In these tough economic times, even workers at stable organisations might be finding it hard to stay motivated. This can make it difficult for managers to maintain a positive, productive work environment.
Strong staff morale is critical to ensuring that productivity and retention levels remain high.
Here are the CIO UK seven effective ways to keep your employees motivated and ensure that your organisation remains a positive place to work.
1. Don't sugarcoat the truth. Open communication is better than silence and secrecy. Discuss the organisation's current situation and future viability with your staff. To the extent appropriate, share plans for riding out the recession. Invite workers to brainstorm about how lessons learned during past downturns could be applied now.
2. Listen to your staff. Sharing news with your workers is important, but so is listening to them. By giving them a chance to voice their concerns and ask questions, you'll be able to accurately gauge the overall attitude in the workplace. Because some employees may be reluctant to speak up, you'll need to tune in to subtle cues as well. Stroll through your workplace -- do you hear laughter, or are people working in grim silence? Do employees seem enthusiastic or muted? Their behavior will provide important clues about the prevailing mood.
3. Assign work strategically. Re-evaluate each staff member's responsibilities and do some fine-tuning so the team can work more efficiently. Make this a collaborative process -- ask your staff how best to distribute the workload. There may be duties or projects they would like to tackle, and giving them manageable new challenges can be motivating.
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