How to Motivate and Retain Staff (Guest Blog)

Motivating employees is important so they feel valued and want to stay working for you and essentially retaining staff costs less than replacing them. In order to keep staff on board longer, it’s important that staff feel respected and needed. Especially in tough times it’s vital to keep staff motivated in order to boost morale and as a result boost productivity.

There are numerous ways to motivate staff and build team spirit without having to dish out pay rises. Communication is at the forefront of this and should be high on your list of priorities. Most staff like a visible boss, someone they can go to with their problems, who is approachable. Creating a relationship where staff can talk to you freely will enable staff to raise any issues or ideas. If you keep a barrier up this may cause fear and uncertainty and won’t get you the best out of your staff.

Make sure you communicate with staff on a daily basis. Even basic communication such as saying good morning and goodbye can make a difference so they don’t feel invisible. Get to know your employees; after all you’re at work longer than you are at home!

When your employees have accomplished something, make sure you give them the recognition they deserve. If an employee does something well and it goes unnoticed, they are less likely to bother again. Recognition is appreciation for those achievements, so don’t let it pass by. On-the-spot praise is more poignant and has a greater positive impact if it’s delivered promptly rather than a few days later. Celebrate success and show that it is something which is noticed. More harm is done criticising than over-praising. If you only highlight the negative, staff will become resentful and will start to look elsewhere.

Invest in training your staff, not only will it mean you’re getting the best and most up to date skills and knowledge but your staff will be grateful for a development opportunity. Speak to your staff and identify what the gaps in their knowledge are. Seek to put them on the most beneficial courses and identify where they would like to develop. This shows that your staff can potentially develop a career in your business and are less likely to leave if they know that the role is going somewhere.

Providing training and the opportunity for personal development will get staff motivated. It helps give people a sense of pride and ownership over their work. Investing in staff now means that when the economy picks up, your workforce will be even stronger to take on new opportunities. In addition, your staff won’t be as likely to leave for a new role as they will have forged some loyalty.

The working environment is important, not just the physical place looks but the overall atmosphere. If there is a hostile atmosphere, then even a higher salary won’t retain staff. Rather than having formal meetings, create informal workshops where ideas can be created and where teams can get together.
Take your staff out of the office now and then. A change in environment can change attitudes and boost creativity. Rather than holding your meetings in the office, get the whole team together for a conference every quarter, or the whole company at least once a year. Conferences don’t have to be formal and stuffy. Speak to a specialist venue finding team to help create a conference that meets your objectives.

Team building activities are a great way to help employees learn how to work more effectively with their co-workers. Make sure the events are planned well with a clear goal in mind. You don’t want to take staff out for an event that they enjoy for a day only to go back to work and start arguing again. The event you come up with has to above all be fun but challenging and help your team to grow and learn about themselves.

Team building can help people to overcome their shyness and encourage the sharing of ideas. However, ensure the event itself won’t be too embarrassing nor out of anyone’s comfort zone as this will have the opposite effect.  A good team building event can help bring back positive energy and energise staff. It aims to improve team culture and create a solid workforce.

Author Bio: This article was brought to you by Conference Care (http://www.conferencecare.com/event-services/hotel-booking-agent), who provide a range of conference finding and team building services.