As a people leader, what is your best strategy for motivating your employees? Please share an example of how your strategy worked in action.

I think there are three big considerations when motivating an employee base, especially in the context of reaching Gen Z or Millennials. The first is educating employees about the broader purpose of what you are doing as a company and how their role fits that broader purpose. If your company exists strictly to make money, then it will be hard to get people motivated day in and day out. Second, you have to invest in your people. I believe deeply that you have to invest in learning and development for your people, not just so they can help your company, but because they're employees of your company. Employees see that you're taking care of them, leading to better retention. Lastly, use data and people analytics to hold people to a high bar on what they can achieve. It's important not to be subjective or use hype and tactics to motivate employees. Whenever you give feedback or criticism, do it with as much data to give you perspective as possible.

Rewarding hard workers is essential to keeping a motivated workforce. Some businesses believe that holding back pay is the best way to keep employees in check, but this is a surefire way to sour things. The only thing that this does is create an environment where people are looking for ways to get around the rules. When employees know that they’ll be appropriately compensated for their hard work, they’re more likely to put in the extra effort. In our company, our strategy isn’t just about the pay either. We offer other kinds of rewards, like time off, small gifts, or family dinners. Since we implemented that kind of reward we see our workforce is trying to exceed our expectations.

People are motivated by a few things: they want to work on something they believe in, they want to work for a company that sets a clear direction, and they want to know that the company they work for sees them as an individual (and creates an environment that can support them as such). Most people don't want to be overworked and are leery of places with "hustle culture" that will drive them to burn out. People also want to know they are compensated fairly for the work they do. My strategy in building a supportive work environment at Compt where employees feel satisfied and engaged is to make sure all of those things are in place. As a result, we're able to rapidly scale as a startup without burning out our team, which is so prevalent in tech. If these things aren't in place, there is no amount of cheerleading that will motivate the team. Bottom line: People are smart. Treat them as such and do the right thing.

Showing employees that you trust them is one of the ways to motivate them. People in general simply want to be shown that they are trusted. Building trust helps foster employee loyalty and engagement. This will keep them motivated and even invested. One of the ways you can show employees that you trust them is by not micromanaging. The main reason leaders micromanage is that they don't trust their employees to do a good job; so they have to constantly check everything is going right before it goes wrong. Employees notice this, and it does not help their confidence, nor does it help motivate them. Get rid of all kinds of micromanaging in your leadership strategy and this will help motivate your employees.

As so many companies scale back staffing, we're asking more of our people today. We all have our jobs, and frequently those responsibilities take up most, if not all, of our time. The best strategy I have implemented in the last six months is to dedicate 10% of the team's week to their professional growth & development and/or well-being. We call it Investment Time. It took a few weeks & conversations to ensure that people knew this was real & important, but after that, we noticed an increase of 13% in productivity. People are learning things they apply to be more effective & efficient in their roles. Things that are inspiring them! We noticed a 34% increase in our #Skill_Share Slack channel postings & engagement. We noticed a 20% increase in our "Strongly Agree" in the "The company cares about me as an individual" question on our Q1 2023 pulse survey. We also noticed an 11% increase in Employee Referrals in Q4 2022 & an 18% increase in referrals (so far) in Q1 2023.

As driven and passionate as your teams may be, they aren't immune to boredom and apathy when things get mundane. The only way out of this situation is when organizations take it upon themselves to shake things up every once in a while and keep reinventing their employee engagement strategies to keep things fresh. This calls for a proactive effort in evaluating your current engagement strategies, considering what works and discarding what doesn't. You don't need a handful of zoom meetings every week to get the point across — you could just turn to asynchronous video messaging tools instead. Or instead of creating pages and pages of process documents, create an internal podcast instead. You could also turn to your employees to gather feedback about their needs and preferences so you know you're on the right path.

Every one on one should include a dedicated portion on their development. Questions I like to include are: 1. What have you learned this week? 2. What's the one part of your development plan you've worked on since the last time we spoke? 3. What's an area you're really interested in to learn more? 4. If you could paint a picture of your dream job and responsibilities, what would it be? What are the gaps from keeping you attaining this role? It's a balance of managing them where they are now and where they want to go. This as standard part of your meetings with your team, they remain engaged and feel your commitment to them as well.

People can have different motivators; you first need to know your employees and what matters to each of them. For example, some people need to be acknowledged and know they matter. Some want to be invited to the decision table to share and collaborate. Some want to be heard, and everyone needs to be heard. Some need flexibility for balance, and some need to vet their feelings.

As the Founder & CEO of Reimagine Talent, a national workforce & talent development firm, real-time feedback serves as a clarity and confidence tool for my direct reports. In line with our values of "learning" and "being the bridge," offering real-time feedback allows my team never to guess how they are performing and their level of impact. I offer real-time feedback in a few ways, directly on projects or processes complete, during recurring one-one-meetings, informally in team meetings and text message communication, and during year-end reviews. Team members repeatedly express appreciation for feedback and often leverage feedback offered to amp productivity and performance. For the feedback to feel reciprocal, I constantly ask my team if there is anything I could do differently to support their growth & development. Motivate your team by investing in their total development; help them understand that feedback is a gift!

