Motivating Your Internal Clients

A company can only provide excellent products or services through motivated employees. Behind your counters are your people, performing their own part of the work, eventually contributing to your success. But employees are not machines who will always be good. They can only go as far as they are motivated to go.

Imagine an undetermined employee who is given a critical function for a project. Before anything is given to anyone, the idea of this instantly tells us that things won’t be finished, or perhaps the output will be far from standard. But the root cause of all this is not because you hired the wrong people, but rather a lack of motivation.

Motivation is a crucial factor in any company that wishes to have a good system. Here are a few small ideas to motivate your employees:

1. Recognition.?No one will want to exert all their effort and skill on something that won’t matter. Even for people who say that they don’t care about the type of work they do as long as they get paid, eventually, they will also want to know if what they are doing actually matters. Recognition is a powerful tool to keep your employees not only motivated but also interested in their work. If their work makes an impact on the company or even on the lives of the people around them, they feel rewarded and more determined to continue.

If the company exceeded its quota, then perhaps you can show your people a token of appreciation, showing them that you recognize their individual effort. It can be in the form of a company dinner, small gifts, or even monetary incentives.

Small successes can be rewarded with a thoughtful pat on the back, a handshake and a congratulation to signify that you recognize their actions. What is most important is for you to acknowledge a job well done.

2. Work Variety.?When you work eight hours a day for the entire week, filling out different versions of documents that contain essentially the same things as the thousands they have accomplished, you are going to lose your patience sooner than later. Work variety is important in motivating employees. It allows them to take a break from their monotonous tasks as well as try new things that they may enjoy.

Maybe you can try to mix things up from time to time and rotate tasks. Maybe for the next company dinner, instead of the manager organizing, it could be one of his/her subordinates calling the shots. Perhaps the next small project can be assigned to a newly organized team of clerical employees.

The point is for you to avoid burning your people out with repetitive tasks and offering them nothing new to experience.

3. Growth. People can only stay in one place for so long until they realize that they are not going anywhere, anytime soon; that it is time to move on to a different company and experience new and greater things. They are looking for career advancement and they feel it through certain indicators. These indicators are those that make them feel that their work actually effected changes in the company, contributed to its success, gained them recognition, and showed them that they are one step further in the company than they were before. Growth is an essential element in keeping employees happy. This means that you need to be able to provide them with skills training so they can become more efficient. Show them that you care for them as a professional by giving them the opportunity to improve their personal performance.

The biggest motivator related to growth is providing opportunities for career advancement. First, they must know that employees in the company can be promoted, regardless of how few of them will actually be promoted.

4.Avoid being partial.?Even when faced with the highest number of problem employees, as a business owner and leader, avoid showing signs of favoritism. By showing obvious signs of employee preference, you are effectively destroying the morale of other employees. They will feel a lot of things from your impartiality—that they will most likely not have a chance to get promoted, that their work is not cut out to get your attention, and they are less likely to be motivated by small gestures if, at the end of the day, they still know you play favorites.

5. Provide equal opportunity and recognition.?If your problem employee shines for the first time, or has in some way improved, recognize it, and motivate him/her to keep improving. If that top-performing employee violates a company rule, penalize him/her according to the corresponding penalty provided in your company handbook. Never give unfair privileges to select people.

In our zeal to get sales, we focus our attention on your customer. While this is a wise policy, we must not forget that we have internal clients that are equally important if we are to run our company effectively. By adopting policies and procedures that motivate them, too, you will be building a solid foundation for long-term success.

*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin, C-4, Sunday, March 5, 2017. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.