Contrary to what many employers believe, employees definitely want to be more proactive in the workplace and they just don’t want to spend 8 hours a day sitting around doing nothing and trying to kill time. As an employer, it is up to you to create a workplace where pro-activity is encouraged as well as innovation. Now that many employees are working out on the road or are working remotely at home, it can become a lot more difficult to motivate them but the good news is that productivity has increased over the past 2 ½ to 3 years and it looks like it’s going to get better. This is great news for employers all over the country and so you need to do everything that you can to create a more proactive work force.
This is why many employers are considering sending employees on a design thinking course because they learn so many things like thinking forward about what is going to help the business run more smoothly and what is going to help to save both time and money. Staff learns to be more independent of themselves and to not be always relying on their line managers. There are also taught to take action when needed and these are the kind of employees that every employer needs and wants. If you would like to learn more about how you can motivate your employees to be more proactive in the workplace then please continue to read.
- Encourage creative freedom – Many employees complain that they feel stifled in the workplace and that they always have to be asking the manager information to be able to do anything that is remotely creative. You as a business owner or the manager need to start giving your employees the freedom that they crave and this will lead to much higher satisfaction in their jobs and you will find that your productivity will rise as a direct result of allowing them to create their own manufacturing ideas.
- Give your staff more challenging jobs – This is another complaint that employees talk about and it is the fact that their jobs are no longer challenging and they feel that their talents are being wasted. You need to be able to provide your staff with new skills so that they can engage and work on new products and projects that will allow them to be more innovative and to be challenged more.
- Encourage more flexibility – This could be something as simple as letting your employees work from home for one day a week and this helps to reduce their overall stress and anxiety levels and they feel more in control of their working lives. If you keep pushing your employees to the maximum, your business may get short-term benefits like higher profits but inevitably it will lead to employee burnout and this is something that you want to avoid at all costs.
You also need to put rewards in place that recognise when staff are being more pro-active and innovative and so you should recognise when they do something that is not the norm and you should always be encouraging them to put their best foot forward at all times.
