How to use employee engagement to increase motivation levels
Employee motivation is a crucial component in the workplace as it plays a huge role in the overall success of an organisation. It fuels employee performance, satisfaction, and commitment.
There’s a strong link between motivation and employee engagement – when colleagues aren’t motivated, they’re often disengaged. On the flip side, without high engagement levels, colleagues also lack the drive to perform at their best.
Businesses with the highest engagement scores (top 25%) averaged 18% higher productivity than those with the lowest engagement scores (bottom 25%), and increased profitability by 21% (Source: Gallup, 2020)
Read on to find out how employee engagement can be used to increase motivation levels and why this is so important.
Employee Engagement vs Employee Motivation
Employee engagement is about creating an environment where people can enjoy doing their best work. It’s an emotional and psychological connection to an organisation’s mission, values and culture. Poor engagement prevents employees from performing at their best.
Employee motivation is related to an individual’s internal drive and desire to achieve their personal and professional objectives. It can also be seen as an outcome of employee engagement. Employees can gain motivation from rewards and career development opportunities.
Understanding Employee Engagement
Human organisations with high levels of engagement that enable people to be their best - and care for them through the worst - are four times more likely to exceed revenue, profit and satisfaction goals. (Gartner 2022).
Gallup’s State of the Nation workforce report (2022) showed that only 9% of the UK’s workforce is engaged, so there’s huge room for improvement!
Engaged employees have or receive:
• A clear understanding of their role and responsibilities
• The tools, training and resources needed to do their job to the best of their ability
• Recognition for their contributions and successes
• The opportunity to develop professionally or personally
• A working environment where they can be their authentic selves
• Leaders that care about their wellbeing
• A sense of purpose - this could be contributing to the good of the community or other stakeholders
According to Engage for Success, once an employee’s basic needs are met, four key elements contribute to successful employee engagement:
Motivation can be enhanced by reward strategies like pay and benefits, but these won’t be enough to keep teams enthusiastic in the longer-term and to strengthen loyalty. To find out more read our blog on How To Motivate Employees With Non-Financial Rewards.
Understanding Employee Motivation
Whereas employee engagement centres on a long-term sense of fulfilment and is linked to organisational values and culture, employee motivation is often influenced by short-term factors and incentives.
Motivation comes from an internal desire, prompting individuals to put in effort and perform well when delivering their work-related responsibilities.
According to Gallup, only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.
It can be attributed to a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment of the work and can be linked to financial reward, career development opportunities and recognition from peers or management.
When colleagues are motivated, they’re more likely to do their best work.
Extrinsic vs intrinsic rewards
“Extrinsic” (external) rewards, like money, only create superficial, short-term motivation and can often create rivalry between colleagues. They can work, but once our financial needs are met money becomes far less of a motivating factor.
“Intrinsic” rewards, when people want to work because it's fun or interesting and using non-financial rewards can be more effective. They can contribute to colleagues’ self-confidence and self-esteem and support stronger job security and employee engagement.
Non-financial motivation factors can include:
• The work itself – the type of tasks an employee is doing can have a positive or negative effect, as can the level of difficulty of such task
• Opportunities for personal growth – the chance to develop new skills
• Responsibility – individuals gain satisfaction from being given the responsibility and authority to make decisions
• Recognition and feeling valued – praise or rewards from leaders and/or peers for achieving goals and accomplishing high quality work
• Achievement – problem solving or completing difficult tasks within a deadline and seeing positive outcomes
• Trust - being left to get on with the job and being trusted with information
• Feeling well-informed about what’s going on-having a clear picture to make decisions.
Employees become de-motivated when:
• There is a lack of trust in managers, leaders and the organisation
• There is no clear communication to employees
• An individual doesn’t have specific goals
• There is no obvious career development pathway
• They receive little recognition
Herzberg's Motivators and Hygiene Factors theory helps us identify what we find satisfactory and unsatisfactory with our jobs. According to his Two-Factor theory, motivation factors lead to job satisfaction because of ‘the need of the individual for self-growth’.
Having good working conditions, relationships and a decent salary are all basic hygiene factors. If an employer doesn’t have these as a minimum, this will be a blocker to the other motivating factors.
Why is motivation important in the workplace?
