How Do I Inspire My Uninspired Workforce?

Inspiration is hard to manifest in others. You can’t force it, coach it, or give it more money in the hopes of growing it.

An inspired employee is thrilling to a boss and a highly-prized member of your team. They can help keep the emotional train on the tracks when things get hard. They are willing to try new things, think outside the box and truly give of themselves to better the task at hand.

On the other hand, an uninspired team member can be a huge emotional and cultural drain on your business.

So how do you inspire your employee? The one who seems to have lost their mojo? Here are some ideas:

  1. Ask them what they are passionate about and find ways for them to infuse that into their work: I never understood the adage “love what you do and you’ll never work a day.” To me, sure, I loved what I did, it was fun, I felt useful and challenged, but did it feel like work? Hell yes. That bar of “loving what you do” is often set so high you feel like you’re failing if you are sometimes frustrated or stuck at work. So let’s change the adage to something more attainable. How about: “Love something you do at work.” A good way to introduce this into your workforce is by encouraging and empowering your employees to do more of what they love at work and to own it. Examples: Have an employee that is a fitness junkie? Encourage them to create a lunch-hour work outing once a month. Maybe even subsidize the endeavor. Have someone else who loves charity work? Have them be in charge of the next company charity day. Perhaps your employee loves pop culture? Have them put together a pop culture weekly newsletter for the office to keep everyone abreast of what’s going on in the world around them. The key is finding something that is useful, manageable and ownable.
  2. Give them opportunities to interact and connect with your network: Nothing says, “I believe you are important and you are valued” like sharing a contact. I remember a time my boss set up a coffee for me with one of his family members who had the coolest job ever, something I held in high esteem. My boss didn’t come along to monitor, he didn’t say, “Hey do me a favor and meet with this kid,” he introduced us as peers and equals. Saying, in essence: “Blake is a really strong and passionate and I want you to know her.” That was incredibly validating to me. Keeping your employees confined to the office and clients doesn’t keep them happy and content in the job—it stifles their creativity and says, “your value is here at the office doing your work.” That gets old, quick.
  3. Help Them Find a Mentee: Being accountable to others is a valuable tool to helping find inspiration beyond work. Help your mentee or employee find their own mentee in the office. Set them up with a proper structure for good mentoring (i.e. regular meetings, goal setting, keeping to agenda, etc.) Read here for more on great mentoring strategies.
  4. Reward Them With Time: Money can buy a lot of things, but inspiration isn’t one of them. Time, however, is something you can give to your employees to make them feel inspired. Find that you have someone clearly unmotivated in what they are doing? Instead of forcing the situation, give them a day off. You heard me. Give them an entire day off. Tell them that you can feel their apathy and you know that’s not their usual state of mind. Give them a mental health day. Give them parameters on how you’d like them to use the day “outside, with people who inspire you, active, etc.”
  5. Advance Their Learning: Sometimes you feel uninspired because you aren’t challenged anymore. You’re in such a pattern that it soon becomes a rut. Create areas of learning and advancement for your employees. Ask them individually what skill they want to get better at and help them get there. I led a happy hour once a month and brought in an expert in another field to help expand our own learnings. Once it was a social media expert, another time it was a leader from cool brands we interacted with on a daily basis like Facebook or Google. These interaction points infuse the team with outside knowledge and get them thinking outside their own bubble.

 

 

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