If you are concerned about your company’s productivity, then you need to focus on your staff. Your staff are one of the biggest cogs in your business machine. If you cannot motivate and inspire him, then you are going to have difficulties. A team of positive staff members can make the difference between your company being extremely competitive or just treading water. To create this, you need to lead by example. It is up to you to generate a thirst to succeed and transfer this you your team. The good news is that there are a lot of methods in which to energize and inspire your staff and get the most out of them. Let’s take a look at a few today:
Your Brand
If you want your staff to be inspired with energy and motivation, then you need to create an inspirational company. What that means is that you need to have a vision that you can all work towards. Start by creating a great brand. A brand is far more than a company logo and a colour scheme. You need to develop an entire company philosophy, complete with a personality that you stick to. This branding offers the foundation to a company culture. A brand is all about your core values, your ethics, your ethos, and your reason for being. You need to create a band narrative too. All these things lead toward your visions and how you are going to do it. What you want to develop is something that your staff can believe in. If everyone feels as if they are fighting for something good in the world, a better future, than you have something far more than a simple paycheque to offer. Your brand will help you choose the right people on the onboarding interview, and it will also help you get more customers. Remember that your staff should be your number one supporters. So, get your brand right and the right people and you will be far better for it.
The Company Culture
As mentioned above, your company culture needs to have its roots in your brand. So, your vision needs to be the basis for how you act and what you are working for. Your brand also creates your personality, meaning that it can dictate how you engage people, including your staff. Consider the language you use and how you use it. If you want motivated staff, how can you get this across? You need to champion an air of working together, so an atmosphere of teamwork and collaboration is needed. You want to develop that atmosphere, so you need to talk to your staff. Learn all their names and something personal about them and ask them how they are. It helps if you are open and honest too. So, have weekly meetings where you advise everyone on the position of the company and where you are headed. Offer information on what you are doing and request feedback. Ask for options and ensure that everyone knows that their views count and that they can help steer the direction of the company. The more valued your staff feel, the more they will feel an integral part of your company.
Take Pride in the Environment
You need to create a work environment that inspires your staff. That means you need to put a little effort into your workspace. First of all, think about the exterior. You will want to ensure that it looks nice from the outside and that you have some green space for your staff to sit on their lunches and feel peaceful. For the interior, the workspace needs to maximize the amount of natural light coming in, so big windows, skylights, windows in doors and walls, for example. Natural light is a mood booster so ensure you are getting as much of this as possible Add mirrors to walls to reflect the light if your space is particularly dark, and paint the walls a light colour, too, to create the same lighter effect. Plants are another great addition. They can make the space look more pleasant and keep the air cleaner and more temperate. Plants can even reduce stress. It may be an idea to have some positive ventilation installed to endure that the air is the best quality it can be. Consider hanging artwork on the walls. Talk to your staff, too, and see what they would like to see in the workspace to motivate them. Another thing to reduce is the amount of clutter. Clutter causes stress and anxiety and can reduce the number of hours people work by making it difficult to find things. So, by sorting out the work environment, you can increase your staff’s mood and make them healthier, and all this has a positive physiological effect which can increase productivity.
The Right Tools
There is nothing more frustrating than trying to do a good day’s work but being hampered at every step by useless tools. Tools include anything from the software to the pens your staff use. When it comes to software, if you have not upgraded for a long time, you may be losing hours thousands of working hours. New software, as well as some new tools, will have more features and enhancements, which can help you retain more data and create a better customer experience. If your staff can feel as if they are able to do a good job, this will help motivate them to continue.
Recognize Hard Work
It is important that you recognize hard work. You can create many different ways to recognize people by offering points that allow them to purchase things. Or you can give gift cards or an extra holiday day, etc. It is up to you to choose something that your staff would like. Being recognized and awarded for doing a good job is important because it shows that you are taking note and you do care. People like to feel that what they are doing matters in the world and it is up to you to show them that it does matter.
Image Credits: Joao Viegas
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