How to Motivate and Encourage Employees
Tips to ensure a profitable and customer-focused team
In a perfect world, everyone would get paid for their work what they think they’re worth. Unfortunately, most businesses operate with strict payroll guidelines that make things challenging for front line managers to keep their staff happy and engaged.
Even now that the push for a $15 minimum wage is gaining some ground in the United States, companies that have started to pay their workers more are finding other ways to make up the difference. For example, Target was one of the early leaders in this area and started raising employee wages two years ago, with a goal of getting to $15 an hour by 2020. However, many workers are saying their hours have been reduced, sometimes negating the impact of the increased hourly wage.
Amazon is another company that is going to a $15 minimum wage but has cut benefits to some warehouse workers and part-time Whole Food employees.
During my career at Office Depot, I was often told that money wasn’t the most important motivating factor for employee satisfaction. Since the company is definitely not on the $15 minimum wage bandwagon and focuses a lot of effort against employee organization, I remain unconvinced.
