How Can Human Resources Motivate Employees in an Organisation

There are various ways in which the HR can keep the employees intrinsically motivated. In this ever transforming culture of modern organisations, employees are looking forward to more appreciation and recognition from managers than pay hikes and monetary benefits. In a recent job satisfaction and engagement survey only 69% of employees felt that they felt intrinsically motivated. If you feel that you are not able to keep the fire inside them going, do not worry most of the best employers have gone through a similar situation time and again. There are certain important ways that can be adopted to keep the employees motivated by maintaining a healthy culture in the organisation:

1. Provide what was promised: Most of the times while hiring the employee, implicit promises made by the organisation regarding employee engagement and satisfaction are not met once the employee is on-board. An employee enters an organisation bringing in new dreams of sharing his expertise and knowledge and getting to learn and grow in return. However, many a times due to lack of congenial environment employees are not able to give in their best to live those dreams. It is important to maintain the relationship with the employees as was evident at the time of hiring them and fulfil those implicit promises made with them.
2. Share the value of trust with them: Trust is one of the most important factors to keep a relationship going. In cases where employees feel that they are not being trusted for their devotion to the work they lose interest in it. Every employee is a different human being and has his or her way of accomplishing a particular task. Hence, he should be given complete freedom to achieve the desired goals in his own way as far as he is not compromising the ethics and the timelines. This sense of freedom and trust provided to the employees should be communicated well to them through words as well as in action.
3. Set short-term goals and rewards: To keep the employees on their toes and also connected to their work, it is highly effective to set short-term goals may be for a week or so, rather than giving them a figure for the entire year or quarter. Instead of telling them to work towards achieving a revenue of say 100 million this year it is more effective to give them a target of 50 new customers this week. This shall give them an instant kick and keep them motivated towards working for every week. Also, once the goal is achieved they should be recognised with small rewards which can accumulate to higher rewards for a year.
4. Clarify how their achievement is linked to organisational objective: When employees know the direct connect of their work with the organisational objective it becomes easier for them to relate to the work network and then put efforts accordingly. Instead of just telling them that you need to make 100 calls this week, tell them how these 100 calls can contribute to say 10 conversions and eventually to the organisational objective of increased sales and revenue. Clarity of purpose is one very essential technique to keep the employees motivated in the long run.
5. Keep the energy going: To keep the employees motivated it is important for the employer to keep up the high energy across the organisation. Employers who work hard, play and party harder are noted to have more intrinsically motivated employees. Human resources need to keep the fun going and the energy live in the environment to engage the employees and make them feel energetic. Introducing music, jokes, informal gatherings, talks, etc. can be of great help.
6. Connecting with individual employee rather than team: Assigning tasks to individual employees and then making them work as a team is really important if you want each one of them to contribute highly. Once the task is accomplished, incentivise each employee separately, reward them and appreciate their individual work one on one or in writing. This makes them understand how their efforts contributed to the overall achievement and how they have been rewarded for the same.
7. Take regular feedback and spend time to discuss: Employers who are open to feedback from the employees have proved to retain the best motivated team. If an employee feels that he has nowhere to talk of his despair and disappointments he feels stuck. Everything can’t be good all the time. There are times when they are low and need assistance. Extending help in restoring their capabilities and energies can be really fruitful in building trust and a very strong bond. Give them as much time as you can to listen to their issues and also work honestly to resolve them.
8. Give ample opportunities to grow: Understanding what each employee is good at and then assigning that part of the work to him shall definitely boost their morale. Let them give ideas on their expertise, respect those ideas, check if they can be implemented and how you can appreciate the employee for his contribution. This makes them feel included, gives this a sense of ownership and keeps them motivated. This motivates responsible work and gives them opportunities to grow.
9. Provide chances to up-skill: Employees need to be nurtured by improving their overall personal and professional skills. This is turn jointly enhances the productivity of the employee by better placing them at the work place and also builds a dedication towards the organisation that values its employees and their competencies.
10. Treat them as you want them to treat you: Respecting the individuality of employees and giving respect to their ideologies is quite imperative in keeping employees motivated. Using words like please, sorry and thank you with the employees doesn’t lower the dignity of the employer but raises it. When employees are treated well in an organisation, they know that there is a lot more at stake than just the monetary benefit.