Motivation can help to generate:
• Increased productivity
Having motivated colleagues can lead to increased productivity because they are more likely to have a clear focus and achieve increased output. They are also more likely to be able to cope with uncertainty in the workplace.
• Innovation and creativity
Motivated employees are more likely to try new ways of working, take on challenging tasks and use their problem-solving skills.
• Improved employee satisfaction
When colleagues are motivated, this creates a positive emotional response to their work, increasing commitment and it has a beneficial impact on their overall performance.
• Higher customer satisfaction rates
Motivated employees have a higher level of knowledge about their role, a higher job satisfaction level and are more likely to provide a higher standard of service to customers than those who are indifferent about their jobs.
Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement is about making sure colleagues feel informed and involved in working towards the business objectives, enabling them to do their best work.
Where there is poor engagement among colleagues, we see the opposite. They can be uninspired and de-motivated. There may be increased levels of absenteeism and low productivity, and this can all contribute to poor customer service, in turn, restricting growth.
Engaged employees will have a sense of pride and loyalty for an organisation and will be a great advocate to clients, users and customers. Talent retention will be high and employee turnover, low. They are more likely to recommend their organisation as a place to work.
They are more likely to go the extra mile to get things done and work towards the organisation’s goals and business strategy.
You can read more about why employee engagement should be your top business priority in our blog here.
If you need help with your engagement strategy get in touch with us.
Increase workplace motivation and engagement with these 35 strategies
Outline expectations
Colleagues should be clear about their role and what they’re expected to do. Without clarity, they can’t focus on performing to the best of their abilities. Discuss your expectations with employees and encourage them to ask questions when they arise.
Share important information
When you update employees on what’s going on across the business, they are more aligned with their organisation. Share the bad and the good. People need this alignment to feel connected with their work to produce their best results. Being honest and transparent helps create engaged employees and get buy-in to company and team goals and initiatives.
Communicate reliably and effectively
The better your relationship with employees, the more you will understand what motivates them. Effective communication is key to a good relationship. It builds trust and engagement, encouraging employees to voice their opinions because they know they’ll be heard and acted upon. Ask your team how and when they prefer to receive and share information.
Create a positive workplace environment
Consider all aspects of the working environment - whether remote or not, giving colleagues the right tools for the job is important, but so is creating an environment that colleagues find pleasant and enjoyable to work in. This should also include outlining accepted behaviours.
Set a strong vision that gives insight into the bigger picture
Having a clear vision can help employees see how their efforts are working towards the bigger business strategy. Understanding the ‘why’ will help motivate them for success.
Create an engaging onboarding experience
Employees need to be effectively introduced to and immersed in your workplace and organisation’s culture. If the onboarding process doesn’t make a good first impression, employees can face roadblocks to productivity that actively demotivate them.
Prevent burnout and overwork
Encourage employees to take time for themselves and to log off after the workday to create a motivated and productive workforce in the long-term. Offering flexible working can also help colleagues manage their schedules in a way that benefits them and the business.
Leadership must set a positive example
Leaders should demonstrate the behaviours that you would like your employees to adopt. When employees see motivated leaders, they can reflect that behaviour in their own actions.
Form meaningful relationships
Workplace relationships matter. When employees have a good connection with other team members, they feel a sense of belonging and want to produce meaningful results that drive the overall success of their team and organisation.
Encourage feedback
Employees like to feel heard. They have valuable insights that give ideas about improvements needed in the business and for the employee experience. When these voices go unnoticed or are ignored, employees often feel like their opinions don’t matter to leadership. Ask for colleagues’ opinions and tailor your feedback process to these preferences.
Provide constructive feedback
Offering constructive feedback demonstrates that you want colleagues to perform well. When feedback is offered, employees are more likely to be motivated and understand a realistic path to success. There should also be plenty of opportunities throughout the year for formal and informal feedback.
Make sure colleagues can ask questions – create a dedicated channel
Don’t let confusion become a barrier to productivity. Creating opportunities for employees to ask questions will make sure they get the guidance they need and help them to feel supported.
Create employee working groups
Encouraging employees to create working groups with people who have similar interests or backgrounds can help develop meaningful relationships and mean they are more comfortable and motivated in the workplace.
Talk about long-term goals
Leaders need to understand employees' ambitions and goals. Have regular development conversations to identify what motivates your employees and what’s going to give them job satisfaction.
