6 Ways to Instantly Improve the Motivation of Employees in a Recession

This recession is biting hard. So to aid stressed managers in the time of hardship, here is an excellent list of 6 ways to quickly motivate and improve the productivity of your employees now that the economic downturn is upon us.

1. Talk in terms of your employee’s desires

In tough times, many managers or business owners start to fill every sentence with 'corporate objective' this and 'shareholders' that. It seems like leaders become more focus on satisfying external stakeholders rather than the employees themselves. You must turn this right around. The key to motivating an individual is to speak in terms of that employee’s deepest wishes and desires. If the employee wishes to own their business then you must remind them that by completing the task you have given them, you will be improving their skills that will allow them to pursue their dream in time. This is a brilliant tip that if used on a personal level - can inspire whole teams of workers, one individual at a time.

2. Ensure bonuses are only given on a performance basis.

From individual motivation, we now move on to how policy can motivate staff. This tip will not make you a popular manager, but will increase efficiency and drive up productivity within your workforce, so may be nether-the-less very useful.

Bonuses such as cars, Christmas bonuses and other perks are given as a way of increasing the ego of staff over time. However, periods of excess perks lead staff to believe that they deserve that per forever. And the bonus stops becoming a bonus and becomes a right in their eyes. This is incredibly expensive and costly to a company which needs to desperately cut their overheads and bring about structural changes - therefore these perks must be tightly controlled. Bonuses should become on a performance earned basis. Even the Christmas bonus should only be payable on completion of even a very achievable task. Bonuses are a great tool for boosting motivation, however many companies have lost sight of this, and really need to take control again.

3. Take advantage of the competitive nature of your workers

Workers are inherently competitive and you can take advantage of this by setting tough competitive challenges to inspire your workers. Challenges are easy to set as long as you follow two rules:

- Don't let employees compete against those in their own team
- Give employees as much support as they need to complete their challenge, don't leave them alone to try and tackle a tough goal.

4. Inspire through leading by example

Leading through example is a brilliant trait of leadership and will be necessary to help motivate staff in a recession environment. Simply do as you say and behave as you would wish your staff to behave, and soon you will have effectively changed the culture of your business in a small but useful way. How you wish your employees to behave is up to you!

5. Set goals properly.

Performance based targets are dangerous tools if used incorrectly. Impossible targets, or targets that are actually out of an employees control actually de-motivate instead of increasing motivation. So ensure that you set goals with the employee wholly in mind. Rather than setting targets like a wish list of things you'd 'like' to happen. Think from their perspective. If they put in a good amount of effort and dedication, what would you expect them to achieve? You should place your target at that level of achievement.