodically gauge overall employee satisfaction and engagement by conducting anonymous surveys. This is an opportunity to remind people that their opinions matter. Ask for feedback about what needs improvement and suggestions for how to improve.

Of course, any input you receive deserves swift attention and action. A timely, thoughtful response tells employees you value their feedback. It’s also a way to demonstrate the kind of loyalty you hope they’ll return by doing their best.

3. Give People Autonomy

Handing employees some control over their work can be a highly effective motivator. This can be as simple as giving people a chance to work on projects they love or letting them choose a schedule they prefer from a variety of options.

When employees have a voice in defining their priorities and daily activities, they’re more likely to feel committed to their work and invested in their results.

4. Reward Success

People will sign up for your mission and stay with your business when you give them a reason to care. And recognizing their efforts is one of the most effective ways to build this kind of connection.

For example, implementing an employee incentive program is relatively straightforward strategy:

  • Focus first on how to align rewards with company values and goals.
  • For each level of achievement assign appropriate awards, such as crystal trophies and cash bonuses, as well as certificates and verbal recognition.
  • Establish clear, attainable criteria for receiving awards, and regularly share program guidelines with everyone who is eligible.
  • Build peer-to-peer recognition into the process, so employees can nominate colleagues for recognition.
  • Celebrate achievements publicly to increase visibility and inspire others.
  • Regularly review and update your incentive program to keep it fresh and relevant.

5. Foster a Positive Work Environment

Formal recognition isn’t the only way to shape employee attitudes and behavior. For instance, leaders can also make a significant impact on employee morale and motivation simply by fostering an open, supportive work environment. This includes:

  • Work structures and processes that encourage teamwork and collaboration,
  • Programs and policies that promote work-life balance, and
  • Opportunities for employees to socialize and form strong bonds.

The important thing to remember here is that, even in small companies, work cultures are complex. The status quote won’t change overnight. If your culture needs to shift, prepare to be intentional and consistent. It may take time, but you’ll be rewarded with lasting business impact.

6. Offer Opportunities for Professional Growth

What better way to motivate people than to enrich their professional knowledge and skills? Especially if your business is expanding rapidly, giving people opportunities to learn, develop, and grow within your organization can be a tremendous incentive.

There are many ways to help people expand their capabilities beyond formal training. For example, consider adding stretch assignments, cross-training, educational reimbursement, mentorships, and internal career advancement to the mix.

7. Lead With Encouragement

Every day brings new opportunities to help employees overcome inevitable mistakes and failures. By encouraging people to focus on continuous improvement, you can help them develop a positive mindset and the determination to see things through.

When projects don’t go according to plan, resist the temptations to start by investigating whose to blame. Instead, focus on working together to identify the root cause and solve the problem. During difficult times, remember to tell people you trust them or send a supportive email message. And be sure to reinforce anyone who takes accountability and steps up to the challenge.

8. Remain Available

No matter how busy your schedule is, make it a priority to be responsive when anyone needs help or advice. Can you blame an employee for becoming frustrated and demotivated if you’re never available to offer guidance, assistance, or approval?

Here’s a sign that you may need to adjust your standards: Think about your one-on-one meetings. Do you regularly postpone these sessions, or blow them off altogether? Don’t be surprised if productivity and engagement are suffering.

A Final Word on Employee Motivation

Any leader who wants to elevate organizational performance and productivity should start with employee motivation. There are multiple ways to move in the right direction, but here’s the bottom line:

If you want employees to commit to your organization, you’ll need to commit your time, attention, and effort to motivate them on a continuous basis. This is clearly a long-game process, but the journey can be one of the most rewarding investments your business will ever make.

Developing Your Team Versus Driving Results: How Do You Strike a Balance?

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Faced with increasingly turbulent economic times, businesses are rapidly learning the importance of strong leadership. The world has had enough problems dealing with the Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath. And companies that lacked strong leaders have been struggling to move through a nonstop stream of business problems in recent years. Many organizations have responded by emphasizing short-term performance. But the truth is that you’ll ultimately achieve better results by developing your team, as well. It’s a long game. However, this strategy pays in multiple ways.

Developing Your Team Builds Strength for the Future

During difficult times, it is natural for businesses to focus on achieving essential near-term results. The burden of generating more leads, maintaining a strong sales pipeline, and sustaining profitability normally falls to leaders. But these objectives also need to be balanced with broader business interests.

