If there’s one thing that would put employers racing to find answers, motivating employees should be top of that list. While millions of workers worldwide are receiving their salaries on a monthly basis, only a measly 1 % are motivated to get the job done. That only tells you a whopping majority are not really giving their jobs their best effort.
The worst part about disengaged employees is that’s money down the drain. Last look, that translated to $450 to $550 billion annually of lost money in America alone.
However, such a trend may affect nonprofit organizations harder. Not only are many of these noble enterprises cash-strapped, but also they depend a lot on donors and grants. Indeed, it would be ideal for a person with a great heart to work for a nonprofit. Reality bites. Most, if not all employees working in a nonprofit are not as privileged as those working for private businesses in terms of monthly salary and perks.
It can become a huge struggle to support a noble cause. While nonprofits are geared towards helping fellowmen, it faces an existential threat every time with its limited funding. Add to the mix its lesser-than-usual paid workers and you get the picture. Quite easily, nonprofits can become not running nonprofits, exacerbated by the virus.
Fortunately, there are tried-and-true ways you can motivate your nonprofit employees. Even better, these proven methodologies come not just from anybody but from subject matter experts, people running the top nonprofit organizations in the country today. Heeding their words of wisdom should be spot on.
Take Time to Revisit Your Goals
Goals keep us on track. When a young runner aims to win it in his grade school this year, he must put all his effort to that end. However, sometimes something throws a wrench on all those plans.
Usually, things are at an uphill climb from the middle part of the year onward. As summer comes knocking and all the adventure it poses, employee motivation can take a dip. All the more you could experience a downhill slope in employee engagement as the holidays come in. It’s safe to say that the latter half of the year is the less productive days.
Now, a good way for you to take this challenge is to take some time to look at your goals. When the year started, you may have overreached. Your goal may be bigger than what’s necessary. If you’re seeing a performance dip, perhaps it’s time you adjust your goals to something more realistic. This is especially true with the unpredictable virus confusing things.
A grader can practice winning his races in school but if he wants to win in the Olympics, that’s another story altogether.
Use Friendly Competition
Take note that if you’re not sure how your nonprofit employees are doing you can always make the most of employee engagement surveys or assessments. By making such a professional assessment a standard practice, you can be aware of how motivated your employees are in their jobs. Best of all, it can uncover the root causes why your workers are not as satisfied in their jobs as you want them to be. In short, it can help you address the productivity situation better.
A friendly competition should help fire up your employees. You can arouse the competitive spirits of your crew by holding up trophies to win or prizes to compete over — even bragging rights will suffice.
Plan a competition that would allow people to work in teams. When there is greater teamwork, you arouse greater interest in the workplace.
Chart Things Up
Sometimes you can be all caught up in the head; too much analysis can be paralyzing indeed. It’s important you break down your work into critical goals. Create a chart representing the remaining year. Assign columns for the remaining months and the rows to your critical goals.
Put in your small-step milestone for each critical goal for everyone to see. Show the whole body of work to everyone in a meeting presenting everything as a challenge for everyone. When you meet a milestone don’t forget to celebrate and recognize the leader and the team that made it all happen.
Offer Advancement Opportunities
It’s a given. The clearer the career path of an employee the more motivated he becomes. It’s important therefore that you let your workers know their opportunities to advance should they do well. No one wants to be in the same box for keeps.
So offer training and skills enhancement seminars to help them. Not only does it show you care for them, but also it helps your people churn out more quality output.
Provide Incentives
Last but not least, put up incentives. They are always good motivation boosters. The trick is you don’t have to spend so much to make them appealing. You can try a paid day off or even tickets to a show or a movie. When you show you took time to brighten things up at work, people will take your cue and get more done in your nonprofit.
