A Look into Motivation and How it Impacts Productivity
Introduction
The strong impact of employee motivation on productivity in the workplace is crucial to understand in order to increase job satisfaction and retention of high level performing employees.
Why Motivation is Important to Employee Productivity
Employee motivation can increase employee productivity and employee performance in the workplace. High level employee motivation will impact employee productivity by stimulating the production of better and higher quantity work.
A motivated employee is more likely to have a high level of job satisfaction and increase long term employee retention. For every employee job at your business, your human resource department should focus on training development that strives for increasing employee motivation and job satisfaction simultaneously.
Remember, high level motivation employees are the greatest resource of any business. Therefore, investing in developing high level employees should also be a business's greatest investment of time, resources, and money.
Benefits of high level employee motivation and employee productivity include-
- Higher job satisfaction
- Increase productivity and employee performance
- Better quality employee work produced
- Training development optimization
- Fostering a company-wide productivity employee culture
- Attracting more high level motivated employee candidates
Every business owner wants to increase productivity in the workforce. The impact of employee motivation on productivity must be understood and addressed to increase overall employee productivity in the workplace. Both employee motivation and job satisfaction must be increased in order to increase productivity and your business bottom line.
As a business owner, it is your job to make every employee feel appreciated and important to the best of your ability. Your human resource department should provide for every employee need possible for employee motivation and job satisfaction optimization.
Ways to Maintain Strong Employee Motivation
The most successful businesses have made employee motivation a priority. As a result, these companies have been rewarded with employees who have high level job satisfaction and long term retention rates.
These high level performing companies have become a living case study of how other leaders can impact employee motivation positively. Below are some ways to create and sustain employee motivation including-
1 Establish objectives- Employee motivation and job satisfaction are both positively influenced when clear goals are outlined and assigned. In fact, employees who are included in objective setting processes are 360% more likely to be engaged. To impact employee motivation further make sure that every single employee job has clear responsibilities and expectations outlined.
Help increase productivity by challenging your employee to not only visualize what success in their role would look like but also make sure to remind them how important their role is to the overall business bottom line. When every employee job is clearly delegated and each employee understands how they are contributing to larger company objectives everyone will benefit.
2. Provide meaningful work- Case study research has concluded that 55% of employees say employee motivation is increased when provided meaningful work. Importantly, this statistic is across a diverse case study population, concluding that motivation will highly impact employee performance.
Make motivation work for your business by recognizing the unique ways each employee is motivated. Then incorporate those unique motivational techniques back into your overall business objectives.
3. Acknowledge success- Celebrate reaching milestones whether they are big or small. When the entire organization celebrates together job satisfaction is increased alongside employee motivation and employee productivity.
Do not focus on merely key performance indicators (KPIs) but instead focus on personal development including cultural and social goals. For example, when an employee completes a high level training development program. By diversifying the scope of your performance measures you can help employees feel less stressed and more secure in their roles.
Not only does diversifying your performance measures increase overall job satisfaction but it will actually motivate employee productivity increases because employees who feel valued and supported will produce more frequent and higher quantities of quality work.
4. Give feedback- When giving feedback to your employees, be specific and candid. Instead of using blanket statements like Great job, be more clear about what work you are praising.
Targetted feedback will help every employee feel motivated to continue to produce great work and demonstrates both your attentiveness and commitment to their success. When you support your employees they will likely support your business back with loyalty and producing work that they are proud of.
If giving negative feedback make sure to keep it constructive and actionable. Just as you are specific in your praise you must be specific when suggesting places where improvements can occur. A great ratio is 5-1 where you deliver five positive feedbacks for every one negative feedback provided.
This will help employee motivation by avoiding discouraging and overwhelming employees who may be doing their best. Remember, you want to impact employee motivation positively, not decrease job satisfaction and productivity through constant job stress and unrealistic expectations.
5. Take feedback- Make every employee feel heard by frequently inquiring for feedback about the way that you can improve motivation and productivity in the workplace. Your human resource department can help you facilitate this process by providing surveys or a suggestion box for employees to anonymously give their input.
Remember to be open to change, especially if your business is struggling with employee retention and securing high level motivated employees. To attract and retain a high level of employee motivation you must work to increase job satisfaction and value every employee job for the ways that it increases your bottom line productivity.