How to Motivate Employees at Work

To motivate, you first should understand the person and know their communication channels.  You need to diagnose quickly how they learn and communicate. Using this knowledge, you can motivate them to their full potential.  A swift way to understanding a persons learning aptitude is to listen for key phrases. Listen for the following phrases in their speaking habits.

  • I’ll talk to you later.
  • I’ll be in touch with you
  • See you later

As subtle as each of these phrases are, you can learn much from them. Keywords in these phrases are talk, touch, and see.  If a person says, “I’ll talk to you later”, this person learns audibly. It means they can follow instructions by simple voice commands.  This works great when motivating this person over the phone – they understand and grasp concepts verbally.

Individuals that use the phrase with the word “touch” are tactile people.  They physically need to go through the process themselves.  Verbal and visual instructions are not as efficient as putting them in the middle of the action and letting them learn from experience.

Visual people will say, “I’ll see you later”. For this individual, verbal instructions confuse or complicate the message and to grasp fully the situation require a visual presentation. These individuals are motivated by video, PowerPoint, or Webinar presentations.

Learning how an individual inputs, processes, and communicates information will make motivating them much easier. Find the direct channel to their learning process and your motivational speech will make an effect on that individual.