How to Resuscitate Employee Motivation

You’ve got the best people on board. You took your time in selecting them and worked hard to help them work together.

They can do the job like The Avengers while juggling a bunch of oranges. But – the spark has gone. Their performance has nosedived faster than a homesick mole. It’s frustrating and you may feel like you’ve exhausted all of your options.

You’re the only one to ever be in this situation. You; and about a million other managers! Take heart, you’re about to learn how to reignite the spark in your team and get the energy, creativity and enthusiasm flowing!

STEP ONE: Let them see the forest for the trees

Meet Alma – she works in finance. She helps your customers afford their new vehicles. She knows the banks’ questions in and out, and she knows exactly how to structure apps in such a way that everyone wins.

But – Alma has hit a plateau. She’s bored to death because she thinks her efforts don’t have real-world impact. She sits with the customers at the hardest point in the sale, it’s all about numbers and excludes the passion of seeing someone test drive a car they simply know they have to own.

According to Adam Grant, Wharton’s top-rated professor and one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers, you need to help Alma see the forest for the trees.

Let Alma chat with some of your customers on the day they take ownership of their vehicles. Let her be the one who actually hands them the key.

That might not sound like much, but here’s why it works: She’ll see that her work matters because she helps customers afford their dreams.

Deep inside, we all want our work to have a purpose. Otherwise, it’s just a job, and that’s not motivating.

STEP TWO: Adjust management style

Sometimes, you need to give employees lots of autonomy. Other times, you need to have your finger on the pulse to motivate them.

The problem that many of us struggle with is how to pick the right approach. Andy Grove, a co-founder of Intel, suggests that you should be either hands-off or on depending on employees’ performance.

Low-performing employees lose motivation without guidance and support.

Rockstar workers value autonomy. They have top notch technical skillsets, and they don’t need managers to chime in as often.

Low Performance: Offer a lot of guidance and help. Explain what, why, and how.

Medium Performance: Provide some coaching and suggestions for improvement.

High Performance: Unplug and focus on KPIs.

Get employees to self-evaluate key skills on a scale of 1 to 3 to get 360-degree data.

1: I need a lot of guidance and help.
2: I’ve got my bearings, but I could use some coaching.
3: I’m killing it. Mind your own beeswax.

Once you recalibrate your management approach, motivation will spark like a torch stick.

STEP 3: Provide growth opportunities

There’s nothing worse than being in a rut. Alma hates it too – she is among the 80 percent of people who jump ship if they don’t get high-quality training.

But that’s easy enough to say – how do you actually go about finding ways to upskill your diverse team? Start a personal development fund for each employee that will accrue over time. It’ll let them learn on-tap.

Here are several ways Alma could spend the budget and revive her motivation:

  1. Sign up for an online course
  2. Attend a (local) workshop
  3. Get a mentor
  4. Order a book online

Now – If you don’t have a training budget, perhaps you need to simply shift gears. Ask A+ players to share their wisdom and coach B players. They can do it regularly through 1:1s until motivation skyrockets.

The best part? It’s budget friendly.

STEP 4: Recognize successes

It’s a no-brainer you should recognize employees’ wins. Help them set targets and acknowledge when those are reached. Again – this helps your team see both potential and purpose in what they are doing and trying to achieve.

Here are two battle-tested ways to slash disengagement with acknowledgement:

  1. Set up a #kudos channel in Slack to recognize successes.
  2. Get employees to vote for employee of the month via Google Forms or SurveyMonkey.

Make recognition a part of your company’s DNA and see motivation rise from its own ashes.