Keeping Your Employees Motivated During Challenging Projects: Our Top Tips

By Grace Murphy

When it comes to planning a challenging project, or indeed any project for that matter, it can be difficult to find ways to keep employees happy along the way.

It gets especially harder during projects to have employees motivated to finish. Fortunately, there are some things to consider and tips to take on that will help your employees get to the finish line.

Communication Is Key

Firstly, before going into a project, ensure your team has all the information they’ll need to get started. There’s nothing more damaging to an employee’s confidence and motivation than starting a task that they feel ill-equipped to work on.

Likewise, when the project is ongoing, not only should you ensure that your communication with your team is effective, but also make sure inner-communication is also top quality.

Set your team up with the best chance of success by putting departments and individuals together that have the best chance of working together.

This can be done in several ways, you could speak to people to find out what works for them, or you could hold companywide events and fun to help improve overall teamwork. Effectively, communication is key.

Setting Goals

Aside from having the main goal for completing the project, consider having smaller yet important goals along the way. Perhaps the project can be broken down into sub-sections and prioritized.

If that’s the case, set deadlines for specific areas, this will help the project team know how they are doing and let them focus on the task at hand.

With goals as well, employees will feel something to work toward, making them feel motivated and happy to continue on their path.

Without goals, you run the risk of employees losing interest and becoming overwhelmed with work tasks.

Benefits Tailored For Your Employees

When it comes to motivating your employees at any time, but especially with time-sensitive projects, one of the most effective methods you have is the promise of benefits.

This could be done in several ways. For example, you could have a bonus for every deadline met, or a little gift when accomplishing results. There are several incentives you could offer, depending on the nature of your business.

Perhaps you’re in a position where you can offer longer lunches or early finishes? If not that, then gift cards or other monetary-based prizes are always a plus.

You could get a benefits platform, that has a system built in place for incentives and bonuses. Using a system helps organize benefits and reward good work. Zest offers high-quality employee benefits software that is built to allow interaction and allow them to customize their view how they like.

Software such as this allows you to include not just bonuses and benefits, but pay rises too, showing your value for them. So, motivating them with a platform such as this is a sure-fire way of getting results for everyone.

Get Everyone On Board And Engaged

Sometimes, projects can be dull and tedious, but they don’t have to be. In fact, you can always find a way to get your employees engaged in planning and decision making.

When a team is engaged in a project, they become much more likely to want to see it become successful. Consider asking for team member ideas as much as possible when planning or creating a project.

If they have any interest, they will feel empowered and motivated, potentially leading to new productive ways to work that normally would have been bypassed.

About The Author

Grace Murphy is an experienced reviewer and journalist dedicated to sharing updates from throughout the business market, as well as reviews on the products and services you want to hear about. Small businesses across the corporate market have relied on her insight and knowledge to drive them forward for years.