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Employee morale and performance goes hand in hand by boosting the morale of employees you automatically increase productivity, and therefore performance.

Motivation is at the heart of this whole concept, so it is really about focusing on how to motivate your employees.

1. Communication
By communicating with employees you give them a sense of security, belonging and create an open atmosphere.

Quarterly meetings which outline the past, present and future of the company keeps employees involved and reminds them of where they fit in the bigger picture. In knowing their work affects the success of the company makes them feel valued which increases their motivation.

Also, operating an open door' policy is a good way of boosting morale as employees know that they can come to you if they have any issues and that you will listen. This removes the them and us' barrier.

2. Appraisals
One to one appraisals are great for relationship-building and making employees feel valued.

It can increase productivity by discussing where they have performed well alongside identified weaknesses. It is important to make these meetings constructive by using the areas of weakness to devise ways on how to turn them into strengths.

You can also find out more about their aspirations by asking where he/she would like to take his/her career so that you can assess whether this career progression can be made within the company it is better to move a good employee to a different position within the company rather than lose them to a different company.

Appraisals also tackle job satisfaction issues. You can discover whether your employees are struggling, or if they are finding their job too easy. This enables you to balance and tailor their jobs to ensure that you are using your employees as efficiently as possible whilst ensuring that they feel productive.

Typically appraisals take place once a year, so they do not have to consume too much of your time.

3. Value
Everyone responds well to encouragement. In feeling like they are doing a good job motivates them to do better as they know that their hard work and success will be acknowledged.

Incentive driven techniques can work well. For example, introducing a performance related pay structures. This can be a clever strategy which saves company money whilst incentivising employees to perform. Other ways could be to have an appraisal based bonus.

Other strategies are schemes like employee of the month' this can be based on performance, the most improved etc. Also if performance can be quantified, you could make monthly performance graphs visible to introduce healthy competition. The people at the top will want to stay at the top and the others will strive to reach the top.

These are just a few ideas to consider when trying to increase employee motivation. They all require involvement from the manager so, if being involved is not your management style, perhaps you need to question this or consider employing a sub manager who does possess more personable qualities.

Learn more about this author, Sumantha Dutta.
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