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EN 
It is already the third week in 2021 and as a business owner, an entrepreneur or a team leader you must be asking yourself how can you mobilize your working forces in this new year?
How can you motivate them? And what are the new tools or ways that must be used to get the most of your employees while ensuring their wellbeing, fulfillment and happiness.
Here are 5 important ways to motivate and empower your workers in the new year.
- Hold motivational meetings.
Don’t hesitate to hold short motivational meetings at the end of the week or 2 times a month to speak to your employees and share their “roses” and “thorns”.
Sharing roses equal employees’ achievements and positive experiences that will serve as a model for others. Meanwhile, thorns refer to obstacles and problems they can face and that can inspire others to find better solutions to solve them.
Take advantage from this opportunity to thank and recognize employees who have exceeded expectations and achieved exceptional things.
This practice will create a healthy dynamic in the working place and will help employees share their successes, failures and challenges with managers and other colleagues which will create a more sportive working environment.
- Celebrate more often.
In these critical times where it can be very difficult to be happy and to enjoy our daily life, as a manager, feel free to celebrate as often as possible.
Whether it is birthday parties, special occasions or happy hours make an effort to motivate and cheer up your stuff.
If you don’t have a big budget, share this responsibility with your employees; you can take up a collection to gather the cost of a birthday party or any other occasion. You can choose one date in a month to celebrate the birthday of all the employees that were born on that month.
Achieving business goals is certainly important but taking sometime to bond with your employees and spend quality time with them to motivate them is certainly a must.
- Give surveys.
Conduct an internal survey each month to give your employees the chance to express their thoughts, ideas and provide you with their feedback and ideas.
Choose one theme per survey for example you can choose to discuss corporate tools or working methods and what they think about them or how they think they can improve them.
You can also create a diversified list of options then ask your employees what are the tools that they can choose to attain their goals or improve their working environment.
The list can be versatile and include things like using digital tools, working remotely from time to time, bringing more greenery in the working space, including vending machines, giving them access to counselors or business psychologists or even including paid training opportunities.
Use the survey result to know better your employees and try to implement the most important suggestions according to your budget, business and strategic orientation.
- Share ownership of decisions and vision
There no more motivating and empowering way grater than sharing or giving your employees the ownership in the process of decision making.
So, don’t hesitate to hold meetings every month where you expose your ideas and ask your employees for their opinions and best suggestions.
For example, you can tell them I’ve been lately thinking about clients last minute order requests, and since it constitutes a good business opportunity for us, I discovered that these orders create more stress and extra work for us.
So, what do you think if we propose this as an extra service or a new charge? By giving your employees the chance to participate in this important decision, they will gain motivation, feel important and even develop a strong sense of purposefulness.
- Have fun
Having fun at work is a great way to motivate your employees. If you succeed to keep things exciting and entertaining you will definitely make your stuff working experience more enjoyable.
Consequently, start some goal related contests every month and encourage employees to work harder and to give their best.
Be creative, think outside the box and give the winners funny prizes such as spa gifts or amusement park tickets. Take random employees to launch and discuss his achievement, success and provide them with your help and guidance.
Your stuff will be motivated and happy to share some homemade recipes and enjoy memorable times with their colleagues.
Hold a global breakfast once a month or create a thematic party and let your employees organize it, let them express their creativity and ideas far away from working restrictions.
They will also appreciate your efforts and feel happier and more excited to come to work.
