Motivating Your Employees: 6 Tips for Young Entrepreneurs from Brian Colpak
A burning desire to succeed is a trait that most entrepreneurs have. It’s that drive to keep going even when the going gets tough that separates successful entrepreneurs from the rest of the pack.
But, as tech entrepreneur Brian Colpak explains, it’s possible that your employees are not as motivated as you are to succeed. While it may not be necessary for your workers to have the same exact drive you do, you must motivate them if you want to be successful.
Here are six ways you can make that happen.
1. Place Trust in Them
Employees today want to feel empowered to do their jobs. They want to know that they’re valued and that management trusts they can handle the job they were hired to do.
As an entrepreneur, showing your employees that you depend on and trust them will motivate them to accomplish more. When you share how confident you are in them, they’re likely to be more confident in themselves.
2. Give Them a Purpose
Every employee plays a significant role in your company’s success. Give your employees a role, or a purpose, as part of the big picture, and they’ll likely execute how you want them to more effectively and efficiently.
When an employee understands the company’s purpose — as well as their particular purpose within that purpose — they can more easily understand how the big picture applies to them.
3. Be Positive
Different people are motivated in different ways, but one common theme is that positivity from above spreads positivity below. In other words, if you’re positive as a business owner, your employees are more likely to be positive, too.
As positivity becomes the norm around the workplace, people will be motivated to work harder and not to give up even when they fail.
4. Give Individual Attention
There’s a lot written about the importance of teams in work environments, and it’s certainly important. But, if you want to motivate your employees, you’ll want to incorporate tactics at an individual level.
You can again emphasize the importance of the team by showing employees how their individual role fits into the big picture. When they see how working together benefits them individually, they’re more likely to be motivated.
5. Understand Life Away from Work
So much of the focus on work-life balance falls on the life part, with work playing next to no active role in finding that balance. A great way to motivate your employees is to change that.
In other words, as Brian Colpak explains, entrepreneurs should emphasize the importance of life outside the office. Simple ways to do this are to encourage your employees to take advantage of their paid time off.
Showing your employees you care about their entire life, and not just their life at your workplace, goes a long way in advancing motivation.
6. Welcome and Encourage Feedback
If you want employees to feel like part of the process, you should institute a policy that welcomes and encourages feedback consistently. Feedback shouldn’t just occur at annual employee review meetings.
Encourage employees to share feedback on whatever topic they’d like, whenever they’d like. Then, listen to what they have to say and act on what makes sense. When employees feel heard, respected, and part of the process, they’re more likely to care about the business’ success.
About Brian Colpak
Brian Colpak is a tech entrepreneur and the founder of Continental Global. After spending most of his career in managerial positions, he founded and led a company that was recognized as one of the top 100 fastest growing companies in Massachusetts before starting his current company. These days his main focus is on an upcoming project in Dubai.