The Golden Rule of Employee Motivation: Personal Contact

The complexity and uncertainty in today's working life is increasing day by day. Leaders and many people who do academic research on this subject are thinking about managing and simplifying this complexity. The aim is to create a working environment that will maintain and increase employees' commitment to the organization and to create a competitive organization through effective team building and communication. Although the destructive effect of technology is felt more and more day by day, people are still indispensable. Therefore, one of the keys to success is being able to touch the people we work with. Below, we will examine the importance of establishing personal contact with the people in our teams, how we can achieve this, and the points we need to pay attention to in this journey.

Personal Contact But Why?

In the work environment, it is extremely important for team members to be able to work in cooperation and harmony. For this, team members need to know and trust each other. Personal contacts and touching people are among the most important strategies to be followed in creating this environment.

The contact you develop with the people in the teams you manage will help you establish an environment of trust and respect with your employees. It will show your employees that you care and value them individually as well. In this case, your teammates will feel more connected to their team and their motivation will increase.

You can also provide more comfortable support and guidance to your employees in team environments where humane and personal contact is established. When you better understand your teammates' personal lives and interests, you'll be more likely to communicate with them in a more meaningful way. In addition, employees and members of the team will feel safer in an environment where their personal difficulties are also addressed and supported. This will create an environment that will encourage the team to be more productive and successful.

Scientific research also confirms the positive results created by personal attention and communication. According to the results of a study ("Managerial support for development and turnover intention: Roles of organizational support, work engagement and job satisfaction") conducted in 2018 in more than 100 companies and more than 2000 employees in the United States, it was revealed that employees who received personal attention from managers had higher job satisfaction and were less likely to leave their jobs.

Personal Contact and HOW ?

Leaders can do a few things below to create a caring environment in their teams.

• Having regular 1-1 meetings with team members. In these meetings, be interested in the developments in the personal lives of the people in your teams as much as they want and talk about their career goals.
• Doing and participating in team activities. For example, a meal to be eaten together, a social activity to be carried out together, or a team bonding creates a very good opportunity.
• Asking personal questions to your teammates. Learning about his personal interests and knowing the topics he enjoys or bothers him about is an opportunity to establish a deeper bond with team members.
• Recognize team members' accomplishments and contributions. Sincere praise, in moderation and timing, without going overboard, is an important source of motivation that will touch the hearts of the team.

The items listed above are just short tips. There is one thing that should not be forgotten and paid attention to in all of these. And that is sincerity. Communication and appreciation attempts just to establish a bond with team members will definitely be perceived by the other party, and the lack of sincerity that will be noticed will lead to the disruption of existing communication channels.

However "Balance" Is Important

Although we agree on the positive results that personal contact and attention will create, it is important to have balance and sincerity in this matter, as in all matters. If the balance of closeness is not achieved, managers may have to deal with possible situations such as discrimination, harassment and mobbing. Additionally, employees and team members may find it difficult to separate professional life from the friendship their managers show them. The manager, who makes his teammate feel like he is with him, will also ensure that the professional relationship is maintained with the balanced distance he will establish, and will also ensure that the employees feel that they are working with an objective and impartial manager.

Another issue that needs to be emphasized and shown sensitivity is sincerity. Feeling that questions about appreciation, recognition and personal life to strengthen communication with the team are carried out only for a certain purpose and are far from sincerity, may lead to a decline in relations.

So, for a Healthy Team Communication...

As managers, one of our most important responsibilities is to manage professional and human relations with the teams we work with. While it is necessary to establish closeness with the people in the team in order to manage human relations and create a productive team, maintaining a distance, not forgetting the requirements of professional life, is one of the biggest dilemmas of managers.

As a result, although there are issues that we are personally interested in in order to establish closeness, setting personal boundaries, aligning intentions by maintaining open communication in all situations, and always keeping the boundary between work and personal life visible can be our strategies to solve this dilemma.