What New Ways Can Companies Motivate Employees?

Employment... it has been around for thousands of years and shows no signs of disappearing anytime soon. Unless the machines take over and our future is reminiscent of something out of a sci-fi film.

If it wasn’t for hard-working employees, industries wouldn’t operate, and the entire world would come to a standstill. Just look what happened when Covid-19 disrupted the world. And regardless of the time period, industry, or any other variable — one everpresent requirement of success is employee motivation.  

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Without it, businesses can definitely operate, but not at a high level of efficiency and productivity. In a competitive business world, that isn’t enough for modern companies. And this is why organisations go to great lengths to discover new and creative ways to get the most out of their employees. In this post, we’ll look at a few new ways businesses are increasing employee motivation.

Increased Training Opportunities

We know, increasing training opportunities isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel or technically a new idea for employee motivation. However, the digital age and all the technology it offers have completely revolutionised how businesses use and approach training. Thanks to the internet and its remote capabilities, training no longer needs employees to travel to courses and take time off work. Now, training can be seamlessly melded into the daily goings-on of a company without too much of an impact on productivity.

This is a massive benefit for businesses as it’s more cost-effective and provides a much simpler method of improving the knowledge and capabilities of employees. For an employee, training is essential for gaining new skills and confidence and improving their overall value as a professional. All of this contributes to a person’s professional ego and can often be the boost someone needs to discover new reserves of enthusiasm and drive.

Businesses that invest in their employees (beyond a paycheque) through additional training and similar methods create a highly-motivated working environment. Putting trust and faith in employees provides them with the know-how and platform to reach new heights of success and, in the process, helps your company to do the same.  

Also, training is a great way to get the most out of employees looking to retrain. By combining all they know from their previous role with brand-new training, businesses can save the time and money involved with recruitment.

Employee Motivation Apps

There’s an app for everything these days, even employee motivation! Well, sort of. Thanks to the wealth of technology at our disposal and experts in various fields making apps, employees and businesses have more resources than ever. For enhanced employee motivation - health and fitness apps tend to be the most successful and commonly-used motivational tools. But it’s all about finding the right app, which can sometimes be tricky as there are so many.

When it comes to employee motivation, it’s essential to inspire enthusiasm and fun without making people feel self-conscious or creating an elitist mentality in the office. For this reason, common systems such as daily step counting and weight loss challenges aren’t just inefficient and useless; they make people feel insanely uncomfortable. And let’s be honest, step-counting challenges are super boring!

Instead, it’s important to challenge and engage employees, much like you do in the workplace. We built our app with these ideas in mind - experts create and lead content, and challenges are designed to be fun, engaging, and fully inclusive regardless of fitness ability or experience. We think it’s vital for an app to give businesses and employees a one-stop shop for all the motivation, wellness, and fitness tools they need. No jumping between websites, app-sprawl to content with or lengthy PDFs to scroll through, just an app that gives people what they need when they need it.  

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Employee motivation tends to be fleeting, and achieving it isn’t the easiest of tasks at times. For employers, motivational apps provide a sense of autonomy and efficiency while increasing employee motivation and engagement. This means time and money are saved, and employees are happier, more productive and more focused at work.

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Alternative Employment Models

Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns caused quite a shakeup on every level, especially in how businesses approached daily operations. Due to lockdowns and isolation, remote work became the new norm. Then when life went back to ‘normal’, things just weren’t the same. By this, we mean that businesses discovered that remote work or hybrid models (remote and in-office split) are actually effective and, in some cases, preferred by employees.

One of the most significant difficulties many of today’s employees deal with is an imbalance in work-home life. However, work-from-home or hybrid employment models introduce an increased sense of flexibility and agility that’s tough to replicate in an office. With more command over their work life, employees can avoid burning out by adopting a healthier work schedule. In an office, this simply isn’t possible and can lead to various difficulties, often related to stress and exhaustion.

While some employers may have concerns about productivity and accountability, statistics consistently show that productivity increases when people work from home. This can be due to many reasons, but common reasoning is less stress, pressure and having more authority over your daily schedule. The latter is especially crucial for people with children and other responsibilities, for whom previous work schedules looked a lot like spinning plates.

Anyone who has tried to spin plates will know it’s not easy and will likely have broken a plate or two!

Workplace Wellbeing

Great strides have been made in how society understands, views, and supports its fellow human beings. It’s for this reason that many businesses implement wellbeing programmes and initiatives to support and champion employees who need help. Human beings are complex creatures, and we’re all unique, but the approach doesn’t have to be complicated. Simple gestures such as creating a more friendly and caring culture in the workplace can go a long way, but beyond that, the potential is limitless.

Today’s businesses benefit greatly from focusing on aspects like teamwork and mental health to not only get the best from employees but also to check in and ensure everyone is doing ok. Businesses should always prioritise employee wellbeing in and outside work for many reasons, but employee motivation is among the most impactful. Employees who are struggling in any way should never be reprimanded but supported. Wellness programmes and the use of easy-to-access resources and tools should be a consideration in every workplace.

We've created a range of wellbeing tools and resources that can be equally as relevant at work and at home. Combine this with challenges and content led by experts - you have quite the recipe for employee motivation! *chef’s kiss* Physical activity, teamwork, and fun go a long way to enhancing the output of a workplace. And when you offer the tools needed to ensure wellbeing is prioritised at all times, employees feel supported and in a good headspace to work effectively.

Another incredible aspect of wellbeing apps and other resources is how it creates a thriving support network in the workplace. Wellbeing programmes and all their subsequent resources aren’t just for helping you improve your quality of life. They also give you a better idea of how other people are struggling and provides you with the knowledge to offer support. You never know what people are going through, even the person you sit across a desk from. Workplaces with a thriving culture and supportive core of motivated employees are powerhouses in the digital age, especially those that invest in and empower their workforce.