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2013-09-02

How To Motivate Your Workforce

One of the greatest challenges that a managers faces on a day to day basis is keeping their employees motivated and focused.  As morale drops within your work force, productivity is certain to fall as well.  In order to keep work flowing, it falls on the management of an organization to keep work flowing by ensuring that all of their employees are as productive as possible.  In doing so, you are stabilizing your workforce so that your business can do well, and minimizing turnover.






Comfortable Atmosphere

The first step in motivating your employees is to create a comfortable atmosphere.  Open up windows, hang some art around the office, and make sure the building is well lit.  Allow your staff to bring in some personal touches from home, but don’t overdo it.  The trick is balance comfort with professionalism.  Casual Fridays are a fun example of this – it allows for personal expression and relaxation, while maintaining a professional dress code the rest of the work week.



Friendly Competition

Another way to motivate your staff is to offer incentives.  Divide up departments into teams, and establish a contest.  Whichever team accomplishes more for the month, season, or sales period wins the prize.  Not only will everyone work harder to win the prize offered, but your employees will bond with their team mates.  Bonding is good because it will encourage everyone to work hand in hand.  You can also structure the competition on a solitary level.  This allows individuals to shine, and management to acknowledge the workers that are doing well.



Promote from Within

Prizes such as gift cards or pizza parties are good for quick motivation, but long term motivation needs to be considered as well.  One of the best incentives for employees is the opportunity to advance through the ranks.  The opportunity to make more money is what gets most people out of bed and to their job every day.  If you establish a promote-from-within system, you are benefitting your employees and your company.  Everyone will be motivated to work harder because they will view the job as a long-term investment.  This will benefit your infrastructure because it will lessen turnover and significantly reduce the amount of training necessary for staff members as they climb the corporate ladder.



Work Together, Play Together

Teambuilding exercises don’t need to be limited to the workplace.  Seek out opportunities to strengthen your team outside of the workplace.  You can host company picnics, bowling nights, or corporate retreats.  Retreats are an excellent way to combine relaxation, brainstorming, and leadership training.  By sharing ideas you can establish new ways for your management team to structure your company and potentially explore new, more effective ways to generate profit.  Another way to team build is to sponsor a team in a charity event, such as a fun run.



Rally the Troops

There’s no time like the present to hold a company-wide event to motivate everyone.  Whether you’re celebrating your successes or rallying everyone to bounce back after cutbacks, large meetings are an excellent opportunity to strengthen the company.  You can hire inspirational speakers to motivate your staff, injecting a positive current into the work week.
These are just a handful of ideas on how to motivate your workers.  Explore some different methods and find out what works best for your workers!
 
Author Bio:
John Beeson is having some problems with a few of his employees. He decides to learn some ways to make his office atmosphere more enjoyable.