Do you want to know how to motivate your employees?

STOP DEMOTIVATING THEM. This is what one of my clients told me last week. Although not demotivating employees doesn't mean that they will be motivated, knowing what could be demotivating might help in building a solid and productive team.

Therefore, here are some of the most common things that can demotivate people at work:

Uncertainty. Employees expect from their managers and from the company clear messages and full information regarding what is expected from them, what they need to do, who is evaluating them and on what criteria, what they need to do to have a good performance, how they can achieve that, how the company functions and why certain decisions are made. Without that, the employees will not feel part of the company, will not understand what their role is and will feel like their efforts and skills are not used and appreciated.

Inappropriate or no feedback. Everybody needs feedback in order to see where they have done good and wrong, to improve and to see if they are going in the right direction. Giving only negative feedback or positive feedback can be very demotivating and have a huge impact on the productivity.

Unclear strategy. When the employees don’t understand what the strategy of the company is and why some decisions are made, they will see them as chaotic and they will show resistance in implementing those decisions. On the long run this is very demotivating.

Lack or poor leadership. Lack of support towards the employees, poor communication, lack of empathy, not keeping ones word, inconstant decisions and unfair treatment towards the employees are just some of the signs of poor leadership.

No development or new responsibilities. Repeating the same processes and not facing new challenges can negatively affect one’s attitudes. Most employees want to keep on learning new things. Some want to do that faster, some slower, some want to take on more responsibilities and some not. In any of the situations, people need some variety in their work in order to keep their motivation and performance high. What managers should do is to find out what are the expectations of each of their employees and try to offer manage them by offering the right development opportunities at the right time.

The most common situation is that employees who feel demotivated leave the company. However, not all demotivated employees do that. Some of them stay there and complain, have a poor performance and create a bad atmosphere in the team.

No matter if they leave or not the company, having demotivated employees can be extremely negative for any company.