How Can Managers Motivate Employees?

A paycheck and benefits are important for employees, but (unlike what many business leaders believe) they often don’t impact how motivated employees are. Compensation is an expected part of an employee’s work life, and so it doesn’t do much to move the needle of excitement or engagement.

Managers, on the other hand, play a huge role in employee motivation. According to research, managers account for 70% of variance in employee engagement, which bleeds into motivation.

Let’s learn about the role of managers in motivating employees and what you can do, specifically, to increase the energy of your teams.\

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Defining Employee Motivation

Many words similar to motivation are thrown around today—engagement, excitement, enthusiasm, buy-in, drive…stop us if you’ve heard these before.

However, motivation has two very simple definitions: motivation can be the reason for doing something or it can be what drives the enthusiasm for doing something. Motivation is the answer to the question why do you do what you do? 

If employees are only in the first definition, and their only reason for working is so that they can afford to live, chances are they’re not very engaged. Instead, managers need to focus on increasing the second definition of motivation—they need to help build employees’ enthusiasm for what they do.

6 Ways Managers Can Motivation Employees

To help employees build a reason for what they do that drives enthusiasm, managers should implement the following strategies.

1. Recognize and Praise Employees

Recognizing employees’ achievements is the best way to boost motivation. When managers recognize their employees, those employees are 40% more engaged. And according to employees, 37% of them say recognition is the greatest motivator, and 93% of them say that they’re more motivated when they feel valued.

Your employees want to feel like you notice their work, value their contributions, and care about them as people. So make employee recognition a regular practice on your team and watch as employee motivation takes off.

(And don’t worry, you don’t have to try to figure out recognition on your own—talk to Awardco to see how our employee recognition platform makes recognizing, rewarding, and incentivizing your people easier than ever!)

2. Give Them a Purpose

Nothing drains motivation like feeling your work doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t have a purpose. Managers need to ensure their employees don’t feel this way because employees who feel they have a purpose are 4X more engaged.

Do employees know the why of their work? Do they know how their work contributes to the success of the company? Do they have goals to improve? The answers to these questions can add more purpose to employees’ work.

3. Set Clear Goals and Expectations

In relation to giving employees a purpose, managers need to help them set goals that motivate them to do their best and improve themselves. In addition, they have to set expectations that give employees clear responsibilities and avenues to succeed.

Without a clear direction to focus their efforts, employees can’t be motivated. So clarify expectations as often as needed, and make sure to provide regular feedback to keep employees on track.

4. Support Their Work-Life Balance

It’s impossible to feel motivated if you’re completely burned out and lack any energy. As of 2023 77% of employees experienced burnout. You can combat that with greater flexibility, more mental health support, more trust (and less micromanaging), and healthy workloads.

Avoid a hustle culture and balance employees' work to ensure that they feel a healthy amount of responsibility without being overwhelmed.

By building a company culture that focuses on supporting employees’ lives, managers will increase employee motivation and see high-quality work come in more often.

5. Maintain an Adjustable Management Style

It’s important to allow for autonomy when it comes to managing employees. Give employees ownership and allow them the freedom to make decisions and take new projects by the reins when they feel confident in doing so.

On the flip side, other employees may want extra help or oversight for certain projects. It’s important to empower employee autonomy without making employees feel unsupported.

6. Take an Interest in Employee Professional Development

Each employee has personal and professional goals, and to keep them motivated, managers need to support them in their growth. Whether that means mentoring them yourself or helping them find a conference or workshop to attend, employees need to feel like they have upward momentum.

Want to know how to create a professional development plan for your people? Check out our blog post.

The Role of Incentives in Employee Motivation

Employee incentives can give a big boost to motivation, but only if they’re done correctly. Here are some strategies for using incentives to boost employee motivation:

• Offer incentive rewards that speak to everyone who is participating. If you only offer a set of golf clubs as the reward, many employees won’t care and won’t be motivated. They may, in fact, feel like their interests aren’t cared about and be even less motivated.
• Give employees choice in their reward. Instead of pre-selected rewards, let employees choose what they win if they reach certain levels in the incentive.
• Make sure everyone can participate. If you’re creating an incentive for your team, make sure everyone knows how to participate. Everyone needs a fair chance to earn whatever the prize is.
• Create collaboration, not competition. Incentives should be exciting for your team as they support and celebrate each other. Don’t make it so that only one person can “win.”

Whether you’re building a sales incentive, a safety incentive, a productivity incentive, or even a wellness incentive, keep these practices in mind to ensure everyone feels motivated and can participate.

Be a Manager That Motivates

Managers play a huge role in employee motivation. By supporting their employees, setting clear expectations, recognizing their hard work, and giving them a purpose, managers can help their teams feel engaged, excited, enthusiastic, and any other motivation synonym.