If your employees lack motivation, it is one of the most common reasons for an inefficient business. This is because it reduces productivity, leading to additional man-hours being required, and ultimately, an increase in company expenditure. It can also lead to unnecessary delays, costing further resources, and potentially damaging your business’s reputation. If worker motivation is an issue for your company, it is therefore important to identify what is causing it, so you can work to address it. Here are a few of the most common causes of low employee motivation.
Isolation
Feelings of belonging, and highly sociable workplace culture, are both considered very important in terms of motivating employees. Isolated workers who do not regularly interact with their colleagues can consequently become unengaged and unproductive. While this may not have been a common issue in the past, the fact that many of us are still working from home has exacerbated the feelings of isolation among many workers.
As a people manager, it is thus important that you try to bring the social elements of your work atmosphere to your employees, even as they work remotely. This can be implemented as simply as adding a social video call to your Fridays, for example. However, if you really want to address your employee motivation, you could even conduct some remote team building, for example, by using one of the packages offered by cityHUNT. It is important to note, though, that just an employee being reserved does not necessarily mean they are unmotivated or unhappy.
A Lack of Interest in the Work
Unfortunately, there are always going to be some roles where you’ll struggle to find employees actively interested in the work. It is therefore understandable that in these circumstances your workers may be unmotivated, the work still must be completed to an acceptable standard. In these instances, consider implementing a target-based reward scheme to boost the productivity of your employees. This can encourage your team to work harder on a project, even if the specific tasks involved are not individually interesting. However, incentive-based motivation can also have its drawbacks. Specifically, it can lead to a drop in the overall quality of the work, as workers strive to meet targets.
Communication Issues
If it is not clear to an employee what they should be doing on any given day, or how their work is relevant to the success of the overall company, this can also cause a malaise among your workers. Poor communication can therefore often inadvertently lead to unmotivated workers. It may also directly affect the quality of the work they produce if they do not think the work matters in itself.
It is, therefore, a good idea to stress to your employees the relevance of the work you are asking them to do, so they understand that their work is important to the wellbeing of the company. Actively listening to your workers, and taking on board their constructive criticism, can also improve your worker motivation. This is because it will make them feel included, as well as a valuable member of the business.
