How to Encourage and Motivate Employees: 5 Essential Strategies

Keeping employees motivated is one of the top challenges managers face. People’s engagement varies for a wide variety of reasons, so staying on top of every issue and addressing it promptly isn’t always possible.

That’s why leaders who want to succeed must find ways to encourage and motivate employees by approaching the problem proactively and not waiting for engagement to drop before taking action.

And the good news is that even though it might not always seem so, there are actionable and easy-to-implement strategies that will make staying on top of your employee motivation much easier.

Let’s explore some of these strategies below.

Recognize Good Work

If you want your employees to stay motivated and put in the effort to complete their tasks, you must show them that their work is appreciated and recognize their progress.

It may seem obvious, but most employees feel underappreciated in their workplace, and lack of recognition for the work they do is a big part of the problem.

To combat this, you must think about how to regularly encourage employees through praise and even rewards so that they know you see their work and can expect that to translate into career growth opportunities. One way of doing so would be by providing rewards such as cocktail packages accompanied with one of these kits for those who produce quality results in an effortful manner!

At the most basic level, recognition can mean having a quick chat and letting the person know they did a good job and are great at what they do. Deadlines and stress often force managers to be strict, so finding time to balance that with positive feedback can help maintain better relationships in the long run.

Embrace Your Remote Team Members

The pandemic has reshaped how most companies operate. Even businesses that worked exclusively in-office were forced to embrace remote work as a temporary solution, and many have found it to be just as productive (if not more) than working in the same building.

But while the technology for remote work makes it much more accessible, there are limits to how you can interact with your remote team members. And lack of interaction can result in a drop in motivation.

Luckily, if you’re willing to get creative, you can still encourage your remote workers and make them feel like they’re an equal part of the team. For instance, you could throw an awesome virtual party for your team, you can get together over a platform like Zoom or Google Meet and spend time together off work just as you would in person.

If you want to make the virtual party even more engaging, you could spruce it up using themes or fun activities like games, dinner, or even a cocktail night. As long as everyone brings their good mood and a willingness to participate, you can have just as much fun as in a live party while also making your remote workers feel welcomed and appreciated.

Break Down Big Goals Into Actionable Steps

It’s relatively easy to get employees excited about the big goals the company is about to tackle. Dreaming big is fun, and you’ll get many people on board with the ideas at the initial stages, where the work hasn’t started yet.

However, when it’s time to actually turn those ideas into reality, they can start looking distant and even unattainable. And that can quickly drain the motivation out of even the most engaged employees.

This can happen because it can be hard to see how the company can get from where it is now to reaching the ambitious goals you set out. With the long list of steps involved in the process, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and not know what to do next.

Luckily, managers can combat this by bridging the gap between the work that’s done today and the big goals far in the distance.

By introducing specifics about the path towards the goal, you can remove a lot of the uncertainty and help team members visualize the work that it will take over the upcoming months.

Start by listing the steps and milestones that need to be accomplished to reach the ultimate goal. Then, try to estimate how long each milestone could take and who will be working on what. Finally, make sure that each milestone is realistic and doesn’t cause people to give up before even starting.

Once everything is in place, you will notice that employees will be much more willing to do their part because they’ll know exactly how it plays into the bigger picture.

Provide Your Team Autonomy

Nobody likes to be micromanaged. Constantly feeling the manager breathing down their neck is not something that employees value either.

Unfortunately, less experienced leaders allow fear of failure to dictate the way they manage projects. Instead of allowing their team to solve problems independently or even make mistakes, they try to control every aspect of the process, which often produces the opposite outcome from what they expect.

Instead of doing quality control, they end up overstretched and also create friction with the team. Even the most capable employees start second-guessing their choices and waiting for your input, which leads to the project moving forward at a crawling pace.

Meanwhile, if you embrace the fact that you can’t control every little detail of the project and learn to trust your team, you will notice that even though there are occasional mistakes, they end up being valuable learning opportunities that prevent similar situations in the future.

And over time, this type of autonomous environment will make your employees more engaged, motivated, and independent, allowing you to focus on the bigger-picture aspects of running the company.

However, one critical detail to remember is that even though autonomy is great, you shouldn’t leave your team on an island, either. That means that you should be available to offer help or advice when they have questions or issues.

Listen to Feedback

Admitting you’re wrong is never easy. That’s especially true if you’re leading a team and want to maintain your status as an authority figure.

However, if you isolate yourself from criticism or feedback, you might overlook significant issues that can negatively affect the company’s future. And the only way to combat that is to not just listen to your employees but to actively encourage them to come to you with any feedback, concerns, or suggestions they might have.

The first step to becoming more open to feedback is letting employees know that they can come to you with anything. You should also make it easy to express concerns that they might not be comfortable sharing in person.

Having an anonymous box for adding notes, running regular anonymous surveys, or even conducting interviews where people can share ideas or insights are just a few ways to become more tuned in to the most pressing issues and possible ways to make things better.

Final Words

Keeping employees motivated is a top priority for any company. But while it’s impossible to expect everyone to remain engaged 100% of the time, there are strategies you can use to at least know what issues to address and show that you genuinely care about the success of your team.

Using the strategies above, you can develop stronger bonds with each member within your team, creating an environment that’s transparent and inclusive to both in-office and remote employees.