Employee Motivation Doesn’t Always Come Easy
I sat next to a young man on a plane trip and we struck up a conversation. He was a manager at a construction site. As we began to talk about his work and the challenges he faced with the people on the job, he shared his biggest struggle with his employees was apathy.
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He asked, “How do you teach apathy? What do you do with a group of individuals that just don’t care? How do you motivate them? He went on to state that apathy was the most common thing he saw among the twenty-something’s that came on the job, being lax with their breaks, often with their work, and having an overall attitude of indifference.
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While recognizing that not everyone is as self-motivated as he might be, he was willing to take a look at his role as a manager and wondered what he might do to assist his staff better. The problem was he didn’t really know what to do with them, so he asked, “What would you suggest”?
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Employees are People; People are Complex
Apathy is a different kind of challenge. Unlike very specific employee issues such as absenteeism, anger, poor time management, procrastination, and others, apathy doesn’t give you anything you can pinpoint and really put your finger on. Thus, it doesn’t present itself in the most genuine way because you can’t identify a direct symptom, which makes it harder to get to the root.
Dealing with employees can be complex because employees are people and people have issues, but at the end of the day we all pretty much want the same thing: to be loved, feel valued, and respected. Beyond that we all have one relevant need, in both life and work: To have a purpose, a genuine reason for being. When we can figure this out in the work place and show ourselves both productive (aka see results) and profitable (rewarded), we can get really excited. This is why as a society we are so obsessed with the idea of success. Success is about being (actually feeling) accomplished and that’s what we all want.
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Using Goal Setting as a Strategy
Without having any background on the group, how they came to be or any other data, I shared the concept of goal setting and action planning, a really simple strategy that brings validation and clarity, along with purpose and productivity to those within a work environment.
When people don’t have goals or something to work toward, to get excited about or a place where they can feel accomplished and rewarded, they can’t feel successful and will often fall into a space of not caring. What difference does it make? I’m not needed. It doesn’t matter if I’m here. What I do is not important.
Your role as a leader is not to play psychologist (they have professionals for that), but to provide your employees with the tools, resources and incentives they need to do a good job. When you give your employees a sense of ownership and help them share in the vision for your company along with their specific role in its success, they begin to feel empowered and motivated. Give them a purpose, let them share in the vision, help them set some goals, allow them to feel accomplished and rewarded and watch the change that can take place.
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P.S. – Be willing to talk to your employees about their life as well as their business goals. Help them see how their work contributes to both.
Need to get motivated or motivate your employees? Call us at 770-210-0726 to learn more about our employee training and action plan coaching programs.
Biz Practitioner
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