When teams are successful, it’s clear that their leaders are effectively managing people, strategy and resources. But when the inverse is true, it can underscore leadership problems that shouldn’t be ignored.

Here’s a contradiction that makes things even more complicated: as companies push harder for better results from team members, staff are likely to feel underappreciated, especially if individuals aren’t encouraged to develop in ways that help them grow professionally.

So, you may get the results you need in the short-term. But it can come at the cost of long-term company success, as skilled team members decide to move on and pursue more promising opportunities.

In this article, we look at how business leaders can strike a better balance between driving great results and developing their teams.

Great Leadership is a Journey, Not a Destination

The first thing to consider is that it is important to understand your own expectations of leadership, and determine if you ought to adjust those assumptions. Being a leader means making measured decisions and balancing their consequences every single day.

You can always learn more and understand more. But this isn’t something leaders can afford to take for granted. It’s important to intentionally embrace growth and stay open to learning — for yourself and everyone on your team.

“The best leaders learn from experiences — including failures — and apply those lessons to unfamiliar situations in the future,” says Gemma Leigh Roberts, a chartered psychologist specializing in leadership. “They see challenges as opportunities, as opposed to threats, proactively seek knowledge to stay up to date in a rapidly shifting professional environment, and are curious to identify areas for development and try new ways of doing things.”

Retain Top Staff by Developing Your Team

It is important to remember that if you want to get strong results across your company, you need a strong team. Your business results are driven by the people working with you. There is always pressure to get the best out of all your people in their day-to-day activities. But it’s equally important to ensure that top performers are kept happy, challenged, and supported.

Remember that talented individuals will always be able to find positions elsewhere. So, you’ll want to nurture and retain your organization’s best performers. A key way of doing this is by providing them with opportunities for career growth and development.

“While training is often necessary when teaching people new skills, it’s only the first step toward a more distant end,” says Margaret Rogers in Harvard Business Review. “In my experience, the most impactful development happens not through formal programs, but also through smaller moments that occur within the workplace: on-the-job learning opportunities that are wholeheartedly catered to the worker’s unique needs and challenges.”

Ideas for Developing Your Team While Keeping Results in Mind

1. Link Personal Goals to Business Goals

Too often, when we think about “top performers,” we consider it only from the perspective of how well people are achieving their professional goals. But it’s also important to link their goals with business objectives. To illustrate this point, let’s look at an example:

Imagine the highest-performing member of your sales team completes 50 sales in a recent month. But since then, only 5 of those sales have turned into repeat business because your top performer has been overselling in order to complete the original sales. Meanwhile, another member of the team made 30 sensible sales, and has subsequently turned 15 of those sales into valuable repeat business.

Here’s another example: Say a staff member wants to upskill for a role that will benefit your business, and they want to enhance their driving capabilities. By supporting this staff member’s personal training goals, you can help them acquire a higher-level license that will also be of value to your organization. In this circumstance, a personal goal can serve two purposes — simultaneously helping a team member grow while also helping the organization address business needs.

2. Establish Achievable Goals

If you want to motivate staff and provide them with opportunities for development, you need to ensure that you set realistic goals for their growth. It is also important for leaders to understand and agree with the scope of these goals.

“You need to have the discipline to take risks,” explains Howard Shore of management training specialists, Activate Group. “If your management and executive team are not aligned in their goals, and if your company culture is underdeveloped and unsupportive of change, this can create enormous friction.”

3. Know When to Change and Adapt

Leaders and managers recognize when their business is doing well because they’re rewarded with strong revenues, profits, and momentum. They know established goals are being met. Likewise, their employees and customers also feel more accomplished and satisfied. However, if success comes down to striking a good balance between today’s results and preparation for the future, then it’s essential to recognize when things may be off-balance.

Smart leaders know how critical it is to stay alert and keep an eye out for issues that require adjustment. When, how and why can an off-kilter equilibrium slow your progress or tip the scales of success against you? Here are some obvious but important factors to keep in mind:

  • Rising salaries
  • Increasing financial costs from external causes, such as inflation, recession, exchange rate fluctuations or taxes
  • Falling profits
  • Deteriorating business growth
  • Staffing issues
  • Supply chain problems
  • Threatening economic events or political instability.

