Motivating Staff During Difficult Trading Times

If you ask people about business so far in 2008 the majority of them would say that it has been a very difficult trading year for them no matter what business you are in the world as we know it is feeling the pinch. Whether this is because of the financial markets, the prices of oil, the price of raw materials or just because people believe the newspaper reports that they cannot fail to see on a daily basis people are just not spending as much money as they were last year. This can be hard for us all in our jobs as we all have to work as hard as ever or in many cases even harder still to make the same money to enable us to survive. In many countries across the civilised Western world inflation is growing at a faster rate than many governments would like to see which means that our money is not going as far. The prices of basic foodstuffs such as cheese, milk, pasta, bread, eggs and butter are all rising at a higher rate than many of us will have received in the way of a pay rise this year. So how can we stay motivated as a work force and what should the management above us be looking to do to keep us motivated?

A happy, motivated work force is a work force that you want and need in the place of work. When times are hard you need your employees to go that extra mile and for them to feel appreciated for doing so. Many a successful business has been outlived by smaller opposition just because the work force became disenchanted with their jobs and the way they had been managed. As with all things in life people want and need to feel appreciated for who they are and what they do, praising an employee is something that is all too often over looked because much of the time the management think that the staff member is solely doing what they are paid to do. The reality is that they may be doing what they are paid to do but a motivated worker will be more likely to want to help you out if they know they will be rewarded for doing so.

When working in management it is easy to forget why you are where you are in life and how you got there, how many people who are now employed in management were previously employed by managers who did not praise them and encourage them to strive and achieve? Managers should do more to remember this as well as remembering that by having a work force that will go that extra mile for them will ultimately help them to achieve their goals also. As with all situations in life different people are motivated by different things, money, status, belonging and possessions, the trick is to find out what motivates the people who work for you and the only way to do this is to communicate with people.

Nothing in life was ever achieved without communication; just think about it, how far has the world moved in the past 200 years since communication lines have been improved? We all communicate on a daily basis but how much information do we gather from that communication? By simply listening to what people have to say and asking the right questions can go a long way to finding the key to motivating certain people and getting more out of them.

Small touches like holding an employee of the month competition voted for by the workers with a small prize going to the winner can be something material to motivate your staff. Corporate engraved gifts always go down well with staff as it gives them a sense of achievement. The trick is using this method to keep the staff focussed and motivated through difficult times.

Keeping staff happy is not as difficult as many people think, with the correct communication and even very slight rewards you can get a massive return from staff, the flip side to this is of course that if you do not motivate your staff correctly in difficult times you could well have no staff left to motivate.

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Harwood E Woodpecker

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