Motivational Blog

A productive work environment is the ultimate place for happy and satisfied employees. Employees are rarely seen to be happy. The reason behind the unhappiness of the employees can depend on a lot of factors – their bosses are always inundating them with task, lack of cooperation among co-workers, poor appraisal and salary hike. Employees always strive to attain greater heights in the organization and it is very difficult for them to stay motivated and engaged at work same time. Thus company, HR policies must come up with new ideas which can keep their employees engaged, productive and motivated all at the same time. Let’s explore the ideas which can improve employee engagement at workplace to a greater extent..

1) Intermittent training

Training are indispensable requirement for proper growth in any organization. Employees must undergo various training throughout the year. It can be weekly, monthly. It does not matter whether the employee is occupied with task or not. In this modern day and age, employees need to learn multiple skills to sustain in highly competitive corporate world. This is probably the most efficient way to hone the employee skills and keep them engaged at work and those skills can be used in future project or work.

2) Proper segregation of task

An employee must be allocated task in equal proportion . Sometimes a manager may assign task to random employees without knowing the complexities of the task. In this way, the employee may get upset or it may be unfair to put him/her to humongous task where as other members of the team may have less work or paltry work at the same time. This can demotivate the employee and the productivity of the task decreases. Thus to keep all the employees in the project equally engaged, every employees must be given proper allocation of task. Of course, it depends on the roles of the employees .

3) Knowledge transfer/discussion

Every alternate day, all the employees of the project must sit together, brainstorm and share ideas of all the task they have demonstrated so far in the project. In this way, the employees will have an idea and they need to be in sync with other’s work. A successful project requires complete cooperation and effort from all the team members to finish the task in time but if the team members are not transparent about their task with fellow coworkers, they will not be in sync which may later be an issue and create problems in completing a task.

4) Providing opportunity

Every employees should get good opportunities to excel in workplace. Opportunities may come in various ways viz – travelling abroad to get more work exposure in global level, able to handle multiple tasks which are in ways improve and focus on their engagement. Handling multiple tasks does not mean doing all tasks at same time. It is way to make the employee feel valuable and responsible at same. Some may think, he/she is having less task, where as everyone should have enough tasks in their bucket to keep them busy and engaged.

Providing opportunities to all members in a team is tough. It’s the manager and management’s responsibility to give equal opportunities to employees and resources so they should not feel demotivated. It’s quite natural if someone gives a better performance , he/she should get the opportunity in priority basis. But what if every team member is new and if only a few of them gets an opportunity,. then it would be unfair to the rest of the employees. Thus providing opportunity not only increases the productivity , but also motivation and engagement.

5) Team Outings

There has to be some outing or trip for any project team. If you want to increase employee engagement, the employees should have some sort of recreation or break. Suppose there has been a successful delivery of initial phase of project after rigorous work for a couple of months. It’s the ,management’s responsibility to give a break to the diligent employees who delivered the project successfully. So it’s absolutely necessary for the team to go for short trip or outing to keep them rejuvenated and focused and so when they come back from trip , they are engaged and equally focused on their upcoming task. It is often seen there are lot of project teams who keeps on working for months without any break. This should not be the case as it hampers the employee engagement at work.

6) Play outdoor games

Very few employees or working people give time in sports. People like to watch games in TV but how many of those guys play ? I guess very few. I’m not talking about video games. I’m talking about outdoor games. Everyone is so busy that they forget to play game which is a catalyst for positive mindset and positive heath. Playing outdoor games improve mental health, fitness and boost your focus at work. So I suggest while returning from work, give some time to play some outdoor game to help you focused in life and at work.

7) Weekly feedback

Feedback from Manager/Boss – Weekly feedback needs to be given to employees. Every weekly feedback can be useful for an employee to identify his/her fallacies and work on those to get better at work and better feedback consequently. generally ratings and appraisal happens once in a year . But if there is weekly feedback, the employees can understand what the company is expecting from them and his work can be in track throughout the year making him/her eligible to get better appraisal and rating at the end of the year. So frequent feedback in work is absolutely healthy and employees can improve their engagement and productivity at work throughout the year.

Accept Feedback from Employees – This is also necessary as the management must listen to the employees’ feedback. He/she may face problems at work which is often neglected by the management. Management must listen to the difficulties faced by the employees and take proper steps to eradicate those hindrances and make the work environment congenial for him/her to work and thus improving employee engagement at work.

8) Participating in Extra Curricular activities and increase employee engagement

Employees should be encouraged to participate in extra curricular activities . It’s not that one should only work and sit in their cubicle for long hours. That does not improve productivity , neither improve employee engagement. One must participate in the extracurricular activities which may happen occasionally at office. It can be anything – participating in quiz contest, dancing, singing, drama and whatever activity. You must participate in those activities as you get an opportunity to socialize with other people in your workplace. Most of the time, you are busy with your work and coworkers in the same team.You must know other people in your workplace and besides if you participate in any activity , you will be a known face in your company.

9) Set goals

Employees need to be aware of their goals both long term and short term levels. Management must be transparent enough to discuss all those goals set by the employees. They must know how well is he/she is placed to achieve those goals in short term or long term. Always set realistic goals for the employees and the employees should be aware of it to avoid confusion later. Every employees should thrive in any organization and that’s the quintessential purpose for any employee to work and prosper in a company/organization. How they see themselves in short term for e.g.- six months to one year as well as in long term like five years down the lane. Thus knowing and planning for the goals would act as motivating factor and definitely improve employee engagement.

10) Appreciate all employees in public to boost employee engagement

This is a very strong requirement to drive motivation among the employees and boost improving engagement and productivity at work. Most of the times, only one or two outstanding performers gets appreciation in public. No doubt , the exceptional performers deserve applause for their work but that doesn’t demean the work of others. People forget that an entire project is the result of diligence put together by entire team members. Every member put their hard work and due diligence to make the project delivery successful. Thus not appreciating those employees in public is demotivating and employees lose their focus at work.

Conclusion

There are many ways by which you can increase employee engagement at workplace. It all depends on the management and HR policies as well as the manager involved in the project. The above mentioned points are some of them that can boost and improve employee engagement and motivate employees at work.