The Art of Employee Motivation: Inspiring Employees to be Top Performers

Are your employees top performers? Do they go out of their way to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, and to make your life easier? If not, then read on for some ideas for inspiring your employees to be the best that they can be.

An eager, well skilled, highly motivated staff that will stay with your company for long periods of time is what every business owner and manager wants. Right? …But, is it possible in an industry like the cleaning business where you are often hiring unskilled labor, not offering the best of wages and giving them a sometimes very unglamorous job? The answer is ABSOLUTELY, YES! Let me explain how.

My approach to employee motivation, and inspiring outstanding work is based on one simple principle. The principle is:

Employees who feel recognized, rewarded, respected, empowered, educated and armed with the tools that they will need to succeed, will out perform unrecognized, unrewarded, disrespected, un-empowered, and under educated employees with poor tools every day of the week.

In fact, I would argue that if you recognize, reward, respect, empower, educate and provide the best tools for each of your employees you will create a team of top performers that can set your company apart from the competition. To get an idea of what I mean try to think of a client that you or your crew loves working for, and then think of one that they do not. I bet, that the one that everyone loves actually appreciates the work done and is generally pleasant and encouraging. The one that people do not like, I bet is extra critical and difficult to understand what they want. Well, your staff is just like everyone else. If they are made to feel good when going to work, then they will want to go and do a good job in order to keep feeling good about going to work. People have to earn a living, and most would prefer to do it at a company where they feel valued.

The cleaning industry, like many service industry businesses, has a staff that is out in the field most of the time. This is obviously how your company makes money (being out there to serve customers), but it also poses a problem in that employees can feel isolated, unsupported, in a communication black hole and without the help that they need to perform at their very best. From what I have seen, the most successful cleaning companies understand this challenge and develop programs to motivate their staff despite the inherent difficulties.

The Magic Meeting

It has been my experience that you can solve many of your employee motivation and performance problems with one simple answer…a weekly “Magic Meeting”. The “Magic Meeting” is weekly get-together for all of your staff that has a sole purpose of:

Recognizing
Rewarding
Respecting
Empowering
Educating
Providing good tools for success

Some companies see their staff every day to exchange keys and information, and others less often. However, these brief meetings are often all about administration of the business, and not focused on the employees themselves. The “Magic Meetings” are separate weekly meetings held on a consistent schedule with a main purpose of motivating their staff.

Your Magic Meetings can be of any topic that interests your staff, and that relates to your business. The Magic Meetings can take the form of a presentation, group discussion, team function, contest, game, work party, training or any other type. Some ideas for topics could be “Customer Service”, “Vacuum Maintenance”, “Team-Work”, “Finishing Touches” and many more. The real key to the “Magic Meetings” is to make them informative and very fun. Break away from the old “stand up an lecture” sort of thing. Make coming to work fun for your very important crew, and they will respond with inspiration to do their best. “Magic Meetings” worked wonders for the success of my cleaning business, and I know that they can work for yours too.

Now it’s time for a little plug. If you like this idea, but are a little short on time to plan out a year’s worth of Magic Meetings for your staff, then you may be interested in my “Employee Motivation Kit – Inspiring Employees to be Top Performers”. I created the kit in response to requests from cleaning businesses across the country to help them inspire and motivate their employees every single week. The kit includes Magic Meetings designed specifically for residential cleaning businesses, including presentations, group discussions, team functions, a contest, games, work parties, and trainings. All instructions, game pieces, handouts, suggested prizes, supply lists and a suggested schedule for one year’s worth of meetings are included. Many of the Magic Meetings have optional variations and/or can be repeated, so you can use the kit as an essential tool for year’s to come. Click here for more details on motivating your employees and turning them into top performers.

So, whether you use my Employee Motivation Kit to plan your Magic Meetings, or design your own, give it a try, and I know that you will like the results.