Looking to improve employee motivation, engagement and fire-up the passion of your employees?
Over the last decade, a lot of things have been said about employee engagement, motivation and passion, and most leader know the “Whats” and the “Whys”. However, most are still in the dark about HOW to actually engage, motivate and inspire your employees.
For instance, HR professionals talk about replacing “Exit Interviews” with “Stay Interviews” and Leadership gurus talk about leading teams with a purpose and vision, and communicating effectively.
However I would like to boil all of these down into 10 simple strategies that will enable you to motivate, engage and retain your best employees.
So here are 10 things I did with my team that kept my attrition rate at 0% and employee engagement at 100% and achieving 100% annual objectives for 10 years straight:
- I had regular personal conversations with each and every team member
- I genuinely cared for their professional career development and growth
- I genuinely cared for their personal growth
- I took pains to plan their career paths
- I regularly asked for their feedback, suggestions and comments
- I delegated important tasks and projects to them
- I encouraged them to run their own race
- I always gave credit where credit was due
- We celebrated every success
- We solved problems as a team
I did all of the above with each of my team members, and they rewarded me with loyal service, 100% engagement levels and achieving 100% of all our annual objectives – for 10 years straight.
It’s important to keep in mind that employee engagement is a two-way street, and to be successful, you as the manager or the leader need to be available, genuine and authentic. The fastest and surest way to kill employee engagement is to be arrogant, fake and ungenuine.
Do you need to do all of the above. The answer is YES.
However doing all 10 would be overwhelming for most people. So for a start, identify 2-3 strategies that you can implement immediately and then put them into action. When you experience positive results from the actions you took, identify another 2-3 strategies and put them into action.
If you do all of the above diligently, I can assure you that your employee motivation, engagement and retention will go through the roof.
About the Author
STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.
Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.
He is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. This model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach. Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.
Steven is the Author of two books:
• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach™ to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”
He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report™ that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.
Steven has been featured on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital and other publications. His comments on Team Collaboration was quoted in the Spring 2014 Edition of the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.
Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.
Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.