How to Boost Employee Motivation by Improving Work Conditions

Arguably, retaining experienced and professional talent and attracting top talent are keys to promoting business growth. Employee retention and recruitment are time-consuming and costly.

Employee replacement is always expensive with costs ranging between 16% and 213% of an employee's salary. Besides that, organizations in the US are also paying about 1 trillion in annual turnover expenses.

In addition, when your experienced professionals leave the organization, their experience, knowledge, and expertise also go with them. It will create problems and a loss of productivity, especially in the teams working with them.

In fact, according to the researchers, new hires usually take up to 2 years to reach the existing employee productivity level.

Due to all these reasons, you must be focused on improving employee retention besides attracting new top talent. Improving the atmosphere at work is key here; that requires more than just offering handsome salaries. You should invent different ways and bonuses/rewards to ensure employee engagement and motivation.

Here we have a comprehensive guide to learning how to improve the work atmosphere to attract and retain employees.

So, here we go:

In every workplace, employee motivation is an important metric for leaders, regardless of their leadership style. Employees need to perform their job with efficiency and enthusiasm. For this, employee bonuses or reward programs are proven useful.

Rather than pressure your employees, offer them a desirable bonus for meeting their goals. These bonuses will allow the employees to use their energies in pushing the business forward. At the same time, they will also feel highly rewarded for their efforts and hard work.

Why is it important?

Offering different types of bonuses is essential for employee engagement. Some of the reasons include the following:

• Healthy competition

  When there's a bonus to win for achieving targets, it will encourage healthy competition among employees. Individuals will consistently push themselves to improve their overall skill set and productivity.

• Better employee retention

  According to research, about 91% of HR professionals admit that bonuses and recognition make more employees stay in an organization.

  Moreover, any employee recognized for his work and efforts is 63% more likely to continue his current job. (Source)

  Offering bonuses can improve your company's employee retention rate dramatically.

• Motivated and encouraged employees

  Offering bonuses is also important for improved employee motivation and encouragement. Setting a bonus will stimulate the sense of employee motivation in your organization, as everyone will try to win it. Consequently, it will encourage employees to be productive in different work areas.

There exist a variety of bonus types that you can offer to your employees for improved employee motivation and retention. However, we have rounded up some of the most effective ones here to help you better.

So, here we go:

• Financial or monetary bonuses include gift cards, profit sharing, cash, etc.

• Employee recognition programs such as rewards, appreciation certificates, etc.

• Professional development opportunities

• Employee appreciation gifts or non-monetary benefits such as theatre tickets, off time, etc.

• Managing a reward program for employees

• Development and learning stipend

• Membership in a wellness program such as a gym.

• Offering food vouchers or shopping vouchers

• Providing employee perks such as onsite appointments, holiday trips, exclusive deals, etc.

In conclusion, there are different ways to present bonuses to your employees. Let’s indulge in deeper details of different reward options you can consider to keep your employees highly motivated, encouraged, and engaged.

Employee training is another key way to ensure employee motivation and employee retention. Some people may not know how employee training and development can boost employee engagement.

Let’s face the fact here!

As per a study, about 80% of employees said that development, training, and learning opportunities make them feel more engaged at their workplace. (Source)

That’s the key to why organizations need to focus on offering employee training and development opportunities. These practices will significantly contribute to company goal attainment and growth.

Importance of employee training

Here are the key reasons why employee training is vital for an improved atmosphere at work:

• About 94% of employees in a survey said they would prefer staying at their current company as long as it's invested in career development opportunities. (Source)

• Through employee training, you can clearly tell your employees that you value them as individuals and care about their development.

• Employee training programs make your workforce feel more encouraged, engaged, and empowered. They will ultimately have improved confidence to grow and succeed.

• Lastly, employee training will also lead to improved performance. Employee training programs help them to refine their skills, gain more knowledge and equip themselves better for their job requirements.

Employee training is a comprehensive term that encompasses different types of learning. Learning about employee training programs will let you understand the most suitable option for your business. Some of the important employee training programs include:

• Hard skills training programs generally focus on job-oriented skills essential to get familiar with a certain role and procedures to succeed. These skills usually range from technical skills, compliance skills, sales training, customer service training, etc.

• Soft skills training programs usually focus on the skills imperative for every employee’s growth. These include communication, time management, collaboration, teamwork, etc.

• Leadership training is another soft skill training program focused on honing leadership and cultivating interpersonal skills. These capabilities usually include project management, communication, analysis, decision-making, etc.

• Paid training is a training program that the employer pays for. Such training programs aim to boost their employees’ skills essential for career development.

• Service and product training is suitable for customer-facing employee roles that help the workforce understand their products or service’s unique selling point and what they offer.

• Onboarding training that focuses on inducting new employees into the organization.

Managing corporate libraries, training programs in universities, or paid training are the key ways to attract new top talent and improve employee retention.

Encouraging the active participation of employees in company life is another effective yet important approach. This approach allows your workers to get involved in the company directly and actively. The active participation of employees in the company can benefit the processes of improving and innovating company performance with increased employee productivity and efficacy.

