How to motivate your employees? 5 ideas that change

Your employees may not be as motivated as you are. A lack ofemployee engagement can have negative repercussions on the performance of your company, the well-being of your employees, or even the quality of your recruitment. The problem is that the old recipes for motivating employees are running out of steam! So if you feel that your attempts to motivate your employees are not successful, you should know that this situation is very common. In short, you are not alone! That's why we're giving you 5 ideas that change to help you motivate your employees.

Why do you want to motivate your employees?

To improve the companythe company's performance

If your employees are disengaged and demotivated, they are likely to work more slowly, with less commitment and rigour. But above all, they will not want to do their best for your company. It is therefore difficult to achieve a level of excellence when motivation and commitment are not there.

Conversely, a motivated employee is enthusiastic, dynamic and conscientious in his work. They will do their best to find solutions to problems. They may even be a driving force for innovation!

To improve well-being at work

Needless to say, motivation is a positive feeling that promotes well-being. What's more, motivation is transmitted... so is de-motivation! So, it only takes one employee to become demotivated for this to rub off on all the others. It is therefore very important to maintain collective motivation in order to preserve everyone's well-being at work.

To attract and retain talent

If you work to maintain employee commitment through concrete actions, this will feed your HR communication. And you will attract more talent! Retaining talent will also be easier, because motivated employees are more willing to stay with your company. Even better: the most motivated employees can become your best ambassadors. They will spread a positive image of your company as an employer, and the virtuous loop between talent retention and recruitment will be set in motion.

5 actions to put in place to motivate your employees

Collective intelligence workshops

Collective intelligence workshops are very practical for motivating employees. They stimulate creativity around given problems. Employees question each other, give their opinions and share their experience to move forward together. They generally emerge more involved, and your company, more learning. Collective intelligence workshops can be organised in a variety of ways depending on your needs: World Café, peer-to-peer workshop, Brown Bag Lunch... Choose the format that suits you!

Thecollaborative innovation continues

L'collaborative innovation is a way of keeping your employees involved throughout the year. It's about giving them the opportunity to come up with an idea or project to improve some aspect of the business - an offering, a process, a service, solving an irritant, etc. - whenever they want to. By setting up a framework for the expression of ideas, you allow your employees to feel empowered and therefore more motivated.

Innovation challenges (or hackathons)

Innovation challenges, innovation sprints or hackathons arecollaborative innovation . It is a question ofencouraging employees to propose ideas to solve one or more irritants that you submit to them. Challenges therefore take place over defined periods, generally ranging from 2 weeks to 3 months. Similar to "idea competitions", they stimulate employee commitment by using game/contest mechanisms: definition of rules, animation, selection panel, prize-giving, etc.

Motivate employees by rewarding commitment (individually and/or in teams)

In order to motivate employees, it is essential to keep an eye on their commitment, and to emphasise this commitment. Because if their efforts are not noticed, they can quickly become discouraged. This is why it is worthwhile to reward commitment. There are many ways to count evidence of commitment. There are also several ways of rewarding it:

Individually: when a person carries out certain actions, do not hesitate to highlight their commitment. You can, for example, produce content to value their work, commitment or expertise. You can also reward them by offering training or benefits.
Collectively: rather than rewarding one person for his or her commitment, how about rewarding entire teams? This will encourage mutual support and collective motivation! For example, you can associate certain actions with points. The teams that accumulate the most points then gain access to benefits, training, Learning Expeditions, etc. From then on, the teams are not pitted against each other: they can all benefit from these advantages, provided that they collectively reach a certain level of commitment.

Offer to share their know-how

It is normal to feel more motivated when you are valued. So if everyone in your company recognises your expertise and asks you for advice, it will increase your confidence, well-being and certainly your motivation.

We therefore advise you to support your employees in spreading their expertise. Offer them the opportunity to speak, to lead workshops on their areas of expertise, to write articles or to answer interviews. You can also suggest that they create their own peer-to-peer MOOCs: short, simple learning paths that incorporate photos, videos and fun quizzes, and allow knowledge or good practice to be shared interactively.