Motivation: Maintaining Momentum

In this blog we take a look at how to keep the momentum going for already motivated employees. Whether that be through one to ones, performance reviews or reward and recognition. This blog is a guide to how you can to maintain momentum amongst your motivated team, to keep productivity at an all-time high. 

One to One Meetings

One to ones are essential to employee motivation due to the personal aspect of them. They give you a chance to have an informal and personal conversation with your employees and provide a great opportunity to discuss any concerns surrounding work, overcome any issues and have a check in with how your employee is feeling. 

Check in regularly with employees

A regular one to one meeting will keep employees reminded of expectations but also allow them to discuss anything which may be coming in the way of goals. Schedule them in fortnightly or weekly but ensure they are reoccurring. There are so many benefits which come from one to ones from getting to know the team, keeping your employees focused on their objectives and helping them understand the bigger picture. 

For the one-to-ones prepare things to discuss and revisit actions agreed in the last meeting. Doing this will put development opportunities in the forefront of their mind and allow you to look into what that employee is doing as well as being able to check up on their motivation.

What should you be discussing? 

This could be anything from; 

• Goals
• Progress
• Development
• Plans
• Feedback 
• Issues
• Suggestions
• Resolutions
• Informal discussions

Not every employees one to ones will be the same, however they really help maintain ground work surrounding goals and keep your employees motivated along the way.

Frequent Performance Reviews

A performance review is great for motivation, it gives you a general insight into how your employee is performing at work and can give a great boost in general motivation. This does not necessarily mean just an annual appraisal; a performance review could be a monthly review to see how your employee is getting along and what training and assistance they require. These drive momentum behind all other efforts which are already motivating employees.

Measure improvements

Have a set guideline on what you are looking to improve with your employee. If you are looking to improve their sales activity for example; you could set goals surrounding this and measure employees against this each time to see how they are progressing. Having that goal will keep that individual aware of their target and motivate them to do better.

Recognise employees that have done well 

Recognising what your employee has done well will show them you value their contribution in the workplace. A great way to make performance reviews positive is to highlight some things which the employee has done well.

Help employee to refocus on their goals

If your employee is feeling demotivated at work, the performance review can reflect on that, there may be certain things about the goals which need adjusting and therefore this is a great place to discuss this.

Enhance their personal development

By keeping up to date with employees’ personal goals you can then see if they are doing all they can for their development as well as their satisfaction in their role.

Tips; 

• Be honest with your employees
• Allow your employees to be honest with you
• Have process in place – such as a set review form with certain goals which are always discussed
• Be specific
• Ask questions

Recognise and Reward

Rewards and recognition 

Rewards generally mean financial rewards which can include pay increase, bonuses, gift cards or any other type of tangible rewards which are given to an employee out of recognition for their efforts. You can use financial rewards to incentivise employees, these can be built into their role or used on an ad-hoc basis. Financial rewards are a key motivational driver to many lower paid jobs which offer a commission based salary which is most commonly linked to sales. 

Rewards such as bonuses are highly motivating due to the quick recognition the success of the employee. In this case the motivation comes from the set-out guidelines and boundaries which come with sales activity, for example. In roles with a lower basic salary or low job satisfaction this structure works well, as these employees tend to have more of a drive to earn more money and to do this they need to work harder to achieve their goals. Roles which are commonly associated with bonuses have easily quantifiable targets and therefore you can easily measure targets and goals.

Recognition

Recognition increases employees’ sense of competence and worth often resulting in increased pride and care in their work. It builds meaningfulness and purpose for employees which contributes to their job satisfaction and motivation. Recognising your employees can be a great way to reinforce organisational values and cultures like improving teamwork. 

You may however notice a dip in motivation after giving a lot of recognition as an employee may feel like they have already proven themselves. However, employees feel undervalued if they are never recognised, so you must find the right balance in recognition to make it meaningful and productive. You need to decide which things to reward for work well for your business, whether it is teamwork, going the extra mile or years of service. What is important to your business?