🚀 How to manage employee demotivation?

🤗 Create a healthy and safe work environment

This first piece of advice is the basis of any good relationship between a manager and his employees! For your daily work to run smoothly, and in the best conditions, you must create an environment that promotes employee motivation. Meaning an environment in which everyone feels good.

Arrange the offices (face-to-face or remotely using WorkAdventure!), set times for discussion each week, give autonomy and responsibilities, involve your employees in decision-making when possible, be attentive to needs, … Make sure everyone is happy to come to work in the morning, and feels good in your team!

🙏🏻 Give of yourself

Creating a bond of trust with your team is part of your role as a manager. And to do this, your employees must also get to know you! Don't be in the unpacking of your life either (at the risk of causing the opposite of what you're looking for), but find a good balance so that they feel closer to you and have an easier time communicating with you afterwards.

You can get into the habit of having lunch regularly with your team (avoiding professional topics), having coffee every morning to catch up on news and share how your evening or your weekend went. You could also talk about your professional issues and points that may be more difficult for you to manage alone… The objective being that everyone realizes that, yes, you are also a human being and not just a Manager. That’s another great way to avoid employee demotivation!

👂 Practice active listening

This advice may seem obvious to you: and so much the better! But when you communicate with your collaborator, really listen to him and ask questions to clarify and confirm your good understanding of things.

Talking and provoking conversation is often the easiest way to spot moments of employee demotivation.

👁 Anticipate the first signs

A real team demotivation does not happen overnight! So be attentive to the warning signs: small delays in meetings or on the delivery of tasks, unusual isolation in group exchanges, a barely stifled breath, regular ranting about the missions that are given, noises of corridors…

Quite often, people in spite of themselves show fairly clear signs in the way they communicate.

🤸🏻‍♂️ Stimulate and involve your teams on a daily basis

One of the main factors of motivation at work is the meaning given to what we do on a daily basis: why are we here? What does it get me? What is it used for? So, set challenging and interesting goals for your team, and involve them as much as possible in their achievements.

Don't tell them how to achieve these goals, give them carte blanche to let their creativity speak! Show them that they are responsible and that they have a role to play in the company, not that they are only there to carry out predetermined tasks. You will see, it makes all the difference! 🔥

🥳 Organize events

Working is good, but having a good time in a professional environment is even better! Regularly organize in-house events: breakfast, afterwork, team building, team lunch, theme day, … Let your imagination run wild to liven up your daily life! And ask your team to help you achieve that goal to further emphasize the importance of everyone's involvement.

And if your teams are hybrid, consider equipping yourself with tools like WorkAdventure to break the distance barrier, create a friendly virtual space and regain spontaneity in your exchanges. Thus, you will be able to improve employee motivation within your company. 👌🏻

💭 Be patient

Employee demotivation is not a matter that can be solved in a day, very often it takes time. Creating motivation at work requires new habits, new practices, a new rhythm to adopt... So take the time it takes for it to have a real and positive impact. Rome was not built in a day!

👋 Give feedback and acknowledgments

Sometimes employee motivation doesn't depend on much: a return on a file, a little personalized note every day, a smile when you pass around the corner of the office, ... These daily simple actions sometimes tend to lose regularity and sincerity over time, while they participate fully in the well-being of everyone and motivation at work.

Take the time to say what you think of the work of your employees, individually and also collectively to recognize on a larger scale. Be sincere in your morning greetings, in the questions you ask about the weekend that has just passed, … In short, put some truth back into your daily relationships to increase employee motivation in your company!

👥 Personalize your relationships

Each employee is unique, and so are their motivational factors! The more you manage to personalize your relationships with them, the easier it will be for you to know who needs what to be motivated on a daily basis. Be attentive to each one, note the periods of productivity, the tasks for which enthusiasm is developed, the reactions to the various actions proposed, … The verbal but also and especially the non-verbal will help you make this analysis!

👀 Ensure effective monitoring of your employees

Having an invisible manager, too busy with his various meetings and other responsibilities, is not at all ideal for employee motivation nor for effectively managing a team. Plan time in your agenda to take stock with your employees individually but also collectively. And be sure to do it regularly! The annual points are far from sufficient, and everyone will not have the same needs either. Ask them what works best for them and mark it in your calendars so you don't miss out on those important moments.

🛑 And for your own motivation, as a Manager?

No, I haven't forgotten you! Because yes, being a manager does not mean that we do not have our own moments of demotivation to manage, and that is completely normal. So, if this is the case for you, here are my tips:

In conclusion...

You now have all the weapons to avoid employee demotivation in your company and trigger motivation at work. 

Don't forget, if as a manager you are not motivated, it will necessarily have an impact on your team (yes, you can feel those things!). So don't put yourself aside, your motivation is just as important as that of your teams 😊

And if you still feel a little lost in the implementation of these actions, our teams are there to support you! Write to us on [email protected] to discuss it.