Motivate employees and make them perform better (7 tips)

 It is only relatively recently that attention has been paid to the satisfaction and well-being of employees and their associated motivation. That started about thirty years ago. Before that time, the relationship between employer and employee was simply one that consisted of the exchange of the work to be performed and the salary to be paid. Until gradually attention was paid to working more efficiently and then working "more fun". Companies discovered that companies with happy employees prospered.

Now it's completely turned around. During the larger HR events that take place annually worldwide, the employee experience is before and employee experience after. Matthew Wride, who co-wrote the book The Employee Experience, formulates employee experience as follows:

“Employee experience is the sum of the different perceptions employees have of their interactions with the organization in which they work.”

The better the employee experience is, the better their performance management system is. Good performance comes from intrinsic motivation. A good employee experience stimulates that motivation. Because I want to state that I think that people in principle come to work motivated. They want to work and are motivated to do so. As a manager yourself, you can go a step further. By stimulating employees in the right way, you ensure that they function optimally in the workplace. That there is room for a laugh and a tear. That every employee knows what he contributes to the ultimate goal. 

In this blog I will give you seven tips on how to motivate your employees as an employer. These tips are based on the self- determination theory of Deci and Ryan (1985, 2000) a theory of human motivation. According to this theory, every human being has three basic natural needs. When these three basic needs are met, a person can function optimally and grow.

1. Competency: feeling that you have the right capabilities to function well.
2. Autonomy: the feeling of being able to make choices and act independently.
3. Connectedness: The feeling of having accepted and valued relationships with others.

Whip or silk gloves?

Within the self-determination theory it also applies: control is counterproductive. Employees experience less freedom as a result of too much control, which affects their well-being. This in turn leads to a decrease in motivation. As I wrote before: the basic principle is that employees come to work motivated. Factors such as too much control, little freedom, little room for personal input, little flexible working hours reduce motivation. So old-fashioned with the whip you'd better forget… Instead, put the well-being of those you lead first. When their well-being is in order, they will perform well, have more perseverance and creativity.

7 tips to motivate

Based on the three basic needs of employees, we have prepared seven tips that you can use immediately in the workplace:

1. Give positive feedback that increases the sense of competence.
2. Thank your employees (more often).
3. Put the result first, but let employees decide for themselves how they approach it.
4. Give employees responsibility and hold them accountable.
5. Know, acknowledge and thank your employees, even (especially!) when working conditions are stressful.
6. Create an atmosphere of working and learning together.
7. Organize team building activities and informal moments.

Communication

Communication is the magic word to grasp and implement the above tools. This is sometimes difficult in a busy company, especially as the size of the company and number of employees increase. I can already hear you thinking: That will be a day's work! How do you ensure that you communicate as well as possible in the simplest possible way?

An internal communication platform is an extremely practical tool that enables you as a manager (and colleagues) to put the above tips into practice. Because of course you prefer to give someone a compliment, support or feedback 'in real life'. But that is not always possible. Just think of organizations with many non-desk employees such as Rituals, IKEA or Bijenkorf. These are companies with dozens of branches in the Netherlands, with hundreds of teams and thousands of employees.

This is the solution

It is precisely in such an organization that Speakap is the ideal tool to put employees in the limelight, to give them responsibility, to give compliments or feedback. Has a team performed well? Present the numbers on the public timeline and make the team in question feel proud. Does an individual employee need help or feedback? Send him feedback by private message. That is fast, efficient and discreet. Give employees a sense of autonomy and responsibility by sharing information and documents that they can access at all times. This allows them to act independently and well informed. You can also use an events feature on which you create events for monthly drinks or other team building activities. So everyone has something to look forward to!