How do you help your staff harness their commitment and motivation in order to become more engaged?
We all want to feel inspired to grow and succeed, both personally and professionally. Engagement is the term used to describe the inspiration and commitment we feel in the workplace. Most organisations recognise that increased employee engagement provides an instrumental advantage in the workplace.
So, how do you help your staff harness their commitment and motivation in order to become more engaged?
Engagement results from understanding the value of what you do. Making this connection allows a person to harness the long standing commitment required to continue to work with enthusiasm and determination.
Everyone needs to recognise the importance of their job and what they contribute. At Extend, we strive to ensure each staff member is aware of how important they are to our organisation. Every single person makes an important contribution.
It’s vital for any organisation, be it a school or a business, to help their staff understand how to harness both their motivation and their commitment to their work. Here are three ways a manager can do this.
- Help your staff identify ‘why’ they do what they do.
Your staff, like ours, could have chosen any job. But they chose to nurture and develop the next generation. Why? Everyone’s reasons for choosing a career with children will be different. Help your staff understand why they get up every day and do what they do. Remembering the reasons will help them strive to make the contributions they set out to make at the start of their careers
- Help your staff play to their strengths.
Everyone has strengths and areas of development. Although there are always critical skills that everyone should have, it’s important to recognise we all don’t have to be good at everything. But what we’re good at should be what we draw on in the workplace. Develop strengths rather than working on weaknesses that aren’t critical to the job at hand. If someone is really great at woodwork and craft but not so good at paperwork, make sure they’re interacting with the kids in an artistic way, instead of taking on a management role.
- Be part of a team
At Extend, our 400 staff in our school based teams are spread out across the country. We work hard to ensure that they all get to see each other regularly. We also provide lots of ways to communicate with their managers and other teams in different schools. As an organisation it’s important that people ‘belong’ and feel a part of something bigger.
When working with children, the staff in contact with the children are the most important people in the organisation. They will have the greatest impact on the success of any programs you deliver. So whether you are a school, an OSHC, or any other provider of chidren’s services, make sure you take great care of your staff. They in turn will take great care of their kids. And in the end, that’s the most important thing of all.
