10 Simple Tips for Motivating Your Employees

Motivation is a beautiful thing.

Sometimes the easiest things are the most effective.  These 10 tips for motivating your employees may seem overly simple at first glance; perhaps you’ll say, “Of course!  Who doesn’t know that?” But these are the sort of tips that we often forget to put into practice.  Making yourself mindful of them will give you more productive – and happier – employees!

1.  Smile 

2.  Find reason to compliment even the most difficult employees.  Make it sincere, even if it’s just “Hey, dig those shoes.”

3.  Do a favor.  I’m not talking about waxing the secretary’s Prius.  I’m talking the simple stuff:  Buy her a cappuccino; fix that computer glitch she’s been bugging you about; clip a funny cartoon you think she’d like.

4.  Say thanks.

5.  Admit a mistake.

6. Bring in doughnuts.  Or a fruit basket.  (You’d be surprised at how fast a fruit basket will empty out!  It doesn’t have to be frosted to be devoured.)

7.  Listen.

8.  Ask for input.  Nothing makes an employee feel more valued than to have a boss, a supervisor, a manager ask for their opinion or input on something!

9.  Openly recognize talent.

10.  Laugh.

At first it looks simple; but be aware of just one or two of these tasks throughout the rest of today, and you’ll find some of them might be harder to implement than you thought!  That’s alright.  The payoff for everyone is great.  In fact, we could rename this post “10 Simple Tips for Motivating Yourself” and read it again. The list is just as effective.  Nothing is a more powerful self-motivator than motivating others!