4. Give Staff Ample Agency to Grow

It is important for staff to understand that they have agency in your business. The best way to manage this is by delegating tasks to team members, rather than trying to manage everything yourself. In this context, effective leaders focus on how to let people lead themselves. Having agency gives people a chance to develop on their own terms, and provides paths to growth that can be beneficial to the business as well as the individual.

5. Link Success to Opportunity

Just as it is wise to provide staff with the chance to grow, it is important to emphasize the idea that a company’s long-term success depends on team members’ collective contributions. Company-wide success is an opportunity for staff, too. This is why goal alignment matters. In the best-case scenario, individual success aligns with company achievements. This makes it easier to find an effective balance between results and team growth.

Final Notes on Driving Results Versus Developing Your Team

Leaders are essential to team success. A great team with poor leadership can lose focus or descend into infighting. It is up to management to find ways to maximize results while also ensuring effective development of their team. By keeping a continuous eye on both and proactively managing both sides of the equation, companies look forward to long-term success.

Cognitive Decline at Work: Employers, Are You Prepared?

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Cognitive decline is a tricky subject. It can be caused by a variety of factors – from natural aging to hypothyroidism to Alzheimer’s disease. Sometimes, the symptoms are treatable and reversible. But in other cases, cognitive struggles indicate the onset of a serious underlying illness that will eventually become debilitating. Either way, working alongside a person with cognitive issues can be difficult. It’s okay to admit that.

But what can you do to support someone who suffers from increased confusion, memory loss, a shorter attention span, or other cognitive challenges? And how can you minimize safety risks that could harm that individual or others on their team?

Putting People First

Let’s start with mindset. Sweeping generalizations and business rules aren’t helpful when addressing specific cases of cognitive decline. Mental capacity is a sensitive issue. Therefore, tact and prudence are of utmost importance when discussing this topic.

Every situation is complex and unique. It requires awareness of an individual’s industry, organization, job responsibilities, performance history, and work context. Therefore, it makes sense to respond in a personalized way.

Nevertheless, employers can’t deny broader societal factors that are making conversations about cognitive decline much more important and more commonplace.

Coming to Terms with our Aging Workforce

We’re all aging. It’s a fact of life. But now, significant generational shifts are beginning to shape the future workplace. For example, Americans are living longer, and more of us are working later in life.

Although I’m a fan of encouraging older people to participate in the workforce, it’s time for organizational leaders to address age-related cognitive decline. By becoming more educated and cautiously protecting all employees, employers will be better equipped to support our aging workforce.

Here’s why this is so important. Recently, the Harvard Law School Bill of Health newsletter published some staggering statistics in its article, “Managing Cognitive Decline Concerns in the Workplace:“

  • By 2034, about 77 million U.S. residents will be senior citizens. That’s about 21% of our nation’s population.
  • After age 65, the risk of Alzheimer’s disease doubles every five years. And nearly one-third of people over 85 have this disease.

Of course, Alzheimer’s is only one cause of cognitive decline. However, because so many people are touched by its ripple effects — family, friends, and work colleagues — it illustrates how devastating cognitive decline is likely to be as Americans continue to age.

Soon, most of us will know, love or work with someone touched by Alzheimer’s or another form of cognitive decline. So, how can we prepare to handle this professionally, legally, and with grace?

The Impact of Cognitive Decline at Work

When cognitive changes impact reliability – and even trust – it becomes a larger issue for leaders and teammates. Memory loss, difficulty with multi-tasking or problem-solving, and even personality changes can upset and distract colleagues.

It’s important to treat this topic with compassion. But that means care and concern should also extend to co-workers who are directly experiencing these effects. Keep the door open for discreet conversations about their concerns, and invite input on how to improve the situation.

SHRM offers multiple recommendations in its article, “Coping with Cognitive Declines at Work.” These are some suggested priorities for employers:

  • Conduct a Safety Assessment. The need for this is more obvious in certain lines of work, where rapid response is critical. However, it can be a factor in other professions, as well. There are multiple ways to determine if a person is safe to work.
  • Engage Employees. Non-confrontational conversations about specific concerns are an opportunity to find out more about what’s going on and open lines of communication for future dialogue.
  • Keep Thorough Records. Take notes that detail your concerns. Repeated instances of missed deadlines, significant memory lapses, or behavior problems may be helpful down the line. Stick to the facts and steer clear of age-related commentary.

