Warning Signs Your Staff Lacks Purpose (and What to Do About It)

This is a guest post by personal development coach Bernardo Moya and author of The Question: Find Your True Purpose.

It’s all too easy, in the drive to grow your bottom line and build your customer base, to lose sight of keeping your staff motivated. That can have a bad effect on business. Ask yourself: Does your business have any of these symptoms:

• Unhappy staff are scaring off clients and customers.
• Arguments about minor priorities cause the team to become sidetracked in details because you’ve lost the bigger picture.
• Distractions, including long office discussions, visits to Facebook on company time, long periods spent taking breaks.
• Overwork. Are workers turning up, but with no idea why they’re putting the hours in, except that’s what’s expected? Long hours do not equate to better profit, and in fact, studies show an increase in productivity in the four-day week some businesses have adopted.
• Passenger employees. Unmotivated staff don’t make suggestions or use their creativity to push new ideas.
• Tardiness. Are your staff late for work or do they frequently show up whenever is convenient. Demotivated staff will not see that it’s disrespectful to their colleagues and other members of staff.
• Missing opportunities. If your staff are failing to upsell or make natural connections to take opportunities, this might be due to lack of proper engagement.

Often, a simple fix will lead to a change in attitudes. Ask yourself these questions: 

• What do they need from this job, beyond money? Are you engaging with them and providing an environment that meets their needs, as well as them meeting yours?
• Who are my staff? What makes them tick? What would engage them as people at work, so they can bring so much more to the table?
• What compelling vision are you sharing? Are you actually sharing one? Do you communicate your long-term plans and encourage buy-in from your staff. Do you show them how their futures will be so much better if your business plans are realized?
• Are you caring, complimentary of them? What’s your culture? Do you encourage a culture of caring, sharing, openness, creativity and reward? There is more to work than the salary, after all.
• Can staff play as well as work? Is there a place to let off steam, say, a game room, or a place to share a coffee and talk in a unstructured environment where ideas can be shared? Or can you use apps to brighten and enhance the day?

Once you’ve answered those questions, take this advice:

Don’t guess

Ask your staff what they want from the ideal job. Listen to their attitudes, their hopes, their plans for the future. Can you begin to reward them with opportunities that match more fully their personalities and desires?

Offer perks to all your employees

Training and development and the opportunity for more time off might also show your long-term commitment, which will often draw the same from them.

Make it your task to transform the workplace

There’s a fascinating set of opportunities ahead of you limited only by your imagination as to what you can offer. So, it’s time to remotivate and re-energize! Decide today how you will:

• Build better relationships with your staff.
• Share positive feedback with them.
• Spend more time getting to know them through socialization.

Bernardo Moya is a leading personal development coach, founder of The Best You and author of The Question: Find Your True Purpose, which is published by Wiley, and is available now from Amazon.com