How often have you come across organisations striving to address their demotivated staff? Perhaps they’re wishing there was a way they could boost productivity and participation without saying “work harder”?
Often, what these firms are really looking for are the signs of an engaged workforce; people who go the extra mile and demonstrate real pride in what they do; people who give great customer satisfaction, leading to return spend, sales growth, higher productivity, profit uplift, higher retention and less sickness absence.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting all this. But you can’t achieve high levels of engagement simply by flicking a switch. The motivation of employees is currently one of the biggest challenges organisations face and numerous studies show that significantly high numbers of employees, in some cases more than 70 per cent, are disengaged.
There are a number of factors that influence engagement. But building and sustaining greater engagement is not simply the result of a quick adrenaline hit like the once-a-year away-day or the free bar after work on a Friday night. Rather it’s a deep-rooted, psychological and emotional commitment people have towards their work and their organisation. Engagement grows from conditions that trigger intrinsic motivators. In other words, when great work becomes something employees want rather than feel obliged to do.
Over the years, the world of work has been engineered to increase efficiency and productivity, sometimes removing the human elements from it. Modern employees are surrounded by distractions, have boundless information and options at their fingertips, and find it harder to switch off completely from work as e-mails ping their way on to their phones. Traditional practices of managing or developing people are struggling in the evolving workplace, let alone the traditional processes employees are expected to follow.
This is why we value and focus on the daily interactions people have at work. The employee experience has matured to an era where “because I said so” no longer drives the same results as before.
We work with organisations to address specific business and operational challenges where there is a need to increase commitment and motivation across the employee experience. It could be improving the process of onboarding new staff, to make it more consistent and less ad-hoc. Or it could also be redesigning a pre-existing e-learning platform, which was once the solution to all training needs, but is now showing a drop in uptake. Or it’s something around the desire to create a much stronger customer focus and deliver exceptional service.
Our technology platform enables us to monitor and calibrate solutions continuously to ensure objectives are achieved over a long period of time
Because engagement can mean different things to many people, our team look at the problems employees face from different perspectives. Our experts range from occupational psychologists to cutting-edge technologists to creative designers, and they come together to analyse key stumbling areas for organisations. Only once they understand these can they build real business improvement outcomes that create real, sustainable behaviour change.
In leveraging the power of natural human emotion and intrinsic motivation, we deliver immersive and impactful experiences that really help, and drive individuals in their day-to-day work. Moreover, our technology platform enables us to monitor and calibrate solutions continuously to ensure objectives are achieved over a long period of time.
The more organisations can stimulate people’s natural desires for self-expression, creativity, choice, a sense of belonging, purpose, self-development and progression, the greater the chance we all have of creating workforces where people are truly engaged.
Real, genuine engagement is derived from within, brought on by experiences, interactions and bonds, and is not something that is simply predestined to disappear. But it will if you let it. People can still feel just as motivated as they ever did. They just need to be given the right environment and opportunities to allow this feeling to flourish and, when it does, you’ll be amazed at the results it can produce.
For more information please visit www.motivait.net
