The first thing an entrepreneur needs to keep in mind is that a happy employee is a productive employee and that certain events and circumstances have a significant impact over employees’ happiness and productivity levels. Keeping employees motivated should be one of the main goals of any entrepreneur.
However, there are also a lot of ways employee motivation can be killed, so if you want to ensure that you are offering your employees an environment in which they can grow and thrive, see if these motivation killers are a part of your workplace.
1. First and foremost, see if your office has toxic people. You’ve probably had your fair share of toxic people. Thus, you probably know by now how much damage they can cause and how exhausting they can be. This type of individuals tends to spread a lot of negativity while sucking all the positivity out of the room. You need to let these people go, or, if not possible, set policies and supervision in place so as to minimize the damage they can cause.
2. The absence of professional development. Every employee needs to know that he is constantly learning and growing. Without professional development, your workplace will soon become static and dull. The only way your employees are going to get better at doing their jobs is by investing constantly in their professional development. So don’t evaluate their training just in terms of business expenses, but rather as an investment in your business development in the long run. Moreover, they will be aware that you and your venture have faith in them because you invest in their success.
3. Lack in vision. By offering a clearly communicated vision you are able to set your employees on the right path, letting them know on what aspects they should focus their attention and efforts. Without vision, even your rockstar employees prove to be less effective, given the fact that it’s difficult to excel at something when you don’t understand the big picture.
4. Wasted time. If you have a workplace where meetings happen for no reason whatsoever and emails are sent with filler information, it is safe to say that your employees are pretty frustrated. You need to show your employees you value them and the best way to do this is by valuing their time.
5. Deficient communication. If communication is poor within your workplace, employees will spend a lot of their time second-guessing what they are doing, important tasks will be missed and unimportant jobs duplicated, in short, all hell breaks loose. Ensuring a clear communication flow will be in everybody’s best interest.
6. Vertical management. If you can recall a situation where your input or ideas weren’t heard or valued, where it was “shut it and do what I say”, you definitely know how hard it is to do anything more than a grudging minimum. The more you collaborate with your employees, the more time you invest in them, the more motivated they become.
7. Lack of appreciation. When an employee goes out of his/her way to outperform himself/herself, achieves extraordinary results yet he/she still receives no credit, not even a simple thank you, he or she will grow apathetic and uninspired. Employees can be motivated and rewarded even without spending any money.
8. Last but not least, let us not forget bad leadership.
An entrepreneur with bad leadership traits will harm every member of his/her team and, eventually, the entire organization. Even key-employees require a great leader in order to excel. Start by developing your leadership skills, then hire and grow leaders at every level. This is the best thing you can do to improve the workplace for your employees.
If you see any of these motivation killers in your workplace, it’s time you act and do everything within your power to find a solution. Just remember that great employees will not stay long in a crappy workplace.