Legal Considerations

Let’s start at the top. There is no reason to draft a policy that defines workability or retirement readiness. Mandated retirement policies are illegal.

Larger organizations with legal counsel are well aware of The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. However, if you’re a leader at a new or smaller company, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the basics of this law.

Also, if you need a refresher, be sure to take the time to revisit these regulations. Understanding the legal parameters of hiring, firing, and pushing retirement based on age is a savvy business move. It’s worth your while because the business risks of acting outside the legal lines can be significant.

Cognitive testing is also dicey from an ethical and legal perspective. Harvard says, “Testing older employees who have no job performance deficits, but not testing younger ones, violates the core principles of the ADEA.”

And that’s not all. It also violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This law permits employers to test employees only if the assessment is job-related and consistent with business necessity. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, testing is permitted only if it is “triggered by evidence of current performance problems.”

So, to avoid claims of age discrimination, will employers want to administer cognitive tests to all employees? Let’s not go there, either. It triggers a slew of concerns related to ADA, Title VII, and other discriminatory issues.

Lastly, it’s important to consider the tremendous medical advances that have led to predictive tests and markers associated with cognitive decline. However, it seems logical to leave those medical procedures to employees’ families. That said, if an employee brings these findings to your desk, be prepared to align your discussion with ADA regulations.

Solutions Start With Education

You may wonder why I’ve been investigating this topic. To be honest, it comes from a personal place. Someone dear to me was deeply concerned about a coworker’s cognitive decline.

I am sure I’m not alone. More and more of us are crossing paths with people who display cognitive changes or have been diagnosed with a related condition. Some of you have been caretakers for those who have experienced cognitive impairment.

This is a triggering and heart-wrenching topic. It’s delicate. But it’s important. And if you are an employer or people manager you’ll likely find yourself affected by it more frequently, going forward. My best advice? Educate yourself.

Upon exploring this topic – and then writing about it – I’ve felt some anxiety and dread. But knowledge is power. And fortunately, there is an abundance of reliable information at our fingertips.

It’s important to be curious and forward-thinking about a topic like this. It’s equally important to understand the law, as well as the needs of people who may be unsure and fearful about their own diminishing cognitive capabilities.

If this is new territory for you, don’t be afraid to ask questions, read up, take notes, and admit that you are learning. But watch your language, mind your approach, and make decisions carefully. Err on the side of caution and care. And remember that kindness is always a good move.

Resources

Alzheimer’s Association: This organization offers many resources, including:
10 Early Signs and Symptoms of Alzheimer’s

CDC:
Subjective Cognitive Decline: A Public Health Issue

Mayo Clinic:
Mild Cognitive Impairment

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:
Mental Health Provider’s Role in a Request for Reasonable Accommodation at Work

Workplace Strategies for Mental Health (via Canada Life):
Dementia Response for Leaders

Lead With Love And You’ll Love The Results

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Valentine’s Day is in less than a month. I know, right? But love is already in the air. The problem is: it’s *still* not in the air, or culture, or anywhere else at too many companies.

That’s really too bad, and it’s also very shortsighted.

Because leading with love is a winning leadership and employee engagement strategy on many levels.

Employer & Employee Rapport Is Like Marriage (Or Dating For The Faint Of Heart)

The employer/employee relationship is, in many ways, similar to dating or marriage. It started with courtship (the hiring process), moves through engagement (building deepening bonds and commitment), and if successful, ends with a fulfilling relationship in which both parties thrive in a culture that balances independence with emotional support.

Think of the great leaders, in any field, who have inspired you. Typically, you don’t like them, you love them. Because they touch you. They give you something that transcends the everyday ordinary and the practical; they engage you on an emotional level. They speak to your best self, and make you want to give of that self. Leaders at all levels in every organization can take performance to new levels by putting love into their toolkits.

The Research That Backs Love

Want some research to back up the power of love? First of all, according to Gallup’s widely respected State of the American Workplace report, disengaged employees cost businesses $450-550 billion a year in lost productivity. Emotionally connected employees simply perform better. According to the Boston Consulting Group, since 2001, companies that embrace “whole person” employee engagement have consistently outpaced growth in S&P average cumulative share price by margins of up to 99 percent. Gallup reports these additional benefits from total quality of life programs:

• 37% lower absenteeism
• 48% fewer safety incidents
• 41% fewer quality defects
• 28% less inventory shrinkage
• 10% higher customer satisfaction and
• Up to 22% higher profitability

These numbers are nothing less than astonishing: proof that love is the ultimate leadership tool. So how do you bring it to your organization? Try this exercise: Think of the people in your life that you love: spouse, parents, kids, friends, colleagues. Think of the ways you express that love. Now bring that same mindset to your employees. This is about caring about them and for them. Helping them build high-quality, fulfilling lives for themselves.

