Motivation and engagement are difficult issues to address and if they aren’t tackled correctly they can have a detrimental effect on your business. Amanda Riddle from Outlook Partnerships is an expert on motivating and engaging relationships, which is why we’ve asked for her opinions on how we can tackle these issues, within your team to ensure you are getting the best results from your people.

What causes de-motivation and a lack of engagement?

It’s not always what a business does that can cause these issues, but how they make their employees feel during their experiences. It often stems from people not feeling valued or respected. In fact, 70% of engagement comes from how employees feel about their direct manager, whereas only 30% of their motivation comes directly from their work.

How can signs of demotivation be addressed?

By understanding what is important to your employees, building rapport with your team and getting to know them, it will make these issues easier to address. This will help you in adapting your management style and meeting individual requirements and expectations. You can overcome these issues by asking for feedback on what works well in your business and if there’s anything they would like you to do differently, to enable improvement.

What are the negative effects of demotivation and lack of engagement?

The obvious impact that your business will see is a high staff turnover, sickness absence, increase of disciplinaries, customer complaints and key performance indicators will be affected. Some of the less obvious signs will include a lack of respect, co-operation and potentially conflict amongst colleagues, managers and internal departments.  You might also see a lack of commitment to achieve results or deliver a great service.  If employees are demotivated, they generally will only do their day to day activities and not go above and beyond this as they could feel undervalued.

What do you think can keep employees motivated and engaged?

I believe that employees can remain focused if they are treated with respect, involved in company decisions, communicated to frequently and consulted. By feeling like they are adding value to a business and getting recognition for their contributions, your employees will feel much happier, with a determination to succeed within their roles.

What have you found to be the best motivator?
Unfortunately there isn’t just one answer for this as every individual is different. If you were to run the same incentive for everyone, it wouldn’t make some people feel motivated. The one thing I have found to be the best motivator, is to understand your employees, build rapport and adapt your style to everyone, depending on the situation.

Have you got any examples of where you have applied techniques for motivating and engaging and seen results?

At Outlook Partnerships, we deliver a workshop on Motivating & Engaging Relationships in which we gather evidence to recognise the relationships that work well and those that need improving. By using the Strength Deployment Inventory® tool, which we’ve used for over 20 years, you can identify your natural motivational drivers, recognise other drivers and learn some useful tools and techniques to adapt your style, with the aim of building rapport, communicating effectively, engaging your employees and reducing conflict to increase productivity.

Final Thoughts By tackling the determining factors of employee engagement and motivation, you will maximise the benefit of your teams’ skills and abilities, creating a productive working environment and building that much needed team rapport.