Every workplace strives to have motivated employees because engaged employees will have a significant effect on the success of your practice. However, motivating employees can be really difficult to achieve so we’ve collated some of the best ideas to help you:

(1) Communication

Employees need to feel appreciated and to be part of the overall team. You can work to achieve this by using regular face to face communication and taking an interest in the individual’s work. Whilst sending an email may be faster, a few simple words of appreciation and recognition of hard work face to face takes minutes out of your day but may provide just the inspiration an employee needs.

Face to face communication also helps you to get to know individuals better and will encourage the individual employees to truly feel like part of the team. It will help to break down barriers so that each employee will feel more able to approach you.

(2) Empower employees

All employees want to do interesting work and feel that they and their role are important in their workplace. To work towards achieving this you need to enable employees to:

• have some responsibility over their own work
• have some freedom within their role to use their initiative and make suggestions knowing that they will at least be considered

(3) Personal Development

Having an opportunity to use and develop skills is vital to motivation and most employees will welcome it. Ways in which this can happen include:

• ensuring appraisals are not just a paperwork exercise but the start of a process
• creating regular training opportunities
• maximising budget by, for example, making the most of online learning which is usually a more economical method than face to face training
• ensuring that there are clear levels of progression in role, pay and reward schemes

(4) Rewards and incentives

Rewards and incentives are an effective way to motivate employees and they don’t have to be lavish or expensive gestures.

Unfortunately, many employers make assumptions about what rewards and incentives will motivate their employees and, whilst every employee will be motivated by something, you need to take the time to find out what that is and not second-guess. For example, arranging a paid-for employee outing may be a great motivation for some employees but it could be something which other employees dread. It therefore makes sense to involve employees in any reward and incentive schemes by asking them what will motivate them.

(5) Set an example

Finally, be positive and enthusiastic and lead by example. Show how pleased you are when the practice achieves a goal/success, because being positive will help to get employees on board.  Enthusiasm and positivity is infectious.