People are the lifeblood of any business organization. It’s safe to say that a company would not reach its full potential without its people.
Naturally, one of the major goals of the leadership team is to motivate their best people to stay. And there are a lot of factors that make professionals want to stay with their employer for the long term.
We’ve compiled them in this handy guide, and each week we’ll be outlining the best steps you can take to sustain each factor.
FACTOR 3 – PRODUCTIVITY
Step 1: Learn what motivates them.
If you’ve ever taken care of pets, you’ll know that there are certain things you can do to make them achieve certain goals. In other words, you know how to motivate them. And you can do the same for the members of your organization!
Just remember that people are quite a bit smarter than our animal friends, and have more specific motivations beyond basic needs. Some people are driven by basic factors like being the family breadwinner, having bills to pay, and overall financial stability. Others have more situational motivations such as pursuing a career that they want, or building up capital for a business of their own.
And anyone can have two or more of these motivations at the same time! It all might seem complex, but all you need to remember is that people won’t easily take action without a reason. So if you want to get your employees fully involved, know how to incorporate their motivations in your plans.
Step 2: Observe their work styles.
Different people have different approaches to getting what they want. There may be some similarities, and standard procedures will create some uniformity, but it won’t be absolutely the same for everyone.
This is especially noticeable when you look at how people macromanage – that is, how they manage the bigger picture. They may follow protocols for each step, but the overall strategy or plan may be something they figured out themselves. And it follows that their personal approach is what they find works best given their unique skillsets and qualities.
These work styles are elements you can incorporate into a unit’s strategy, and they can even be included in a long-term organizational plan. If everyone feels that they’re being given leeway to perform in the best way they know how, they will feel valued as legitimate professionals.
Step 3: Harness their synergy with others.
Professionals feel recognized as part of the team and the organization when they are regularly and consistently involved in collaborative efforts. No one likes the feeling of being left out, after all!
This ties in pretty well with how different people have unique work styles. There may be some combinations of approaches that work particularly well together, and they’ll also be more likely to cover each other’s blind spots.
This all goes a long way towards building an inclusive atmosphere that makes employees feel they are part of their team’s progress and the entire organization’s forward motion. If everyone feels that they are contributing not only as individuals but also as part of functional units, it increases their perception of belongingness.
Step 4: Instill a culture of accountability.
One other aspect of productivity you can use to make your people feel valued is ownership or accountability. If they don’t feel responsible for the work that they do, they will become detached and lose their sense of oneness with the organization; after all, who wants to stay with an employer that doesn’t even have any expectations of them?
Let your employees know that you expect them to own their tasks and responsibilities, whether they’re successful or not. Teach them to be proud of their accomplishments and to acknowledge their mistakes, as both are vital to what steps the organization needs to take in the future. Make them feel that what they do has a tangible impact on the success of the organization.
You can even go a step further and help them develop this attitude towards everyone, in order to create a work environment where everyone knows what to expect of each other from a productivity standpoint.
Productivity isn’t just a generic metric for accomplishment. It can also serve as another tool for you to build an organization full of professionals that know and feel they are valued. These employees are more likely to stay compared to ones that are not valued, so take this opportunity to achieve two goals at once: boost your productivity and keep your best people with you!
Tune in next week, as we rundown the things that you can do to make your people feel valued through capacity-building.