January is hardly the brightest month for most people, including your staff. Particularly with the not so encouraging economic climate Nigeria experienced in 2017 which resulted in non-payment or part payment of bonuses for many people. Add that to fuel scarcity and the plethora of worrisome reports sweeping across the country and what you have is a nation of people just trudging along, hardly hopeful, simply taking life one day at a time.
Although, the lack of motivation is probably understandable, it is in no way favourable to your business. Unmotivated employees are largely disengaged and perform sub-optimally. This could easily reflect on service delivery, customer satisfaction and bottom line. While we hope for a better day in the country, the pointers below can boost morale while increasing employee engagement and commitment to duty as the year unfolds.
- Change the scenery: little changes make big differences a lot of times, repainting your office, remodeling the front desk, office furniture or other items in the home or around the work place can provide your employees fresh burst of energy and newness that make them feel better about themselves and work.
- Acknowledge achievements: While the organization may not have exceeded its targets in the previous year, there may have been high points and notable achievements notwithstanding. Focusing on such highpoints and recognizing the brains behind them can boost staff morale, increase their sense of worth and inspire them to perform better in the current year.
- Switch up the schedule: Introducing something new to the regular schedule can also serve as a renewed drive. For instance, if status update meetings were held on Mondays in 2017, consider moving them to Fridays this year.
- Reflect the bigger picture: Work often becomes monotonous and tiring, constant reminders of the vision that birthed the organization can instill a sense of purpose, belonging and drive towards accomplishing set goals.
- Promote from Within: This might be a bad time to employ a stranger to head a department. Offering opportunities for promotion to your employees serve as an avenue for growth within the organization and motivation for employees to increase productivity.
- Create time for fun: All work and no play can indeed make people very grouchy. Create room for fun occasionally. Perhaps a TGIF celebration every other month end, wellness and gaming facility (Table Tennis, Snooker, gym etc.) in a corner of the office. To improve employee engagement, office tournaments can be held periodically and the winners celebrated.
- Show that you care: Team bonding activities can feature in the year’s calendar of activities. Other notable activities to be introduced include staff retreats, knowledge sharing sessions, timeout with executives, town hall meetings where grievances can be aired and discussed without negative consequences to staff members. These provide opportunities for interaction with employees and display genuine commitment to their individual advancement.
- Provide ongoing training: Often, employees get complacent, demotivated, frustrated and eventually disengaged from work. These are evident in high rate of absenteeism, lateness to work, low productivity and attrition. Employers can prevent the aforementioned by ensuring relevant training and cross training for different jobs roles, job enrichment, job rotation, and role expansion to mitigate boredom provide opportunities to acquire new skills and take on higher responsibilities.
As your lifetime partners, we are committed to helping you realize your corporate objectives which include building a motivated, engaged, empowered and productive work force through employee engagement. Financial freedom is an invaluable motivator for employees which further enhances their well-being and sense of worth. Incorporating in the year’s calendar, non-work related programmes like personal financial planning sessions underscores your interest in employees’ welfare and increases their commitment toward realising corporate objectives.
Would you like one of our seasoned financial advisors to hold a session on personal financial planning with your staff? Please reach out to your relationship manager, we would be glad to oblige you.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for further enquiries.
On behalf of the ARM Team, we thank you for your invaluable patronage and wish you a productive and fulfilling year.
