How to Get Your Employees Focused: The Best Motivational Techniques

Did you know that 71 percent of American workers are not engaged or are actively disengaged from their work?

This isn’t just bad news for the American worker, it’s also bad news for the American business owner. This is because the cost of an unmotivated workforce is $300 billion per year!

While these statistics certainly aren’t encouraging, what is encouraging is that you can do something to turn this around. There are many motivational techniques available that will help your employees become more engaged and better focused.

Check out this guide to discover the top motivational techniques for employees.

1. Be an Example

You can’t expect your employees to focus and show enthusiasm if you aren’t doing the same.

The more excitement you show about your company’s goals and achievements, the more likely your employees will show excitement as well.

Remember, good moods are infectious, but so are bad moods. Whatever mood you walk in with in the morning is going to affect your employees.

2. Offer Opportunities for Advancement

Offering opportunities for advancement is crucial if you want to keep your employees motivated. In fact, a lack of opportunities for advancement is actually the number one reason why good employees quit their jobs.

This means that employees are more likely to quit over lack of opportunity than they are to quit over their salary/benefits.

In order to keep your employees motivated, you need to offer them training opportunities that will allow them to climb the corporate ladder.

Offering opportunities for advancement is beneficial to you as well, as this will help build your company’s reputation as a great place to work.

3. Make Your Business a Pleasant Place to Be

Many business owners take for granted the link between the office environment and employee motivation.

Thnk about it. Are you going to feel more motivated working in a dingy, boring office, or in an office that’s well-lit and well-decorated?

In order to create a pleasant office environment, you first need to make sure that all office equipment is in proper working order. This means switching out that glacial-paced printer and that Cold-War Era point-of-sales system, or really anything that your employees have considered throwing out the window in frustration.

You also need to make sure things are kept clean and orderly. If you don’t have time to tackle the cleaning on your own, you can hire an office cleaning company to come in once per week.

Other simple things you can do to make your office a more pleasant place to include:

• Adding office plants
• Creating a lounge space for your employees with couches, chairs, and perhaps a ping pong table
• Investing in some simple artwork

Sprucing up your space doesn’t have to be expensive. You can find many items you need to turn a space around at local flea markets or thrift stores.

4. Offer Employee Rewards

Getting recognition for a job well-done means a lot to employees. However, most employees appreciate a lot more than just a pat on the back or a high-five.

In order to keep your employees motivated to constantly kill it at their jobs, you need to have an employee incentive program in place. You could offer quarterly bonuses, a commission structure that beats out the competition’s or offer to cover any additional credentials employees would like to tackle outside the workplace to boost their knowledge.

While big rewards are great, you should also focus on rewarding your employees on a smaller scale. For example, if the whole team has been doing great, take everyone out for an office happy hour.

Or, you could set up an employee of the month program where the winner gets two extra days of PTO.

The more incentives you incorporate into your business, the more likely it is that your employees will stay motivated.

5. Share Positive Feedback

There are all kinds of ways that customers offer feedback to businesses these days—through Yelp, Google My Business, business websites, and even by phone.

Because customer feedback is coming in at a pretty much constant rate, it can be easy to take it for granted. However, customer feedback is incredibly important. In fact, 86 percent of people say they’ll hesitate to purchase from a business that has bad online reviews.

So, if an employee brings in a great review, it definitely needs to be recognized. Give the employee a shout out by printing the review out and hanging it on the office bulletin board. Or, congratulate the employee with a small gift such as a gift card or a movie theater pass.

6. Offer Flexible Scheduling

Technology has not only changed the way businesses operate, but also the way we work.

Being able to work from home is no longer considered a luxury, but an expectation. In fact, 46 percent of employees say that flexibility is the most important factor when it comes to job hunting.

If you aren’t offering your employees flexible scheduling, now is the time to start. If possible, allow your employees to work from home one day of the week. If this isn’t possible, you could set up a “Flex Friday” program, where employees can work 40 hours Monday to Thursday in order to get Friday off.

Whatever you can do to break the typical 9-5 mold that is discouraging so many employees, do it.

7. Ask Employees What They Want

One of the best ways to boost employee motivation is to simply ask your employees what you could be doing better to make your office a more pleasant place to work. Chances are, your employees already have some unique ideas up their sleeves that you haven’t thought of.

Even just the simple act of sitting down and listening to what your employees have to say can do a lot for their overall motivation.

If you work at a big company, make sure everyone wears employee badges to this meeting so you can better get to know your employees.

Employee Motivational Techniques: Are You Ready to Motivate Your Employees?

By incorporating these employee motivational techniques, you’ll be able to turn your workforce around.

If you enjoyed this employee motivation article, be sure to check back in with our blog for more tips and tricks for business owners.