Offer opportunities for training and development
Growth and development opportunities help employees improve and feel knowledgeable in their role and play a role in the organisation’s success.
Offering internal promotions or development opportunities
Show your appreciation for hard work and professional improvement by creating internal promotions when appropriate or role changes, such as secondment opportunities. When employees feel they have something to strive for, their motivation increases.
Let employees create their own work-life balance
A healthy work-life balance looks different for everyone. Let employees shape their experience by making sure you give them independence when it comes to flexible working. Also offer remote, hybrid and in-person environments where possible.
Provide appropriate recognition and rewards
A combination of written and spoken, recognition will help employees feel valued for their effort and successful results helping to motivate them in the future.
Encourage employees to set realistic goals
Goals set the groundwork for employee results. When goals are manageable and achievable, employees are better motivated to pursue them.
Consider different personalities and work styles
Managers and leaders should recognise that all colleagues are individuals and being accepting of different personalities and workstyles, including any additional needs, will help to effectively support all employees.
Using employee surveys
Surveys provide important insight into the perceptions of your workforce so you can make changes when needed. They can also help you to consider what’s motivating and de-motivating colleagues.
Coach, don’t control employees
Giving employees tips and tools to support their growth – as opposed to telling them what to do will empower people and build up trust to produce positive results. No one likes to be micromanaged.
Promote psychological safety
When team members feel free to be themselves, express opinions freely, take risks and make mistakes they are more likely to come to work as their best selves. Promoting psychological safety can boost morale and productivity.
Hold exit interviews
Exit interviews gain insight into why employees leave. It can help to make positive changes to motivate colleagues in the future.
Schedule regular 1-to-1s
Having regular check ins encourages discussions, helps to identify barriers to engagement, and enables an opportunity for feedback to help individuals achieve their goals.
Prioritise Justice, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Treat employees equally regardless of their background. Celebrate employees’ differences and support them in a way that recognises their differences. If colleagues feel understood and accepted, they’re more likely to bring their whole selves to work and will want to produce fantastic results.
Don’t overdo it with meetings
While meetings have a purpose and are important to align work, too many can mean employees have less time in the day to complete their tasks.
Recognise the signs a colleague may be ready to leave
Understand the tell-tale signs that an employee may be thinking about leaving such as a lack of interest in the future of the business, or they’re not as sociable as they were before. Being proactive can help you motivate these employees before it’s too late.
Celebrate team successes
This is another form of recognition to help motivation and can also remind the team of the overall goal, at the same time as generating those all-important positive hormones, which help to build closer and stronger teams.
Have fun together
Team bonding or social activities outside of the office builds relationships and helps you understand personality styles to work more effectively together.
Challenge employees but let them use their strengths
The best way to engage and motivate employees is to give them challenging tasks that rely on their strengths. Support professional growth and enable employees to try out and develop their skills with interesting work that they’ll enjoy.
Encourage autonomy
Let individuals have ownership over their work and they will be more accountable for their responsibilities.
Be tactful and considerate
When employees have requests that you cannot support, like taking extra time off or a salary increase, consider their feelings when communicating back to them. When a common respect exists between leaders and employees this respect is reflected in employees’ behaviour.
Allow extra time for employees to volunteer or do a passion project
Giving teams extra time or leave to pursue volunteer work or passion projects on work time not only benefits their mental health but it increases motivation and self-esteem.
Encourage proactive rest
Make sure there are opportunities for colleagues to rest and they have the space and resources to do this ‘guilt free’. According to Gartner: “when rest is available, accessible and effective, employees perform at a level that is 26% higher.”
You can read more about understanding what motivates employees in the workplace in one of our previous blogs.
Identifying Barriers to Employee Engagement
Common obstacles to promoting engagement and motivation in the workplace are often linked to culture and leadership. These factors include:
• An unsupportive organisational culture with little to no sense of belonging
• Ineffective performance management, which can also mean colleagues become disillusioned, causing feelings of de-motivation, discontent and unfairness
• Lack of, or poor leadership can have a knock-on effect in the workplace causing disengagement among employees. A lack of direction or poor communication style, combined with a failure to recognise and appreciate employees can also add to this.
• Failure to manage under-performing colleagues can also contribute to poor engagement.
