How to Keep Employees Motivated (and how not to)
Keeping employees motivated keeps them happy at work, maintains productivity and prevents negative peer-to-peer interactions. Money can be a short term motivator but it doesn't have lasting effects to keep employees motivated long term. Here are three ways to keep employees motivated for the long haul.
Motivate Employees through Connection
Motivate your employees by showing them that they are a connected, critical part of your organization. Connecting employees to the core of the organization builds loyalty among employees and builds rapport between your workforce and your end customers. Here are a few ways to motivate employees to ensure your customers stick around for years to come:
Skills Gap Leads to Workforce Investment
As technology continues to advance and increase efficiency across a variety of industries, organizations continue to slow their hiring rates. Surprisingly enough, it's not always due to a slow economy or lack of growth, but simply that technological infrastructure is preventing companies from needing as many people. Additionally, for the positions employers are looking to fill, there is often a skills gap between the candidates available and what the employer is looking for. So even for the limited positions available, employers can't find qualified replacements for their departing staff. The solution? Employee retention, invest in people so they stick around. A recent study from Ken Esch and PwC Private Company Services notes that 20% of employers surveyed feel pressure to raise salaries, partially to retain employees. 56% of employers indicated that hiring remains a priority for the company, given the skills gap and the increased difficulty to fill positions with the level of talent and skill set required. However, most compelling is that a whopping 84% of employers surveyed are making substantial workforce investments, ranging from training programs, to talent retention benefits like workplace rewards programs. Workforce investments that recognize employee effort, motivation and increased production are great ways to increase employee retention. Using small denomination gift cards to retailers like
Subway,
Crutchfield or even
Xbox Live are effective ways to reward employees, with trophy value that creates a lasting impression. For more information on the skill gap and workforce investment head over to Forbes
here.
3 Points in Favor of Employee Wellness Programs
Employee wellness programs work well for a lot of reasons. While they may not be the most scientifically measurable, metrics-based programs, there's still a lot left to learn about employee wellness programs? These programs are relatively new in the space of human resources and employee benefits and while we don't claim to know everything, here's some great points you may find useful:
Invest in Employee Training
The title pretty much covers it for this one, so if you have to stop here (which we at GiftCard Partners DON'T recommend) you've gotten (part of) the point. For most organizations, employees are the biggest and greatest asset. Invest in them! Employees matter, and employee training produces ROI like any other investment. Here are three ways to invest in your employees.
