Motivating High Performing Employees
The fact that the employees are a company’s most valuable asset is nowadays understood by an increasing number of organizations. In today’s economic competitive environment, being able to motivate your employees is a key factor in achieving performance, and often can make the difference between success and failure.
In this regard, an important task the manager has is to motivate the employees, as their activity and performance level have a direct impact on the company’s results. Ensuring that they perform at the top level should be a priority for any manager.
Motivating the high performing employees, in particular, can be a challenge. Naturally, as they are already highly skilled, they must be continually inspired in order to further improve their performance and to keep them interested in the company’s activity. Providing them with new challenges, ensuring they don’t get stuck in routine tasks, and showing that they are valued for their results are key initiatives a manager can take to maintain the motivation level of employees.
André de Waal, Associate Professor of High Performance Organizations at the Maastricht School of Management offers a few tools a manager can use:- Be passionate about the organization, show enthusiasm for the organization’s goals;
- Connect with the employees by finding what motivates them, what are they values and personal goals;
- Give the employees challenging work tasks, in a way that allows them to use at maximum their potential;
- Allow the employees to take more responsibility, but also to schedule their own tasks, while at the same time keeping an eye open for possible setbacks;
- Having an “outside the box” attitude, being open to new ideas, operating outside established organizational boundaries and comfort zone and allowing the employees to do the same is also important.
- De Waal, A. (2012), How to inspire and motivate high performance employees
- Folkman, J. (2013), Everything counts: The 6 ways to Inspire and motivate top performance, Forbes Magazine
Tags: Human Resources performance, Motivating Employees, Performance Management
