Build a 'High-Five' Culture Through Motivation

When was the last time you asked your employees what they want and need in order to be productive?

Mitch McCrimmon, Ph.D. and author of Burn! 7 Leadership Myths in Ashes, suggests that the basic principle of employee motivation centers around individuals doing what they enjoy. Managers and team leaders should spend more time with employees to discuss what they enjoy doing, what they want or need to learn, and what gives them satisfaction at work.

Wouldn't that make your employees feel like they'd just been given a great big high five?

Asking employees these questions shows that you care about them. Some areas in which supervisors and managers can improve to generate a high-five culture include the following:

• Creating a sense of fairness and treating employees with respect
• Rewarding behaviors you want to see demonstrated more often.
• Showing that you value employee contributions.
• Challenging employees to keep them engaged and foster their learning.
• Collaborating with employees to solve issues.

No two employees are alike. Therefore, supervisors must uncover keys to what motivates each employee. Stop and think about what motivates you. If your own boss shows an interest in you, doesn't that make you feel great? When was the last time you felt like your boss had just given you a boost --- that high five?

Spending time on motivation is a small effort that results in a big outcome:
• Employees are happy and productive at work.
• Employees are motivated to think outside the box and develop new solutions.
• Employees serve each other and the customer well.
• The workforce focuses on mission and goals, not how badly they feel they are treated.

Energize Employee Belief to Grow Your Business

Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch advises energizing employees by helping them believe in the company's mission and understand how to achieve it. Motivation starts by engaging individuals and communicating effectively with them, as well as understanding their needs and what they need in order to enhance their performance. Then, when performance improves or an outstanding achievement is made, you recognize it. High five!

Having a motivated workforce and building a culture that fosters mutual trust and respect creates a foundation for employees to perform their work at levels expected. After all, employees are any organization's most important assets.

"For companies like us," an IT firm CEO said, "if employees perform their work with expertise and timeliness and provide good customer service, the employer will retain their customers, grow their business with them and get referrals based on their relationship with them."

Creating a Motivated, High-Five Culture

A highly motivated workforce starts with training supervisors and managers to understand the importance of motivation through self-assessment so that they can motivate team members.

Vital Learning's Motivating Team Members is a program that uses skill practice to build confidence and competence in motivational practices. Four stages of the process influence team members to perform a task while creating a work environment that motivates higher performance.

Motivating Team Members focuses on the following objectives:

1. Improving team member performance.
2. Understanding the factors that motivate team members to perform effectively.
3. Understanding individual differences in what motivates team members.
4. Distinguishing between motivation and dissatisfaction.
5. Creating a work environment for each team member that will motivate higher performance.

Your local Vital Learning training professional can help you implement a program that shows supervisors and managers how to identify what motivates each employee on the team, celebrate their positive accomplishments, involve them in ways to enhance performance, respond to their suggestions, and agree on the next steps and ongoing review.

Start creating your high-five culture today!

Motivated employees = engagement, productivity and high performance.