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Here at our Connecticut insurance agency, we are your trusted advisors in all things pertaining to insurance.. It’s our job to provide you with the coverage you need at the most affordable price we can find, but we also like to take it a step further with our commercial clients. We want your business to find success, which is why we’ve started up our partner program and we work so hard to keep your business protected with the right commercial insurance policy. While it is apparent to us that generating new business and keeping your business protected are great ways to help fuel your success, we often take the time to see if there is anything else we can be doing to help.

Today, we wanted to take a look at one factor of your business that can directly affect your business’ success, and that’s employee motivation. While many businesses consider their employees an important asset to their business’ overall productivity, some don’t realize just how important it is to keep your employees motivated. Let’s take a look at how your employees’ motivation can directly affect your business overall, and a few strategies you can use to keep your employees more motivated than ever.

Employee Motivation Theory

Let’s break down your business for a moment. When you look at the structure of your business, there’s the owner at the top, then managers underneath the owner, and then the rest of your staff underneath them. It is up to your managers to accomplish work through delegation and leadership, and to make the most out of the day with the rest of your staff during your business hours. When we consider the time that your employees spend at work, some of it will be spent on basic work tasks, being your business’ products and services. Beyond that, the rest of the time will be broken down into sections. Some of this time will be spent on their total overall time spent on work content, meanwhile, some of their other time may be unproductive or ineffective.

Any time that your staff spends as unproductive or ineffective will negatively impact your bottom line. When you think about it, you’re losing on two fronts, because you’re still paying your employee during this time and your expected overall output is now reduced due to inefficiency.  Unproductive employee time could be caused by a few things, such as a fault in management or a fault on your employee’s behalf. Overall, when we consider employee motivation, it plays a huge role here, because overall work performance is a combination of your employee’s ability and their motivation. If one is present but the other is not, work productivity is hindered. With that being said, by motivating your employees, you can optimize your business as a whole. Let’s look at five ways you can accomplish more motivation in the workplace for your employees to help pick up the pace.

  1. Incentive compensation programs

Yes, this is probably the most common but one of the most effective ways to motivate your staff. If you assign their individual economic interests with performance based tasks that actually help the company as a whole, then you will see positive results. This takes a little bit more effort from your management team, and some close tracking, but you can rapidly improve things by rewarding pique performance with bonuses.

  1. Take an interest in their career path

Showing your employees that you take a genuine interest in something beyond the surface of their work is a sure fire way to motivate them. When an employee feels respected, appreciated, and that you actually care, they become more willing to take care of their tasks, and even take pride in their work. Try to mentor, coach, challenge, and of course, provide ongoing training for your employees. This will help them improve their skills while giving them the motivation they need to press on.

  1. Take an interest in their work-life balance

By showing your employees that your relationship goes beyond just the time that you are in the workplace, you can become a friend to them, which will allow for a stronger connection. After all, the best boss isn’t the one who is looked at strictly as a boss, but also a leader. By taking an interest in your employee’s work-life balances, you can ensure they have the energy they need while showing you truly care.

  1. Really listen to them

This is one of the easier ways you can motivate your employees. Sometimes, your employees may experience problems that you could be capable of helping them with or fixing them entirely. By listening genuinely, you’ll be able to reduce frustrations, concerns, or even conflict in the workplace. As we mentioned earlier, employees are also much more motivated when they understand that their hiring managers truly care, and listening carefully is a great way to show them that you care.

  1. The golden rule

This should go without saying, but you should treat your employees the way that you want to be treated. If you expect respect, professionalism, positivity, or anything else from your employees, then you should first show them how to behave so they can mirror your mannerisms. Not to mention, a strong leader is the one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. Be sure that if you expect your employees to stay motivated in their work that you do the same by working just as hard.

Remember folks, your business is your entire investment, and we’d hate to see you lose what you’ve worked so hard to build up. If you ever have any questions, need to make a change, or would like to open up a new commercial insurance policy, you can give us a call at any time at 860-684-5270.