Rick Goodman — August 18, 2017 — August 18, 2017
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The way you motivate your employees can vary greatly according to the size of the company. For example, let’s say you’re running a small family business, and you have just two other people on your team. You probably know them well, have direct relationships with them, and have a pretty good idea of what makes them tick. You don’t necessarily need a big, complicated program to motivate them; simply communicating with them on a daily basis can be all that’s required.
Growing Companies, Changing Needs
As the company grows, and your team expands, motivation can become a little trickier. Relationships with your team members become diluted; you have roughly the same amount of time to spend on team building, only now you have dozens or even hundreds of employees instead of just the two. You don’t want anyone on the team to feel like they’re not getting attention, or that they’re not being appreciated, yet it’s simply not possible to spend huge amounts of one-on-one time with each employee.
Motivating Your Expanded Team
But if you can’t sit down and have lunch with each employee every single day, you can take other actions to motivate your team.
One is to provide everyone who works for you with a sense of autonomy. Give employees projects of their own to tackle, and when they prove themselves, give them more and more responsibility. Back off of the micromanaging, and instead empower—always with clearly defined goals, structured job descriptions, and plenty of educational resources.
Allow each team member to see where he or she fits into the big picture. Nobody at your company should ever feel like they are doing busy work. Instead, they should know what the mission is, and how their particular role advances that mission.
For all of this, I should say that personal check-ins are also needed. You may not be able to meet with every employee every day, but do make it a priority to get as much face-time as possible—and not just in annual performance reviews.
As your team grows, motivation may become more challenging—but not unattainable! Use these tips to start down the right path.
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