People are the most important resource that every business has. Perhaps you are adopting AI technologies or automated equipment to reduce business costs, but you can never become completely reliant on non-human labor. Humans are far more innovative and flexible than any machine can be, so managing this important resource is a priority for all business owners and executives. 

However, you have to be able to hold onto your employees to maximize their productivity. A company with high employee turnover will always be limited in its potential, as experience breeds success. 

Keeping your workers happy and productive comes down to motivation. How can you keep your on-site employees motivated so that they want to stick around and continue doing good work that propels the company forward? Let’s talk about ten ways to motivate your team members to greater heights for a more robust company culture. 

Stay Interviews

A stay interview is a tool used to understand your high-performing employees better. You can sit down with them and ask questions about what they enjoy about their role and what could be done better. In a stay interview, you can also ask about what their professional goals are in this company, which could lead you to promote them later on. Stay interviews make employees feel valued and heard while making it easier to incentivize a multi-generational workforce. 

Individual Development

If you invest in growing your employees, they will feel valued and appreciated. You can accomplish this by offering incentives for professional development, such as a stipend to take online classes about a particular skill that would help them improve as workers. 

Healthy Benefits Package

Motivating your employees starts before you even hire them. Today, people want different things in a benefits package than they may have ten years ago. The future of benefits packages includes perks like green initiatives, on-site childcare, new gadgets, and even sabbaticals. 

Public Employee Recognition

Another way to value your workers and motivate them is by recognizing their accomplishments. That could mean celebrating a milestone like ten years at the company or rewarding them for a specific project that was successful. Whether you reward them with custom trophies, gift cards, or an extra vacation day, recognizing your employees publicly can motivate all of them to greater heights. 

Team-Bonding Experiences

There are right ways to do team-building exercises and there are wrong ways to do it. The key is to choose activities that will match your team’s preferences. A Friday social event might work well for some groups whereas a Monday outing would suit other teams better. Also, if all your team-bonding activities are structured around completing a task, you are doing them wrong. 

Customized Desk Setups

When your employees go to work, you probably have a certain setup in mind for their desks based on the equipment provided. However, people tend to work better when they are comfortable, so allowing your team members to customize their work setups can motivate them to work harder. 

Natural Lighting

Being cooped up in an office with only artificial lighting can be detrimental to the mind. We crave sunshine and the outdoors during the workday, so why deprive your team of a taste of that environment? Although it may only have a small impact on the psyche of your employees, investing in larger windows can let in more natural light and boost everyone’s mood, resulting in happier workers. 

Create an Outdoor Space

Taking breaks is a natural part of the workday experience. However, providing a great space for those breaks can make them far more refreshing for your team members, which will allow them to head back to work with more energy. Designing a great outdoor office space can accomplish that goal, and some of your employees may even enjoy working in this space and being more productive. 

Promote From Within

If your employees do not see a way forward for their career path, it can be difficult for them to work as hard as they can. Promoting from within is a sign that you believe in your people and know that they are capable of increasing their skills over time. Promote from within often to demonstrate how much you value your people and your workers will be more inclined to prove themselves through great work. 

Have Flexibility in Scheduling

People have lives outside of the office, and you can demonstrate your understanding of this by being flexible with the schedule. If people need to take a vacation day on short notice, find a way to work around that. When you make these concessions, it shows that you care about your employees as people, and they will want to be around that culture as long as they can. 

Closing Thoughts

If you want to motivate your employees to work harder and stay at the company longer, you have to think beyond the practical steps you can take. It is about building a culture of gratitude, trust, and belief in your employees. There are many ways to motivate workers effectively beyond just the ten ideas listed here, so be creative and make impactful changes to your company to improve employee morale and retention. 

Guest writer.