10 Mistakes That Can Kill Employee Motivation

10 Mistakes That Can Kill Employee Motivation

Here’s the thing: everyone wants to create a dedicated team with high employees’ motivation, and happy to come to work every day. The best way to achieve this is to maintain a high level of morale in the workplace.

You probably know the phrase “a happy wife makes life happy”? Well, a happy employee makes employers richer.

How to prevent low employees’ motivation

Achieving a happy atmosphere in the office largely depends on the professionalism of the management. Since managers are also humans, they are quicker to grasp the day-to-day needs of a business than to actively seek to meet the needs of employees. Who can organise the company’s environment, if not the management?

Leaders who want to be effective, respected, and attractive should avoid some of the most common mistakes that directly affect the psychological state and employees’ motivation:

Attempt to be everywhere

Have you ever seen portraits where the subject’s eyes seem to follow the viewer wherever he goes? It’s creepy, isn’t it? Don’t be like that.

As a manager, you are responsible for the quality of all projects. It’s hard to trust employees to do things the way you want them to, especially if they’re new. Management wants to check how things are going, to help the staff to move in the right direction. However, this can hinder your team’s productivity and creativity.

The next time you realise you’re checking too often, remember why you handed over that project: you are too busy to do everything on your own, and you have a team of capable, knowledgeable employees.

Give your employees space and authority, they should make informed decisions, trust them. They will feel more confident, and you will feel more relaxed, without having to be everywhere at once.

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A fear to admit a mistake

The best example of how to behave is to imitate the behavioural patterns set by the management, but leaders tend to make mistakes, like everyone else. What sets a good leader apart from others is their willingness, to be honest when they make mistakes, which, according to Steve Blank in The Entrepreneur, is “another step towards a more efficient and cohesive company.”

Even if it’s a small and unintentional mistake, admit it. Employees value directness and honesty. And, most likely, in the future, they will also admit to their mistakes. This behaviour inevitably increases employees’ motivation, which is extremely important.

Being too busy to listen to your employees

Your phone is ringing endlessly, your mailbox is full, and you need to make a report in connection with the client within a few hours. It’s easy to neglect your own needs, not to mention the needs of your employees.

Take the time to listen to your colleagues. Create an atmosphere where ingenuity and innovation are welcomed, and attention is paid to the problems of your employees. After all, by allowing them to come up with new and more effective ways to accomplish their tasks, you can save the company time, resources, and money.

Thinking that you know what others want without asking them

No one wants to be a puppet or if the project fails, a scapegoat. Encourage employees to speak for themselves so that everyone can understand how the team members complement each other.

This ability to communicate and be honest and open with each other means that problems will be solved faster and with more respect, as is expected.

Not being grateful

Everyone wants to feel valued and needed. Not recognising the achievements of employees can make them feel the opposite, and chances are good that they will soon leave to work for someone else who will see and recognise their value. It directly affects employees’ motivation, as well as other motivational factors.

Fast’s Lindsay Lavine wrote a great article about the power of appreciation. Her article discusses the psychological impact of gratitude on people’s ability to get out of a difficult situation, which is incredibly useful when trying to motivate employees to do difficult tasks.

Not emphasising that your employees’ ideas are important

Leaders who do a good job, know that each skill has value. It doesn’t matter if the job requires special education or experience.

Make your employees feel that their opinions matter, don’t make fun of the way they work, and try not to raise the bar so that they don’t feel stupid. Instead, be grateful for any comments or observations they offer.

Not stating that you are open to questions

Think for a second about the waiting room in front of the doctor’s office. It is full of potential questions and problems awaiting a medical verdict. The problem is that the doctor is incredibly busy with a long list of patients who arrived earlier. That is, you will have to wait a long time, almost forever.

Often, bosses leave employees sitting in the waiting room. Questions remain unanswered, and no one gets the correct diagnosis or treatment.

Become more accessible with open lines of communication and an open-door policy with specific visiting hours. Don’t forget to also show that you are willing to listen by being frank, and start the conversation yourself. As a result employees’ motivation and well-being will improve.

10 Mistakes That Can Kill Employee Motivation

Image: Pexels

Forgetting about your promises

Everyone struggles with this, but keeping promises is incredibly important in establishing and maintaining employee respect. If management decides that it will raise wages in the spring, and does not fulfil this promise when the time comes, how will employees feel?

Probably they would feel that they weren’t worthy of the money, or that their boss wasn’t honest with them?

Keep your promises. Be responsible.

Ignoring the change

Time is passing by, trends are constantly changing and there are always new developments. Managers should strive to keep up with the times.

There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks during the day and taking vacations to recharge. It’s a healthy aspect of the job, and being stuck around for long periods is bad for you and your employees.

Attending Educational classes and workshops pushes you to perform your duties better. Continuous education and professional development of employees shows that even the bosses need to change or improve their habits. After all, that’s what I’m writing this article for.

Being rude and relentless

Let’s face it: everything happens in life. Traffic is getting more complicated, getting to the office is not easy, and sometimes people overslept. There are a million reasons why a worker might be late, or why they need more time for lunch or on the road on a Monday morning.

Give employees the freedom they need to stay sane in their personal lives and at work. Be compassionate to their needs, but expect the work to be done on time.

Being a leader means being able to easily avoid these common mistakes. However, leaders who put the happiness of their employees first are more likely to retain staff and promote a friendly and powerful work environment, a perfect boss to work for.

Besides, great managers prefer to keep their papers perfectly structured and well written. As a prior manager and a writer, I didn’t have much time and often turned to WritingApaper to pay someone to write my paper.

In Summary

If you want to create a pleasant environment for the employees to make them work effectively and stay in the company you should avoid doing these ten things:

1. Attempting to control every step of every project that is given to employees, give them space to show what they are capable of.

2. Denying your mistakes is never a good idea. It’s okay to do mistakes sometimes, that’s part of our human nature, be responsible enough to admit them and communicate them respectfully to your team.

3. Neglecting the employees’ opinions. They are the most important company’s resource, take care of them by listening.

4. Thinking you know the opinion without even asking. You can never know before you ask, so take time, and get insights from your team members.

5. Not being grateful. If you want your team to feel valued, motivated, and satisfied it’s a must to say “thank you”

6. Not emphasising that your employees ‘ ideas are important. Sometimes the greatest ideas come from Juniors, their creativity is amazing, take advantage of that.

7. Not stating that you are open to questions. In case, you are not open to questions, your team will ask someone else, or come up with his answers, which may be harmful to a company.

8. Forgetting about your promises. It would simply lead to a loss of trust and annoyance.

9. Ignoring the world’s changes. If the company doesn’t move forward, it stays behind the competitors

10. Being rude and relentless in your speech or behaviour. In this case, employees will be offended, discouraged, and even aggressive.

 

About the Author

Donald Mena is a former recruitment manager, writer, and contributor to WritingAPaper. He is very happy to share some of his insights he accessed through his experience. He is also passionate about continuous learning approach, sustainability, and conscious consumption.