Employees' active participation in the company life is also a key element in the successful implementation of the new management strategies. In addition, these practices also play a vital role in determining the level of job satisfaction within your organization.

According to Eurofound, organizational growth is associated with innovative workplaces that value their employees by consulting with them instead of delegating responsibilities.

Fortunately, the active participation of employees in company life will also improve the quality of your employee's work and life in the best possible way.

Besides that, active employees’ participation in the company life also represents a key workplace innovation ingredient.

Employees' active participation can also positively affect companies in different ways. These include:

• Better learning opportunities at work

• Fostered employee motivation

• Enhanced employee wellbeing

• Improved employer net promoter score

Here are the different ways to encourage the active participation of employees in the life of the company and make your employees feel more valued, powered, engaged, and motivated.

So, here we go:

• Employer net promoter score

  Keep the employer net promoter score of your company on track. An eNPS score should be higher than +10, at least. It represents a healthy employee engagement rate. You should actively work towards improving your ENPS score. The key practices can be:

  • Incorporate the score into employees’ feedback program

  • Please communicate with your respondents to avoid making them feel unattended.

  • Maintain transparency with open communication

  • Improve your work atmosphere continuously

  Monitor your RNPS rate to see where you lack and identify the best ways to improve employee engagement and motivation.

• Engagement surveys

  Deliver engagement surveys to your employees. Choosing the right employee engagement surveys is important here. You can either use a questionnaire or online feedback to complete engagement surveys. The information gathered in these surveys should be valuable and relevant. An accurate employee engagement measure is important to take meaningful actions regarding company performance and the work environment.

• Open discussion with the management

  Employee engagement reduces significantly when they don’t know what’s happening in the organization. This factor relates to growth plans, project updates, new hires, etc. Without clear information, employees start doubting, and it will eventually drop employee engagement.

  Open discussion with team leaders or management is essential to achieve transparency in the working environment. Management should participate in open discussions with employees. It will help the employees to have faith in the employer and feel more involved in the organization.

• Long-term employee partnership programs

  Another effective way to improve employee motivation and engagement is to create long-term employee partnership programs. Besides developing a program to incentivize your employees’ behaviors and actions, you should also consider some long-term employee partnership programs.

  These programs are important for multiple reasons, including:

  • Improved employee productivity
  • Reduced turnover
  • Higher employees morale
  • Enhanced company reputation
  • Improved wellness
  • Friendlier and healthier work environment

  So, you must leverage long-term employee partnership programs to keep your employees motivated and satisfied.

• Celebrate together

  Celebrating together is another effective way to improve employees’ participation in company life. You can use these celebrations as an opportunity for employee recognition for their efforts and remarkable work. This recognition will ultimately trigger a desire in them to do more.

Hiring some stellar professionals isn't enough to ensure they stick around. Of course, employee benefits and salary are important, but these don’t top the checklist of how to keep your employees motivated.

Instead, peer motivation and feeling encouraged and recognized are important for employee retention.

Fortunately, you can ensure better employee retention by motivating and supporting your employees in different ways.

Here are the key ways to consider improving employee productivity by motivating and supporting them.

So, here we go:

• Work-life balance programs

  Make work-life balance programs an important part of your organization. These work-life balance programs will let your employees understand that you value them and your life outside the office. You can motivate your employees by offering them vacation days, work-from-home days, etc.

  If you don't know how to develop the best work-life balance program for your employees, think about what can make you happy outside the work. Your employees probably want the same things too.

• Offer medical insurance

  We can’t neglect the importance of health insurance when it’s about employee motivation and support. You can offer medical insurance to protect and support the well-being and health of your employees. It will reduce work absentees and ensure your employees’ optimum health.

• Manage corporate sports programs.

  Manage corporate sports programs to help employees excel through sports. You can organize sports tournaments to engage your team and benefit employees in different ways. These include:

  • Keeping them alert and healthy
  • Motivating the employees to excel in different work and life areas
  • Developing team spirit and morale
  • Increasing performance and productivity.

• Employee well-being programs

  Providing retreat spaces is an important part of employee well-being programs. We all know how noisy workplaces can turn. This problem can harm employee productivity. Providing some spaces of retreat for employees can be helpful here. Consider managing areas like the gym, fitness area, café, yoga classes, etc., where employees can knuckle down.

  It would be a great way to increase employee productivity, reduce employee stress, and improve mood.

  Incentivizing employee well-being or fitness programs is not only great for improving your employee productivity. It can also help you attract top new talent as well.

• Take them out of regular work routine occasionally

  Following the same work routine for months is certainly mind-numbing. You can take them out of their work routine by managing a meeting at their favorite lunch place.

  Besides that, you can also manage tours, sports days, or an in-office party for your employees. This practice will keep them highly engaged and ultra-productive during the remaining workdays. It is because they will be well-fresh to resume their work routine.

In conclusion employee engagement, motivation, and recognition are keys to keeping top talent in your organization. Improved employee engagement makes employees 1.8x more likely to stay in their current organization. Considering the benefits of employee retention, it becomes essential for organizations to learn how to improve the atmosphere at work.