I make sure I say "thank you" to each of my team members at least once a month. I also empower them to recognize each other with a peer to peer recognition program from Motivosity. On average, our team members are celebrated 4 to 5 times per month for the good work they're doing. Generally, people are motivated when they are appreciated for their work and since I can't see everything happening, recruiting my entire team to celebrate is crucial. It's a great way to Motivate and support each other!

To motivate my employees, I give them praise and recognition. This could be as simple as an email letting them know that they are doing a great job and I appreciate them or bringing in coffee for our Friday morning meetings or letting them leave an hour early on a Friday afternoon. It is little things like this that seem to motivate my employees.

I've found that the most effective strategy for motivating my employees is to provide meaningful feedback. Not only does providing timely, actionable feedback help generate the results required to achieve our business objectives, but it also makes employees feel appreciated and seen. Through honest assessments of their work and understanding how their role impacts the team as a whole, they can feel secure in their contribution and more motivated to continue to strive for success. Additionally, I make sure to focus on unfolding opportunities for learning and growth so that my employees can develop themselves even further.

Practicing what you preach is one of the most effective ways to motivate employees. Employees notice how their leader acts and reacts. Being a good example will make them want to embody your teachings and act similarly. My boss used to be an advocate of the hustle culture. We did not mind working longer at times since we always see him busy with presentations and client meetings even after work hours. This is an example of leading by example. Actions speak louder than words.

We try to motivate employees through learning. Nothing gets me more excited than that feeling of learning and I believe employees can feel the same. When I go to bed at night and lay my head down, I love knowing that I learned something new. It excites me, it provides me with a buzz that cannot be matched and I want to give that same feeling to others. If I can learn something new that is challenging and takes time/effort, I feel just as accomplished as any other goal I’ve reached in my life. Learning is everything and it’s the thing that pushes me to the next level. I believe we can motivate our employees by providing them with chances to learn.

Whenever I assign a task to someone on my team, I always try to give them the full picture. In addition to explaining what the task entails, I also mention why this task is important, whether it's urgent (and why), and what the impact of successfully completing this task will be. This almost always leads to the employee being more motivated to get the task done, as they're not doing the task JUST because you asked them to, but because they really get why this task is s important.

It might sound a bit ridiculous, but I've always found there to be no special secret when it comes to motivating employees. Pay them above industry average, give them the best benefits you can manage, don't be a nightmare to work for and ensure they have room to grow and your employees will never NEED motivating because they'll be as all in on the company as you are - no one wants to lose a gig that sweet. There isn't a specific example of this, but I can honestly say that I've never had many issues with motivation as a serial entrepreneur which I attribute to this mindset.

Leadership is an essential factor in motivating employees and achieving success. To be effective, it needs to go beyond simply delegating tasks and providing clear guidance. A good people leader will draw on the strengths of individuals, acknowledge success and create a positive work environment where employees feel valued and inspired. Taking the time to get to know each employee's individual backgrounds, aspirations, areas of expertise, and motivations can help you craft an effective strategy tailored for your team's best interests. An uncommon example of this is making use of one-on-one feedback sessions where I coach my team members on specific issues they might have or help them come up with creative solutions together - often seeing a problem from an outside perspective helps spur new ideas. This technique has been especially successful given that my team members gain more depth in their skills which was appreciated by employees and upper management alike!

Instead of introducing some lousy initiatives that prove to be an additional chore for your team, rather than a way to motivate, maybe it’s time to put yourselves in their shoes for once. Even though everyone dislikes surveys, it could be beneficial to conduct a type of survey that will determine the interests of your employees outside of work. This will allow you to understand what they would like to be doing; therefore, you may update your benefits package to suit the needs of your employees. Say someone’s a fan of bouldering in their free time; it would be appreciated if the benefits package covered the cost of monthly memberships and any kind of special equipment necessary. By tending to the interests of your team, you demonstrate your commitment to their well being, happiness and that you see them as a peer.

There is no doubt in the fact that “Motivated employees are more productive”. That is why most companies focus on employee motivation. But this is not an easy task. Being a leader, you should appreciate the work of your team or employees. For this, celebrate big and small both types of milestones. Celebrating mini-milestones keeps employees motivated in their day-to-day roles. As a people leader, you can set quarterly or monthly goals. Break the big goals into small ones so that it becomes achievable. Keep a record of who performed well in the team, and acknowledge his work in front of a team. It is not necessary that you always only appreciate employees who worked well, you can appreciate good behavior, helping nature in the office, and other factors about good personality and behavior.

At my company, we focus on building a culture of growth and development. We want our employees to feel comfortable taking risks and trying new things, and we make sure they know we have their backs if they do. We try to find ways to reward employees for trying new things and taking risks, whether that’s through public recognition or simply by saying “well done.” For example, we have a monthly company-wide virtual meeting where anyone can get up and give a presentation on something they’re working on. We make sure everyone knows they’ll get recognition if they speak up, so we get a lot of contributions. This helps employees feel like they can take risks and try new things without being afraid of failure.