Last Updated on September 1, 2023 by David
Guest Post by Ashley Wilson
When employees face uncertainty, their morale diminishes, which can affect the company’s overall productivity. As their leader, you’ll need to think about how to motivate them to keep them fully engaged.
This is the right time to listen to them and communicate clearly while providing frequent feedback to their concerns.
Employees feel secure when their leaders provide clarity and insights to situations at hand. Here are ways you can boost the satisfaction of your workforce during times of uncertainty:
Listen to Their Concerns
Taking an authentic, transparent, and empathetic listening approach to your employees’ concerns and worries will make them feel appreciated and valued.
You can get the employees’ opinions and listen to their concerns to help reduce their anxiety and help them understand that you care.
You can achieve this through regular surveys regarding the situation, organizing opinion polls, and more. By understanding your employees’ interests or discussing their concerns in a transparent manner, you’ll be boosting their motivation and satisfaction.
Open, two-way communication with workers can help them perform their tasks without any hiccups.
Your organization’s cultural norms should guide your response to uncertain situations. Strive to build a culture of trust with the workforce by including them in the company’s decision-making. Let them know that their interests and opinions matter too.
Organize One-on-One Meetings
Organizing face-to-face meetings with the workers will allow for an open discussion where they’ll share their problems, insights, and ideas in a more personalized way. This is an excellent way to bolster their relationship with the organization.
By meeting often, you can engage with employees and evaluate their mindset. Together, you can come up with actionable ways to fight the uncertainty or even ease their anxiety.
Get to understand their thinking, and how it affects their performance and attitude towards work. Knowing this will help you deliver solutions that’ll keep them afloat, knowing that their employer cares.
Communicate Clearly
When uncertainty hits, everyone in the organization is affected. The best way to handle things is by communicating effectively. Employees also expect to be included in all matters concerning the company and their work.
As their leader, they want you to explain the situation and help them keep their cool through such trying times.
You should be able to communicate transparently and make them understand how the company is dealing with the situation and what you expect of them. This will help drive their efforts and successful transition without speculations.
If you’re aware of the rumors going around, you should clarify the matter to stop any further gossip.
Employees like to be part of what’s going on. When they get a clear picture of things, they collaborate freely to ensure the company reaches its goals, including retaining their job positions. This is pretty beneficial to the productivity of the company.
Organize Team Building Events
Knowing how to motivate your employees can help the firm bounce back faster after a crisis. By showing them that you value and care about their overall well-being, their satisfaction and loyalty will increase tremendously.
Beyond the staff meetings and other communication methods, organizing team-building events with your employees is an excellent opportunity to bond with them.
Aside from spending time together, you’ll also get time to discuss other matters that improve teamwork and motivation.
Team-building keeps employees engaged and helps you create a culture that focuses on promoting a positive impact amidst the uncertainty. This will also help you gauge their maturity in handling uncertainty as you give them time to collaborate and ask questions freely.
Team building activities help establish a trust that ensures constructive and resilient employees. They get to bond and know each other on a more personal level. Having fun in a relaxed environment boosts employee morale.
Develop a Middle Ground
Developing a middle ground means becoming visible and staying agile at all times. People want to see their leader in action, trying to deal with the situation with agility.
Staying visible allows you to pinpoint areas that need action. It can also help you get insights on what you can do to address specific circumstances.
While you may not have all the solutions, the people around you, including the workers, can bring their talents on board to address areas that need attention. You can tap into their intellect and exploit their abilities by listening to their ideas and solutions.
Having multiple approaches can work wonders for the growth of the company. By sharing your burden, you’re opening the company to many avenues for growth and productivity.
After hearing your explanation, employees are always eager and ready to be of help. If you have a plan, walk them through it and make them understand every step of the plan and what role they have to play to steady the ship.
You’ll see how easy it is to accomplish a project when responsibility is shared transparently.
Even when the plan has to change, you should stay agile, nimble, and adaptive. Remain engaged, accessible, and communicative. Remember, you are the beacon that everyone is counting on for guidance.
Your next move is as important as your last. Make time for everyone and develop and share learning moments to create positive outcomes from every negative situation.
Demonstrate Leadership
True leadership is about composure, especially when reacting to negative dialogue or handling work politics and the effects of uncertainty.
Your approach and leadership style will make your team respect you and your judgments. In all you do, you should be compassionate but remain decisive.
Always engage your employees and treat them as your partners to success. Show your working teams how committed you are to their careers, development, and growth. Make smart decisions and anticipate your employees’ needs regardless of the circumstances.
Trust Your Workforce to Deliver
Your employees will always want to deliver their best to help the company accomplish its objectives. The best way to motivate their efforts is to extend your trust in believing that they continue to offer their best services even in such circumstances.
Unprecedented times require consistent communication, collaboration, streamlined information sources, trust, and a little fun. The employees will feel motivated, respected, empowered, and supported, which is a perfect package for excellent service delivery.
Wrap Up
Uncertain times can be quite challenging for you as a leader. This is when your leadership skills are tested. But as an individual who desires to advance their leadership, you will start by serving others.
Stay close to the workers, listen to their concerns, and face the future together. This is for the success of the organization and the overall wellbeing of all stakeholders.
Make yourself available and accessible to share progress with them. If you have to convey information, do so with more clarity, transparency, and consistency.
Your collaborative nature will give them confidence in your presence and their work.
About Re:amaze
Re:amaze is a modern helpdesk and customer messaging platform designed to help eCommerce businesses boost customer happiness and revenue. Re:amaze allows all customer-oriented teams to work together in a shared inbox through email, social, SMS, voice, and live chat. Re:amaze also comes packaged with automated messaging and chatbots so eCommerce brands can succeed at the front lines of conversational commerce.
About Ashley
Ashley Wilson is a content creator, writing about business and tech. She has been known to reference movies in casual conversation and enjoys baking homemade treats for her husband and their two felines, Lady and Gaga. You can get in touch with Ashley via Twitter.