How to engage and motivate remote workers
Since the pandemic, more employees are now remote or are working in hybrid roles. The challenges this brings for engagement include a lack of opportunities to chat in the office and have impromptu conversations. These often lead to personal connections being made.
In the case of less experienced employees, there will be fewer opportunities to work with mentors in the workplace or to learn from more senior colleagues in action.
Those who are working from home may encounter more distractions, for example jobs that need doing in the house or access to social media.
The following strategies can help to keep remote workers engaged:
• Have visible leaders – the Institute of Internal Communications IC 2023 Index found that employees need to hear from their Chief Executive Officer (CEO) frequently. Ideally having a weekly connection is good for engagement. When this drops to quarterly or less, engagement levels drop significantly. Most people also preferred to hear from the CEO via email, so make it normal to hear from them on a regular basis.
• Hold regular check ins to find out how colleagues are – make sure there are opportunities to discuss challenges and where the team might need support; check everyone is aligned. This also applies to teams who are non-desk based and who may be mobile.
• Ensure there’s a regular drumbeat of communication so colleagues feel well informed.
• Employees need to rest to stay charged, rather than resting to recharge. Focus on wellbeing and remind them it’s okay to set boundaries between home and work.
• Create opportunities to build human-to-human connections why not take five minutes at the start of an online meeting to find out what people have been up to. Human connections boost successful collaboration by 23% (Gartner)
• Team up small groups of colleagues who might not know each other yet for a project or as a regular buddying session
• Bring the whole team together for some magic moments – even if it’s virtually to celebrate birthdays, achievements or to mark work anniversaries
• Focus on the employee journey – from onboarding to exit. Doing the right thing in key moments, will have a positive impact and aid engagement
• Two-way communication is key – is it easy for colleagues to ask questions, get feedback and know they’re being heard?
• Consider personalising communications if you can. How and when individuals consume information will differ by individual. In many organisations, not all colleagues will have access to email so make sure they get the information they need in a way that’s accessible to them
If you’d like to know more about how to engage remote workers, get in touch with us!
What is a manager or leader’s role in employee motivation?
Leadership requires different skills to management and is focused on wide-ranging concepts linked to strategy and vision in the long term. Managers focus on the daily activities of managing people and resources to help achieve immediate business objectives and tasks.
Leaders need vision and should be working strategically. Personal qualities include emotional intelligence and being authentic, collaborative and self-aware.
For leaders, the emphasis is on deciding what needs to be done.
According to Gallup, managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement and have a huge impact on employee wellbeing. They should be able to recognise that not one size fits all – motivating each employee individually by creating an environment where each individual can do their best work.
Another Gallup survey found that 67% of employees whose managers focused on their strengths were fully engaged in their work, when compared to only 31% of employees whose managers focused on their weaknesses. Keep this in mind when considering how you and your managers frame feedback.
A fantastic leader motivates and inspires others - we could all talk about an example of a great leader, if asked, because they stand out. Leadership behaviour also has an impact on how others feel and act.
Effective leaders foster motivation by listening, being human and demonstrating honesty and vulnerability at times. They are positive and keep teams on track and aligned by providing clarity.
Strong communication skills are therefore critical for a leader: inspiring teams with a strong narrative, offering straightforward instructions, explanations and proof points.
Benefits of Motivated and Engaged Employees
Ultimately, if businesses get engagement right the key benefits include:
• Improved productivity
• More innovation
• Reduced absence
• Fewer accidents creating a safer place to work
• Able to attract and retain the best talent
• Heightened business performance
• Increased sales
• More satisfied customers
• Improved bottom line
Maintaining Long-term Engagement and Motivation
There’s no quick fix for motivating and engaging employees. You can’t engage anyone without communicating with them first and therefore engagement, motivation and communication all go hand-in-hand.
The following elements are key to building a culture of engagement and motivated employees:
How we can help you motivate and engage your work force
If the four key enablers of engagement are not fulfilled: strategic narrative, engaging managers, employee voice, organisational integrity – then organisations will continue to have challenges with motivation and engagement overall.
In the end, it’s about recognising that your employees are individuals with different backgrounds, priorities and motivations. Focusing on your communications and looking at all these elements is how you can nurture happier, more resilient and engaged teams.
If you need support to develop your employee engagement and internal communications strategy, plan and processes, call Andrea on 07812 343310 or email us at hello@enthuse-comms.co.uk