What Are The Top 5 Motivators For Employees?

Top 5 Work Motivators: How To Keep Employees Inspired?

Motivation is a crucial element in achieving success in the workplace. Regardless of whether you’re an employer or employee, it’s essential that you know what it is that drives workers to consistently do their work to high standards and avoid burning out. 

Today we’re helping employers in Real Estate, Property, Development and Construction. By diving into the work motivators that truly inspire employees to go the extra mile and feel fulfilled and invested in their work. 

1. Recognition and Appreciation

Most employees crave recognition and appreciation for their contributions. While it’s easy to overlook small achievements, recognising even the small things your employees do that benefit the company can go a long way in boosting motivation levels. Encouraging team effort and recognising your staff’s individual contributions often, such as in team meetings, is essential to show that you value their efforts. It also helps boost the likelihood of your staff keeping to good habits. 

This recognition could be anything from verbal praise, positive written notes, awards, promotions, and bonuses. Make them feel seen and valuable for their efforts, and realise they have a solid place in the team. Even a birthday cake and small celebration can be a way to offer more motivation at your workplace!

2. Work-Life Balance

After the Great Resignation, a rising trend became very clear: many employees seek employers who can offer them a good work life balance. This can come in the form of flexible work schedules, remote work, or unlimited paid time off. 

Engaging in activities outside work is also known to increase creativity which is why more and more offices are offering monthly activities. Activities can also reduce burnout, and improve the quality of work. Team motivators here can be in the form of team-building activities, social events, or volunteer opportunities. Through some of these motivator examples, you can increase worker motivation across your organisation and strengthen your staffs’ bonds as a team. 

Employers who offer supportive work-life policies, as a result, are more likely to have motivated and committed employees. 

3. Meaningful and Challenging Work

Meaningful work is more than just a job; it’s a sense of purpose that drives employees’ passion and commitment to a company or organisation. The essence of meaningful work is that it promotes personal growth, positive relationships with colleagues, and job satisfaction. Providing opportunities for employees to work on projects that they find meaningful is an essential motivator for most employees. 

But that doesn’t mean the work needs to be tied to a charity in mind (although taking on efforts towards charity can help workers feel like they are contributing to a greater goal). This could mean making sure they have projects that best align with their interests. It could also mean giving them a task that presents more of a challenge.

Contrary to popular belief, easier work isn’t always the best for finding enjoyment and fulfilment. Repetitive, monotonous tasks that hardly differ everyday can be draining. However if they are put on one extreme where everything is difficult they might not be the most motivated either. 

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi ‘flow theory’ encompasses the idea of a state where individuals are so involved in an activity nothing else matters. The experience is so enjoyable that people will keep doing the work even when it becomes more taxing; and researchers have found this substantially improves speed and performance. To achieve flow, the task at hand must be challenging enough for the person to be fully engaged but not too challenging for their skill set that they become stressed and frustrated.

To really succeed in this endeavour, invest into creating a work environment that supports meaningful work that aligns with their employee’s career motivations and can help them tune out distractions. Additionally, don’t be too afraid of challenging your employees to see them rise up. 

A reasonable challenge is a great employee motivator!

4. Career Growth 

Providing employee development opportunities, such as training, skill sharing, and coaching, can help employees acquire new skills and knowledge, leading to better performance, job satisfaction, and motivation. Understanding your employee’s professional aspirations and aligning them with available growth opportunities fosters a sense of commitment and engagement. 

Key motivators for career growth can be in the form of promotions, lateral moves, or stretch assignments. In fact one in four Australian workers would take a small pay cut if another job offered a better balance between life and work. 

5. Compensation

Compensation is undoubtedly one of the most critical work motivators for employees. While everyone wants to do something that they enjoy for work, people also work to make a living. Which is why providing fair compensation to employees is an essential way of motivating them. By knowing they can rest easy financially, they’re able to direct their mental energy and focus more on work. 

From salary to benefits, bonus, or commission, employees who feel they are paid fairly are more likely to stay invested in their work. Therefore, employers must provide competitive compensation packages that reflect the market rates for similar roles to retain top talent. It’s not just an essential motivation for work, staying competitive also helps you keep your employees and reduce talent churn.

Conclusion

In conclusion, motivating employees is about understanding what drives them. As an employer, you must create an environment with workplace motivators that cater to your employees’ needs to feel motivated and engaged at work.

Partnering with Employers

Gough Recruitment is dedicated to supporting employers Real Estate, Construction, Property and Development with their staffing needs. 

We have recruitment solutions for permanent and temporary staffing. 

Contact us if we can help.