Tweak Your Biz » Management » Motivate Your Employees When Times Are Tough

Motivate Your Employees When Times Are Tough

by davethomas on August 4th, 2011
11 Comments



If the struggling economy has you as a business owner down, think what it might be doing to your employees.

The potential for fear and anxiety can set in, with workers wondering if their jobs are in jeopardy due to the tough times. As more and more companies fight to get in the black and out of the red, what can you do to increase the morale of your employees on a daily basis?

Among the things to focus in on are:

  • Provide a vision – If you have not already, giving your employees a vision is important. The key is to have all employees on the same page when it comes to the company’s mission and goals.
  • Give feedback – While employees oftentimes hear about mistakes, do you encourage or congratulate them when they do something really positive?
  • Develop your team – It is important for employees to see room for advancement with their employer. Whether it is added projects, providing courses for them through a local college or room for advancement, this will help keep employee motivated, wanting to strive for more.
  • Keep an open door policy – If you have a closed door policy, employees will fear the worst. While certain financial or personal details understandably cannot be divulged, keep your employees in the loop at all times.

Given that good business owners do not grow on trees, it is important to realize what has made your business successful up to this point – the employees. Without them, you might not even have a company in the first place. Do not overlook that fact in both good and bad times.

When the economy is tough, remember that your employees look to you to provide motivation, guidance and a reassuring attitude.

Along with wanting the most out of your employees, this is also the time to review what you bring to the table and see if there are areas you can improve on. Review the following areas:

  • What are my strengths and weaknesses as a business owner?
  • Do I take the time to really listen to my employees or is it in one ear and out the other?
  • Would I want to work for me if I were not the boss?
  • What can I do to make my employees more successful?
  • Do I compliment my employees enough when things go well or do I discourage them too often when things fail?

Running a company, especially in times where the economy is not your best friend, certainly can be difficult. It takes true leaders to navigate their companies through these tough times, but it certainly can and is done often.

As the business owner, take a few moments to review where your company is at, your employees and yourself. If things are not where you want them to be, you DO have the power to change things for the better.

Photo credit: blog.dreamfetcher.com



Category: Leadership, motivation, workplace relationships

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The Author:

With 23 years of experience as a writer, Dave covers a wide array of financial topics, including discussing SafeAuto and its auto insurance offerings, along with internet reputation management and payroll companies.

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  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Hi Dave, This is a really useful post, thanks for sharing! I would like to echo your point around keeping an open door policy. It’s truly important to beu00a0approachable as a manager/business owner, all great communication is of course a two-way process :)

  • Dave Thomas

    Niall,nThat is a very true. I had a different experience years back when a boss told me their door was always open. Not long after taking him up on his offer, I was laid off. Taught me to not always believe things you’re told in the workplace.

  • http://www.dragon-strategies.com/blog.html DragonLeaders

    Thanks for sharing this. I recently wrote in my blog that in tough times, bosses and managers need to make targets meaningful in order to motivate staff, the “number crunching” days are far less effective. Thought I’d share it with you.

  • http://www.jmpresentations.com/ Motivating Staff

    Your blog is pretty good and impressed me a lot. This article along with the
    images is quite in-depth and gives a good overview of the topic.

  • http://www.ahaingroup.com/ John twohig

    Thanks Niall, I would agree with your comment. But the very fact that we have had examples of some movement, that is positive. If people grasp that and it improves their situation, no matter how small that improvement, it is a positive. We are in agreement that Social will create change, the speed of adoption and understanding of socials power will determine when.

  • Smallbiztrends

    Hmmm, John, you’d have been better off going with Adam Smith instead of the reviled Karl Marx.  In the world of Karl Marx, Zuckerberg’s Facebook would never have seen the light of day.  It would have collapsed by too many fingers in the pie subverting the original vision.  Creations like Facebook grow because of the drive to create something on the part of the founding team.  All initiative to create it would have been sucked dry.

    What Karl Marx stood for drove out all individual initiative.  Instead, he advocated replacing individualism and freedom to be creative, with the tyranny of the commune. I don’t call that freedom.  

    Just my two cents…  :-)

    - Anita 

  • http://www.ahaingroup.com/ John twohig

    Anita, I am a capitalist myself, lets just get that out in the open. What Marx stood for was not all wrong, the over-all objective of equal share for everyone was laudable if impracticable and beyond human behaviour. What was the line from animal farm, all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.

    What followed in Russia was not what Marx had in mind, it was an adaptation which proved flawed and unworkable. Zuckerberg has created a platform that gives people a voice on a global scale. This was unheard of 10 years ago, this has uncorked a genie which can never be put back. Social as opposed to Socialism but there is an overlap, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

    Thanks for the comment Anita, great to get your insights anytime:)

  • http://www.theexecutivesuite.com/blog/ Warren Rutherford

    It is great, John, that you are using a social platform to stimulate a debate on communications.  Whether Occupy, Arab Spring, terrorists using social to subvert, or politicians using social to campaign it remains a growing (and ever changing) communication form.  Your MDEC model is a solid effort to harness the potential for marketers.  To me, it matters not whether I agree with the content or format of the communication – it is the ability to communicate and the capacity to do so at an ever more rapid pace that influence thought – and eventually thought influences and affects action.  As social media continue to evolve consumers will determine the utility of the medium, as they have always done, and the social media will adapt. 

  • http://www.ahaingroup.com/ John twohig

    Yes Warren, and thanks for the comment.

    People will adapt, the platforms will adapt, communities will adapt and business will adapt. It’s fluid and ultimately will lead to change. What that change will look like is another thing completely.

    One thing is for certain MDEC is a game changer, a communication model on a scale like we have never had before, as social platforms grow their membership MDEC will have greater meaning and people will have more say in the life they choose to live.

    Business better get its head around this and soon…

  • http://www.smartsolutions.ie/blog/ Elaine Rogers

    I agree with your conclusion John and would add that Social Platforms are also a much more efficient delivery system for the delivery of information. It seems the “western ” world is digressing by not communicating thier vote etc, and we better watch out! Because what humans are craving is information and knowledge, and the ability to have our say, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries, where the rate of smart phone and social platform signup is exploding.
    I find your last comment under MDEC Communication ironic, as these people(s) are indeed going to extremes to fight for their rights.

  • http://www.ahaingroup.com/ John twohig

    Thanks for the comment Elaine,

    This is my second time replying to your comment as my first effort vanished off into the ether. Developed countries are guilty of taking more than their vote for granted. The BRIC countries are making their gains at the expense of the developed world. We are in general suffering from what I call entitlement syndrome. This will come back to bite us all unless we keep in touch with the changes in the world.

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