Motivation In The Workplace – Part II

In part one of our article Motivation In The Workplace I discussed how communication between employees and managers is essential, and how a manager can accidentally bruise his employees' motivation or ego through inaction just as much as he can by offensive action. We also looked at how just one unhappy employee can hurt the morale of your good employees. So how do we prevent that from happening?

First, make sure you communicate frequently with all your employees. Yes, every single one of them. Since just one unhappy grumbler can hurt the morale of your entire team, it's essential that you prevent that from happening. The mistake I've seen some managers make in the past is attempting to manage more employees than they could handle – there just wasn't enough time in the day to communicate with all of them! So they didn't, and motivation in the workplace declined as a result.

I think anyone that has worked as a manager understands that it's not easy keeping your finger directly on the pulse of your employees while still getting all your other work done. But quite bluntly, your employees aren't going to give a damn about your workload. Sure, they might tell you that they understand what you're going through, but trust me – in the back of their minds they will be very unhappy with your failure to communicate.

The solution to an overstretched manager is to gather together one or more assistant managers to help with the steady communication. A manager that tries to take on more than he can handle will fail – it's as simple as that. There is nothing wrong with delegating certain tasks to assistants – that's what nearly all CEOs do!

But make sure you choose well-liked and strong communicators for such a role, because in effect you are relying on them to represent you when you're tied up. Don't select communication managers based on seniority – choose them based on their people skills. I've seen the seniority system seriously harm companies; smart managers and owners understand that positions should be based on qualifications rather than time in the trenches.

My second secret to keeping your finger on the pulse of the motivation in the workplace is to find a spy! No matter how good you are as a manager, many employees will just not "open up" to you completely. There will almost always be a bit of an invisible divide between employees and management (though a good manager ensures it's not a deep divide). No matter how good you are as a manager, many employees will be more comfortable expressing complaints or concerns to their peers rather than you.

If there is an employee you trust implicitly, ask them to do you the favor of keeping you updated on what is passing through the grapevine. Chances are good that he may hear things that you don't. But there is a downside to this: no one likes to be a snitch, so you must assure the employee you will never let it be known that he shared anything. And even more importantly, you must follow your word!

This means there may be times where you learn of a problem that you cannot confront directly because doing so would put your "spy" in a bad position. That's life. Without that employee sharing the grapevine chatter with you, you still wouldn't be able to take action anyways since you wouldn't even be aware of the problem to begin with! At least this way you can try and find subtle ways to solve the issue without doing so in a direct manner that shows your cards.

Only the most trusted employee is suitable to be a "spy," and you're not going to come right out and present your request as such. Pose the request in an offhand manner, test his trustworthiness and discretion and go from there. While having a spy might sound distasteful (and yes, if others find out they will shun your loyal employee – which is why you must keep your relationship secret), if you want to be a power manager and be proactive about any potential problems that can hurt motivation in the workplace then you'll find this invaluable.

So there you have it – two of my most powerful techniques to keep the communication lines open even if you personally are stretched too thin to communicate with everyone daily. If you incorporate both techniques into your plans you'll find that you've taken a huge step towards keeping and maintaining a high level of motivation in the workplace.