Employee motivation. It’s a very popular topic, because every company wants to know how to influence their employees to work hard, do their best and create profits. They also know that motivated employees are more likely to stay at their same place of employment.

But instead of reading articles or books on the topic, or even attending seminars, here’s a radical thought: why not just ask your employees?

Obviously, you’re not going to gather them around the conference table and bluntly ask the question, “What makes you get up in the morning and come to work?”

And you’ll want to skip the obvious: money. Everyone needs it. So if you pay your employees enough to take the issue of money off the table, they’ll be able to focus on the incentives that actually motivate them the most.

The trick is to give each employee equal, one-on-one time. You can call them employee development meetings if you want to formalize them, but the purpose is to ask a few “soft” questions to take a temperature check on how involved and motivated that employee is feeling.

For example:

“Do you feel like your job really suits you? Do you feel like you have the right amount of responsibility and authority to do it well?”

“What characterizes your work here? Do you prefer to attend to the details on projects, or look at the bigger picture? Would you like to have more or less customer contact?

“What professional goal are you working on by being here? When you think about where you want to be a year or three from now, how does working here serve that goal?”

“Do you go home feeling good about yourself and your contribution to this company? If not, what do you think might help?”

These questions are not focused on today’s tasks or next week’s deadlines. They’re questions designed to help you and your employees share a view of their big picture. It also helps just to show employees that you care about their work life.

If you’re looking for other ways to support your employees and boost retention at your company, call the experts at Staffers. We’ve worked with all kinds of people at all kinds of companies over the years and would be happy to share our expertise!