The importance of employee motivation is increasingly recognised to be a pillar for businesses during periods of growth or period of hardship.
Whether you’re responsible for employees in a large corporation or an SME, everyone agrees that a motivated workforce is more likely to be happy and productive. And a happy workforce also tends to enjoy a better quality of life.
Most successful companies are driven by a clear set of business goals, with employees who understand and buy into the brand promise, and know how their role contributes to delivering that promise to customers. This does not stop at having a bigger office or trying to set a ‘glass half-full’ mentality.
But there is a right balance to be found between being solely goal-driven and developing a motivated workforce with a high degree of team morale. It is the employer’s role to lean on different types of tools and methods of employee motivation to create an environment for employees to thrive.
I’d like to talk about some of the factors that affect your workforce’s motivation levels, and how employee motivation workshops can help to build better team morale.
What are the main influences on workforce motivation?
One of the things we often refer to when talking about motivation is Herzberg’s Motivation Theory (also called the Two-Factor Theory).
Herzberg’s theory identified two types of factors in a business environment that could positively or negatively impact on employee motivation.
Motivators are factors that a business has, or can introduce, which directly cause the workforce to work harder.
Motivators include how interesting a job is as well as recognition and promotion opportunities. Working for an organisation that has a good work environment and looks after its workforce can inspire loyalty.
Hygiene factors are factors which, when present, do not necessarily increase motivation. However, when absent, their lack would be considered demotivating.
Hygiene factors include fair pay, safe working conditions and adherence to employment laws.
When I’m working with my clients to build better team morale, one of the first things we look at is what those drivers are in their unique organisation.
When do you need to use employee motivation workshops?
There are a number of scenarios where I recommend that my clients consider running employee motivation workshops. These include:
- reinforcing team morale (for example during a period of change, or during or after a difficult period e.g. Coronavirus / Covid-19 / Isolation)
- change management (where new ways of working are being introduced, for example)
- for team building (perhaps where there has been a restructure, new team members or a change in management)
- to help with goal-setting and decision-making in support of the business strategy
Sometimes the concerns are with certain individuals rather than whole teams. In these cases, workshops may still be appropriate but individual morale problems also need to be addressed. This can be done as part of the regular management structure for the whole company. Remember that many personal issues can influence people’s motivation at work – work issues may not be at the root.
Group workshops can be a highly effective way of team building and boosting staff motivation.
What does your workshop need to achieve?
The first thing I always do when I’m working with my clients to plan a motivation workshop is to identify the workshop objectives.
In order to do this you will probably have already assessed what the issues are (employee engagement surveys can be an effective way of doing this).
In the past, I’ve successfully used workshops to:
- explore reasons for poor motivation (and suggest an action-plan towards solutions and true motivation)
- discover and remove barriers to specific issues (such as lack of interest in training and development depending on personality type)
- develop, trust and build relationships between and across teams
The people participating must feel involved, listened to and trusted. In turn, they need to know that their views and the issues raised will be considered, followed up and acted upon properly. Knowing this is will be a great motivator during and after the workshop.
During the workshop, it is important to take time in defining motivation and set smart goals that can be achieved during the allocated time.
What are the benefits of using employee motivation workshops?
When well-managed, workshops can have a significant impact on the motivation and wellbeing of your staff. It can provide them with a personal toolbox to high motivation and not just see this as another human resources exercise. These are just some of the effects that I’ve seen in action:
- understanding where and why there is conflict, and the steps needed to reduce tension
- building stronger, proactive and more supportive relationships within the team as well as between the team and management
- reducing stress
- improving resilience
- boosting productivity
I’d love to hear from you about your challenges, and talk about how you could use a workshop or series of sessions to help overcome them.
Drop me a line, and we’ll talk.
