Money is very hard to acquire for a lot of people. Individuals with poor financial intelligence, struggling businesses or hustling entrepreneurs. And when you want to reward certain behaviour, what comes to your mind first other than something that a lot of people find difficult landing – money? And a lot of business have sadly incorporated this mindset into their businesses without the knowledge that they are negatively affecting the productivity of their employees.
They think that because their employees may be having money issues, putting up some kind of monetary reward system would make them more inclined to “competing” for the prize, thereby increasing profits. Here’s why this approach rarely works;
Daniel Pink wrote a book titled ‘Drive.’ The book mainly talks about what really motivates people and throughout his findings, money wasn’t a part of that list.
He found out that the three major things that boost motivation is; autonomy, mastery and purpose.
And in this article, I’ll be talking about how you can use mastery in the form of feedback to get your employees motivated to work.
A lot of employees, roughly 98% actually disengage when their managers seem frugal with the level of feedback they tend to give. And according to a worldwide Gallup survey, a performance review isn’t enough. But employees need feedback to find maximum engagement at work either once a year or once every six months.
And to boost employee productivity, research shows that the fastest way is through constant constructive feedback and recognition.
Yes, giving feedback may seem to be overwhelming and hard, but I will be showing you a list of do’s and don’ts that would be very effective. However, you shouldn’t lose sight of being positive about feedbacks and recognition.
What you should do
- Ask for their permission
“Aren’t they my employees?” You say. Well, they are. But you want to show that you also respect them well enough. Just as you won’t barge into someone’s house without knocking, show them that courtesy when you want to discuss a delicate topic such as job performance.
- Personalize your feedback
This one happens a lot where one person in your team makes a mistake while it was obvious who actually did. And then the manager drags out the entire team and starts addressing that issue while generalizing the issue. Avoid that “one-size-fits-all” feedback because it doesn’t help anyone. Rather, you talk to the individual one on one, and that would definitely produce better results for the whole team as well as the individual who made the mistake.
- State clearly what you observed
You should try as much as possible to avoid personal judgements. Use specific examples based on what you observed rather than labelling them wrongly based on your conclusion. An example is “I noticed that you aren’t really energetic when working. What’s wrong?” as opposed to “You are just plain dull and absolutely lazy”. You also want to learn how to keep it specific and avoid generalizations.
- Explain the impact of their actions
Make the employee aware of how their actions affect customers, the team and the company as a whole. People will tend to pay more attention when they realize that they are actually causing a lot of harm to other people if they don’t work on a particular aspect of themselves.
- Always follow up
Don’t bring up feedback and keep it dead afterwards. They will never know how much they have improved if you don’t make them aware of it. Schedule a follow-up talk and be willing to discuss the problem and possible solutions. Make them see that you are also there to support them.
What you shouldn’t do
- Never bring up more than one negative behaviour or issue.
Too much information could be overwhelming, and changing too much at once could be revolting.
- Never be too critical or negative.
If your feedback makes the other person give up altogether, then that’s poor feedback. Great feedback should push that person to want to do better.
- Never avoid real problems.
If you have an issue, you should state it and discuss thoroughly.
- Never interrupt your employee
Give them some time and space to respond. You want to make them feel that they have a voice and can actually contribute to brainstorming ways on which to improve.
Studies show that when managers focus on workers strengths, those workers are 30 times more likely to be engaged. But always make sure that you don’t always bring up something negative. You are also recognizing behaviour that you want to encourage.
And according to Taskworld,
“Companies that implement regular employee feedback have a 14.9 per cent lower turnover rate and 69 per cent of employees said they would work harder if they felt their efforts were better recognized.”