5 ways to motivate your employees

Guest blog by Daniel Nouman from Avirtual.nl 

If you have a group of passionate employees who are enthusiastic about coming to work every day, you can happily praise yourself. Of course it is a combination of their own goals that match those of the company, but maintaining passion in the workplace is a second.

For example, someone may start at your company, want to start working because the position in their lives at that time is suitable for them, driven for a while, but what happens when their goals change?

You have to motivate them to stay, money and contractual benefits are not everything.

Instead, some of the key elements are peer motivation, feeling encouraged, feeling valued, and especially having the ability to grow.

Here are 5 ways to keep your employees motivated.

1. Create a positive environment

Opportunities must be equal and that also applies to participating in incentives and rewards. Everyone must feel welcome and accepted. This can also be achieved through small things such as the use of careful language that enhances the inclusive atmosphere.

To create a positive workspace, you must approve an environment in which all employees are supported and valued regardless of their gender, sexual orientation or origin.

2. Growth should be the primary focus

This is perhaps the most important factor, especially for the modern generation. Giving your employees the opportunity to grow within the company is a huge motivation. The challenge will grow with challenge.

For Generation Z and Millennials money is not everything, yes, it does matter, but the psychological element of feeling familiar and respected for who they are and the work they do is more important.

This is especially crucial when expanding your business. When you start an office in a new city, instead of looking elsewhere for a management position, first look within your current team.

Millennials often do not mind traveling around and are therefore flexible. By offering your best employees growth opportunities, they will realize that your company is worth loyalty to - a place where they can build a career for themselves.

3. Share positive feedback on weekly meetings

Another great way to motivate your employees is to let them know when they are doing a good job. Yes, it is part of their job description, but by sharing all the positive, encouraging feedback from your customers with all employees during weekly meetings, people get a sense of achievement and appreciation.

If they have done extraordinary work, to the point where it has had an extraordinary effect, or if they have shown initiative, reward them for it.

This gives your employees a deeper commitment to the company. It also motivates your employees to keep on surpassing.

4. Offer flexibility

Because of technology, many companies now offer external functions. Working remotely is a rising trend in 2019 and has changed the way companies operate. From 2017, more than three million people, both employees and self-employed, were working from home in the Netherlands.

In an investigation by Forbes 43% of the respondents said that flexibility is the most important factor when it comes to choosing a company to work for.

This does not have to be every day, for example you can set Tuesdays and Thursdays as 'work-from-home days'. And then for the other three days of the week the core hours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

To keep employees motivated and passionate about their roles and the company they work for, offers opportunities to work at home or flexibly. The balance between work and private life is increasingly becoming an important factor in employee satisfaction.

5. Evaluation meetings on corporate culture

Finally, instead of trying to guess what is most important to your employees, why not involve them in corporate culture evaluation meetings?

This makes them feel included and gives them more opportunity to shape the culture of the company.

Don't worry, you won't lose authority. This should be treated as a fun exercise, an open discussion about the fundamentals of what it means for them to work for your company.

According to Ultimate Software 75% of employees would stay longer with an organization that listens to and takes away their worries. Your responsibility as an organization is to find out what it is that they value. This is what your culture should be - the people themselves.

In summary:

The best way to motivate your employees is to make them feel valued, included and responsible. They must be rewarded for their efforts and reminded that there is room for growth. The foundations? Here are 8 factors to always remember:

1. Communication
2. Collaboration
3. Transparency
4. Leadership
5. Positive feedback
6. Reward
7. Responsibility
8. Growth

If you focus on these 5 ways to motivate your employees, then there is no reason why you could not build a company where your employees are entrusted with the vision, values, mission and environment in which they must operate and excel.

By offering them frequent communication, acting with integrity and attention, and giving them a voice, the passion and motivation that you are looking for within your staff will always be felt and mutual respect will be felt.