Engaged, motivated employees are your most valuable business resource. They continuously learn and improve, they display strong natural leadership abilities, and they provide an excellent return on your hiring investment.
Qualities to Look For:
- Seek out individuals who show excitement about an opportunity, along with a pride in what they have already accomplished.
- Work ethic. Persons with a strong work ethic thrive in competitive environments and view new hurdles as challenges to be overcome.
- An employee can be highly motivated, but unless they have a solid reputation for integrity, you’re not sure what you’re getting.
- Flexibility and resiliency. Motivation and engagement rely on the ability to “go with the flow” and recover quickly from setbacks while embracing change.
How do you find them?
- Asking behavioral questions to get examples of comparable accomplishments. For each objective in your job description, ask a candidate to describe a comparable achievement in their career history. This will reveal the types of responsibilities they find most motivating. Get two or three examples of how the candidate took the initiative and did more than was required without being asked.
- Ask: “Of all the things you do, what do you like the best?” Again, get specific examples. This will help you to fully understand a person’s self-motivation.
- Ask: “What would you add or subtract from your previous job to make it better?”
How to Motivate Your Employees
It is part of your responsibility as a leader to keep your employees motivated through the ups and downs of business. Do this by:
- Keeping your promises. For team members to be engaged, the recruiting promises you make must be kept. These include pay, working conditions, hours, benefits, and job security.
- Tapping into their creativity. Studies have shown that the strongest driver of productivity is how creative an employee feels when working on a task or project. If you want truly motivated staff members, give them assignments that utilize and stretch their creativity.
- Relaxing on the rules. Some would argue that…the more set a process is, the less likely it is going to be done properly. You have to establish clear standards, but don’t impose too many rules and regulations.
Building a highly engaged and motivated workforce starts with sourcing, recruiting and retaining the right talent.To help HIRE, BUILD, and ENGAGE high performance teams, consider partnering with the Talent Bridge team. Contact us today to learn more.