This means, first and foremost, making them a partner in their own work lives. Help them develop their strengths. Listen and respond. Give them the tools they need to deliver stellar performance. Then look at ways to integrate their work lives into their whole lives. Childcare, healthy foods, exercise, flexible scheduling. You want to develop a holistic approach, one that views employees as well-rounded individuals, not cogs in a large impersonal wheel.

Power Up With Love

It’s easy to roll our eyes at the power of love in the workplace, to be cynical, to dismiss all this stuff as touchy-feely nonsense, fine in theory perhaps but of little practical use. Big mistake! Think about the companies you most admire, look into their corporate culture and management practices, and I guarantee you that you will find love. They may not call it that, but any company that actively cares about its people, and works with them hand-in-hand to build fulfilling, well-rounded lives is practicing the leadership of love.

May we let the Valentine’s Day love last all year long! Why be cynical?

This post was adapted from Let Love Inspire Your Leadership, which originally appeared on Forbes.com.

About the Author: Meghan M. Biro is a globally-recognized talent management leader and social business and community catalyst. As founder and CEO of TalentCulture Consulting Group, she has worked with hundreds of companies, from early-stage ventures to global brands like Microsoft and Google, helping them recruit and empower stellar talent.

photo credit: ^@^ina (Irina Patrascu Gheorghita ) via photopin cc

Should Work Be Fun? Really? #TChat Preview

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(Editor’s Note: Looking for a complete recap of this week’s events and resources? Read the #TChat Recap: Fun Times! Work, Games and Culture.)

Work and fun — do they fit together? Or should we save good times for vacation and weekends?

Traditionalists might say that work is serious business. However, one of the most creative and productive minds of the Industrial Age seemed to think otherwise:

“I never did a day’s work in my life; it was all fun.”
-Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison

Learn more about Thomas Edison

It’s impossible not to admire Edison’s enthusiasm. But these days, with global employee engagement stubbornly stuck at 30% or less, companies everywhere are looking for ways to inject more of that spirit into their organizational cultures.

That’s why the principles of gaming are gaining appeal as a way to improve workforce commitment, development and performance.

But how can we create environments where work is naturally more engaging and enjoyable, without losing sight of business objectives?

That’s the topic we’ll explore this week at #TChat Events, with two innovators in workplace culture development:

•  Dan Benoni, Co-Founder & Product Director at Officevibe, a social employee engagement platform
•  Mario Coculuzzi, Eastern Canada Regional Director at Microsoft.

Dan and I spoke briefly in a G+ Hangout, where he suggested that successful approaches don’t focus on the work, itself, but instead focus on three essential human factors:

Also to help us prepare for the discussion, TalentCulture CEO, Meghan M. Biro, wrote a related article at Forbes.com. Read “5 Fresh Trends to Fuse Fun and Work.”

This topic promises to be great fun — and helpful, too. So please plan to join us this week to share your ideas and opinions about why and how game-oriented tools and techniques make sense in the world of work.

#TChat Events: Should Work Be Fun, Really?

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Listen to the #TChat Radio show

#TChat Radio — Wed, Oct 23 — 6:30 pmET / 3:30 pmPT

Our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman talk with Dan Benoni and Mario Coculuzzi about why and how “fun” can be an effective way to improve employee energy, drive and focus. Follow the action LIVE online this Tuesday afternoon!

#TChat Twitter — Wed, Oct 23 — 7pmET / 4pmPT

Immediately following the radio show, we’ll move this discussion to the #TChat Twitter stream for an open chat with the entire TalentCulture community. Everyone with a Twitter account is invited to participate, as we address these questions:

Q1: How often do you see healthy company cultures? Examples?
Q2: Why is engagement key to creating/maintaining a vibrant culture?
Q3: Can “fun” team challenges and other activities really help?
Q4: How can leaders improve employee well-being and retention?
Q5: How can HR drive adoption of recognition and engagement platforms?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.

We’ll see you on the stream!