Productive employees are a valuable asset to organisations, particularly when turnover rates are disturbingly high. While employee retention strategies primarily falls on HR’s responsibility, managers have a major role to play in these employee retention strategies as well.
Given that productive employees are no doubt the ones that managers want to keep (for as long as possible), here are five useful tips in which managers can utilise to retain these effective workers.
Clear expectations
The last thing that employees want is lack of direction. As a manager, it is important to set the expectations clearly so that employees are able to execute their tasks effectively. At the same time, clear and continual communication helps employees to understand the team’s and organisation’s goals. If your best employees have a clear understanding of their job roles, they are likely to feel more engaged and perform their best.
Professional development opportunities
Employees who find that there are no career development opportunities within the organisation are likely to feel disengaged and look elsewhere for these opportunities. Providing opportunities for employees to grow their career as well as allowing employees to seek out their own professional development opportunities is a great way to make your best employees feel appreciated. At the same time, this shows your employees that you are committed to their professional well-being.
Planned (and unplanned) recognition
The best way to recognise employees’ efforts is to reward them, be it through monetary benefits, a promotion or a simple token of appreciation. Other forms of recognition could come together with year end awards or public praise for employees. Recognising employees’ efforts, be it for a major project that they have worked on or even a small project, goes a long way in motivating employees.
Work-life balance
A stressful and overworked culture is likely to result in even the top performers to lose motivation. As a manager, it is important to respect and accept employees’ management of their own work-life balance. While there are peak periods whereby the entire team needs to be on board, employees need to be aware that they have the flexibility to take time off and recharge. Providing that flexibility to employees allow them to perform better at work and motivate your best employees as well.
Regular feedback and check-ins
The annual performance review is a good way for employees to reflect on how they have done within the year. However, regular feedback helps employees to continuously improve throughout the year. Sometimes, employees might feel disengaged due to a lacklustre work environment or the overwhelming workload. Providing constant feedback with employees helps you to understand your employees’ workload and how the team can support. This is a great way to help bring out the best in each and every one of your employees.
Productive employees are no doubt rare gems in the large talent pool. In order to retain these effective employees, managers need to come up with retention strategies to ensure that these employees feel motivated and rewarded. It would certainly require effort on you, as a manager, but efforts invested in your productive employees will help to develop a productive and supportive team in the long run.
Every person has different motivations for working. But, we all work because we obtain something that we need from work. The something we obtain from work impacts our morale and motivation and the quality of our lives.
Work IS about the Money
Some people work for love; others work for personal fulfillment. Others like to accomplish goals and feel as if they are contributing to something larger than themselves, something important. Some people have personal missions they accomplish through meaningful work. Motivation is individual and diverse.
Whatever your personal reasons for working, the bottom line, however, is that almost everyone works for money. Whatever you call it: compensation, salary, bonuses, benefits or remuneration, money pays the bills. Money provides housing, gives children clothing, food and sends them to college, and allows leisure activities, and eventually, retirement. To underplay the importance of money and benefits as motivation for people who work is a mistake.
Fair benefits and pay are the cornerstones of a successful company that recruits and retains committed workers. If you provide a living wage for your employees, you can then work on additional motivation issues. Without the fair, living wage, however, you risk losing your best people to a better-paying employer.
What’s Next for Motivation?
Surveys and studies dating back to the early 1980s that demonstrate people want more from work than money. While managers predicted the most important motivational aspect of work for people would be money, personal time and attention from the supervisor was cited by workers as most rewarding and motivational for them at work.
While what people want from work is situational, depending on the person, his needs and the rewards that are meaningful to him, giving people what they want from work is really quite straight forward.
People want:
- Control of their work inspires motivation
Including such components as the ability to impact decisions; setting clear and measurable goals; clear responsibility for a complete, or at least defined, task; job enrichment; tasks performed in the work itself; and recognition for achievement. - To belong to the in-crowd creates motivation
Including items such as receiving timely information and communication; understanding management’s formulas for decision making; team and meeting participation opportunities; and visual documentation and posting of work progress and accomplishments. - The opportunity for growth and development is motivational
Includes education and training; career paths; team participation; succession planning; cross-training; and field trips to successful workplaces. - Leadership is the key in motivation
People want clear expectations that provide a picture of the outcomes desired with goal setting and feedback and an appropriate structure or framework.
Recognition for Performance Creates Motivation
People want recognition for their individual performance with pay tied to their performance.
Employers want people who don’t perform fired; in fact, failure to discipline and fire non-performers is one of the most demotivating actions an organization can take – or fail to take. It ranks on the top of the list next to paying poor performers the same wage as non-performers in deflating motivation.
Additionally, a disconnect continues to exist between what employers think people want at work and what people say they want for motivation. Employers far underrate the importance to employees of such things as flexible work schedules or opportunities for advancement in their decision to join or leave a company.
What You Can Do for Motivation and Positive Morale
Key to creating a work environment that fosters motivation is the wants and needs of the individual. Recommend that you ask your employees what they want from work and whether they are getting it.
Understanding employee experience?
Based on IBM’s and Workhuman’s research paper on The Employee Experience Index, the employee experience is defined as “a set of perceptions that employees have about their experience at work in responses to their interactions with the organisation”.
While this may seem to be a relatively broad definition, the overall employee experience is built upon three key pillars: onboarding, everyday moments and offboarding.
With the above information in mind, you’ll be surprised at how many simple and inexpensive opportunities you have to create a motivational, desirable work environment. You’ll achieve awesome business success.
