A high-performance team working under your name without any hassle seems ideal for any leader. The last thing you want in your professional life is to work with people who are alive but ‘dead’ on the job.
We are engulfed with a mix of people who may or may not like their job and those who stroll through the workplace to earn a monthly salary.
You do want to get along with the most difficult people, like employees whose presence or absence doesn’t make any difference in the office environment. In short, poorly performing employees.
If you find it difficult to get your team going, here are five ways to inspire them to perform happily and productively:
1. Provide Purposeful and Challenging Work
One of the best indicators to ignite motivation in employees is to offer them meaningful and challenging work. This would see the employee to the best of their abilities and would tempt them to perform in a productive manner.
The core elements that will excite and engage your team are responsibility, recognition, achievement, and mental peace.
If the manager is able to explain the genuine value the output will bring both for the customers and the company and motivate the employee to do so, even the most tedious of tasks will be accepted willingly.
Any work, no matter how much demand or value it possesses in the market, is as good as nothing if it fails to show any development for the employee. Top-performing employees ask the same question, “What’s next?”
Some professions, such as supermarket cashier or salesman, may look quite uninspiring and show no signs of professional development. In this regard, the manager can attempt to motivate the workforce by adding other tasks to their job responsibilities.
Simply speaking, enhancing the scope of a particular job gives the respective employee ample reasons to work better and smarter, feel important, and keep on delivering the best output.
It is also a mark of a great manager to display the bigger picture behind the employees’ daily work tasks and help them understand the impact they are providing to the company.
A major chunk of the workforce wants their skills to be challenged through challenging yet productive projects. It is up to the leader to help them acquire the required skills for more responsibility.
2. Define Expectations, Targets, and Performance Measurements
Imagine playing golf without understanding a single rule of the game. You might be scoring but have no idea how you are performing, and you don’t know any tricks to score more points.
It won’t be long before you’ll leave the stick on the ground and walk off with no second thought about coming back.
The same concept applies in the professional field as well. Undoubtedly, some employees have the capacity to perform at their best, but if they don’t know the quantifiable aspects of their performance or where they are heading in the company and their job, then they will not feel inspired to keep excelling.
A manager should declare specific targets, goals, and expectations for both behavior and job-related responsibilities for all their employees.
Furthermore, employees need regular and timely feedback in order to keep them abreast with both strengths and weaknesses that need to be worked on.
3. Provide Constructive and Timely Feedback
Providing direct and constructive feedback is important in addressing an employee’s performance. It is vital to voice your concerns to help employees understand their position and influence in the organization and its culture.
Feedback should be straightforward, timely, and positive, with the aim of assisting employees in identifying their gaps and motivating them to do better.
4. Job Responsibilities Incorporate Strengths of Employee
Designing the employees’ job responsibilities in a way that allows them to work through their strengths is one of the most powerful motivation boosters.
Research has indicated that employees who are given the opportunities to utilize their specialized skills in most of the routine tasks show the highest probability of becoming top performers on regular basis.
The point is to motivate and entice them in whatever task they have in hand and have them ready to perform in the most efficient manner.
For example, you may have a Content Quality Assurance professional in your Content Development team, an expert in MS Excel. As most of the project management activities can be done through excel spreadsheets or Google docs, asking the professional to take over the charge of managing content project schedules on a daily basis will tempt them to perform with exceptional motivation and productivity.
5. Encourage Input and Options for the Work
Most people just want to have a nice and peaceful job, productive relationships, be appreciated for their good work, and create a friendly relationship with their office colleagues.
In short, they are self-driven to build their motivation and perform beyond what is expected from them.
On the downside, the reality is the management in the corporate world is more concerned with the remaining 5%.
The people who are expelling a negative impact on the organization and its culture are then chained by strict rules and regulations, including micro-management, to keep them in close check.
At the same time, the influence is equally negative for the other 95% who are willing to work honestly and at the peak of their talents.
In doing so, all the talent and dedication of the genuinely committed employees are being wasted.
A standard forum where the employees are invited to put forward their recommendations on how the work should be completed would be beneficial.
The trick is to allow employees the freedom and platform to voice their concerns and suggestion.
Related Articles
How Can You Elevate the Performance of Your Employees?
If you have ideas about employee performance that might be helpful to readers, share them in the comments section below. Thanks!
Would you like to contribute a post?
Enjoyed reading this. Definitely agree with number one! I love to be challenged in my work life & given purposeful tasks!