Keeping employee motivation up can be one of the biggest challenges business owners face. Yet it is necessary to have strategies in place to ensure that staff are happy, motivated, and enthusiastic at work. In this segment of an interview between Dale Beaumont and Joshua Nicholls find some great tips on employee motivation.
Joshua Nicholls is the owner of Platinum Electrical Contractors, which in just four years has experienced a growth of 790%. From it’s humble beginnings, Platinum Electrical has now grown to have over 30 employees and has been a finalist and won many small business awards.
Do you have any tips for motivating staff and helping them remain enthusiastic on an ongoing basis?
- Create a great team culture – creating a solid team environment and then making your staff feel part of the team is really important. A team environment promotes a sense of belonging and emotional attachment to a business, and that is one of the driving factors that keeps people motivated. Platinum Electrical has an amazing team culture with fortnightly meetings, monthly barbecues and great Christmas parties. Most of our employees socialize outside of business hours and have become great friends. The staff of Platinum Electrical are valued and respected, and understand that they play a vital role in the future success of the company. The benefits of having employees onside are remarkable, and promote a unified and positive approach to growing the business.
- Give them ownership and encourage risk-taking – I am big on delegation and give a lot of ownership to my team. By giving them ownership they feel a part of something that is bigger than them and can experience the feeling of success as the company flourishes. Part of giving my staff ownership is also letting them know I support their risk-taking. Staff feel valued and important when they know their leader supports their decision-making and risk-taking to move ahead.
- Provide performance related incentives – everyone likes being noticed and rewarded for their hard work, so performance-related incentives also motivate staff. However, it is very important that this is not the only strategy used for motivating staff. Many businesses think monetary incentives will keep people, but they won’t. Monetary incentives are effective when combined with a great team environment and ownership.
- Let them know that they’re not just a number – whenever I get a chance to have a personal conversation with my staff members I do. It’s really important that they see I am genuinely interested in them. Formal performance appraisals are also a great time for me to sit down with my staff to discuss their goals and ambitions.
- It is not all about the success of your business, it is also really important that your staff are achieving their own personal goals. Your staff have been entrusted into your leadership, therefore you do have some responsibility to motivate them toward reaching their personal goals.
- Always communicate the vision – I make sure that I am always instilling the vision of Platinum Electrical because when the future is bright and there are extremely ambitious goals in place, my staff are excited about what’s in store and that also keeps them highly motivated. My team also understand that they play a major role in my vision for the future and the company goals have now become their own goals for the company. Having a team of people excited about the future of Platinum Electrical is extremely dynamic.
For more of this interview and information on Tips for Employee Motivation check out “Secrets of Small Business Owners Exposed!“
