Motivating Employees Drives Success

28 Aug, 2012

Five techniques Hispanic business owners can use to increase productivity and motivation in the workplace

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Your business is only as successful as its workers. Each employee brings a specific skill set and personality to the company. Your job as an owner or manager is to get to know the workers and place them in roles that maximize their productivity, stimulate creativity and create a positive atmosphere. Doing this is easier said than done, however, especially when people seem to want such different things from their jobs.

As more and more Latino businesspeople hold professional positions in the workplace, cultural differences are becoming more noticeable. This challenge may present an opportunity not just for Hispanic business but for management as a whole to develop and improve its techniques. Managers must connect with a diverse community of workers to improve employee motivation and raise productivity.

Five Tips for Creating Motivated Employees

Connecting with workers is of key importance when creating strategies for motivation. Five tips include:

1. Get to know your employees—The first thing to do is to get to know them. What makes them feel comfortable? When they come to work, what would motivate them to put in the extra mile for the company? What turns them off? This can be a cultural, environmental or work-related factor. For instance, Latino business professionals like to foster more intimate relationships so that a workspace feels like a community rather than simply an office. If you can help create that sense of intimacy for your Latino employees, even in one-on-one interactions, you may see productivity improve.

2. Utilize team-building exercises—A well-connected team is always more efficient than a disconnected group of individuals. Team-building exercises and activities can help your staff members get to know one another, which can foster a more diversity-tolerant workplace as each employee comes to understand how other employees like to work. When we learn how to work with each other rather than despite each other, the office becomes a more tolerable and even enjoyable place to spend time.

3. Find ways to inspire creativity—People enjoy feeling as though they are contributing their fullest capabilities to the team. If you can find where your employees’ creative genius lies and develop ways to draw it out in service to the group, it will make for improved motivation. Nobody wants to feel like a cog in a machine, and though much of work involves repeated tasks, a successful work environment makes room for creative innovation as well.

4. Understand different modes of productivity—People from different cultural backgrounds tend to approach work and time management differently. For instance, while mainstream American and Euro-centric societies value scheduled productivity as important, people from Latino, African, South Asian or other cultures see maintaining human connection as more important. If you have many employees with this mindset, you may have to develop a work schedule that utilizes a more person-centric philosophy. It will be slightly more chaotic, but remember that productive workers are happy workers, which may improve and your business.

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