Operating a large enterprise that employs more than a few dozen people can be a challenging process, especially when you don’t have any systems in place to streamline the process of on-boarding new employees and managing existing staff. With a high volume of work on the table and many individual steps involved with each process that is required to keep your company going, it’s important to develop predefined protocols and procedures for motivating, monitoring, and mentoring your workforce. With that said, here are 8 ways you can inspire and integrate new and long-term employees within the context of an enterprise workflow process map:
1. Bring in an Operations Management Specialist
An expert in operations management can help you truly refine your company’s workflow and optimize productivity through a variety of calculated adjustments. Hiring someone who has a degree in this field, or earning a masters in operations management yourself from an online learning institution like Kettering University, will ensure that you’re exercising the utmost professionalism and basing your decisions on a firm foundation laid by an extensive educational background. Every large enterprise that aims to scale up while maintaining optimal efficiency, productivity, and profitability should have at least one managerial member or consultant who specializes in operations management for the sake of enhanced employee integration.
2. Provide Incentives for Commendable Performance
It’s difficult to feel inspired when there’s no real reward on the other end of your hard work. Give your employees one or more reasons to strive towards their best possible effort and you should see a notable improvement in performance. For example, you could offer a prize to the most productive or punctual employee of the week, month, and year to keep employees constantly competing.
3. Leverage Individual Strengths and Skills
Recognizing the strengths and skills of each individual employee will help you assemble teams in an optimal manner because you’ll know which tasks to allocate to each team member. Plus, not only will this help you get the most out of your workers’ skill sets, it will also put them in a position to have more enjoyable and productive roles in you company because they’ll be performing jobs that they’re good at instead of being burdened with generic duties that don’t cater to their unique abilities
4. Give Each Employee Thorough Training
A poorly trained employee is not only going to have problems integrating into your company’s workflow, they’re also going to have a hard time feeling inspired when they’re having to doubt themselves or struggle due to insufficient instruction and guidance. Contrary to the old saying, if you want something done right, you don’t necessarily need to “do it yourself” – you just need to make sure that whoever you assign the task to knows exactly how you want it done. Thus, developing a detailed orientation process is one of the most effective measures you can take to give every employee a strong start at your company.
5. Keep a Leaderboard of the Top Performers
While it might seem like offering desirable wages and career benefits would be enough, the hardest working professionals do certainly appreciate receiving additional credit or notoriety for their efforts. After all, why aim to be the best if nobody seems to notice? Keeping various leaderboards that track and compare the results generated from tasks performed and hours worked by your top performers will motivate that group to continue their pursuit of excellence while also motivating others to do better so that they can make it onto the leaderboards as well.
6. Utilize Employee Monitoring Software
If you’re not keeping close watch over how well your employees are performing on an hourly and daily basis, it can be difficult to really tell how the difference makers are in both a positive and negative light. Employee monitoring software can help you spot problems that are causing workflow deficiencies or take notice of employees who have special skill sets that might be deserving of a raise or promotion. With a comprehensive approach to monition and analyzing employee performance, you can make informed decisions about who you should be rewarding and who you should be reprimanding.
7. Practice Solid Leadership
Leading by example is one of the best ways to inspire employees to do their best and follow in your footsteps. By placing an emphasis on self-discipline and holing yourself just as accountable as lower level employees, you set a standard of company culture that others will strive to uphold in order to stay on par with the expectations you’ve established. Managers and supervisors who are strict about their own actions will find that their employees will recognize that stringency and attempt to emulate it in their own operations. On the other hand, managers who do not hold themselves to a high standard in terms of performance and punctuality will find that their employees will carry the same lackadaisical approach in most cases.
8. Set Demanding Goals and Expectations
The higher you set your goals, the harder your teams will have to work to even come close to achieving success. Instead of setting realistic goals, set optimistic ones. That way, even if your employees fail to meet the designated deadlines, they’ll have accomplished much more than they would have if you had only asked them to do half the amount. Try to get them to do as much as they can handle and you’ll notice an undeniable increase in productivity and urgency within each individual process that comprises your enterprise workflow.
Inspiration and Integration are Closely Intertwined
Inspiring employees and integrating them into established processes are two closely related efforts because one will always complement the other. Whenever you have inspired employees, they’re going to integrate better with co-workers. Likewise, when you have reliable and proven systems in place to help employees integrate their capabilities into team dynamics and collaborative settings, you’ll naturally see a higher level of inspiration because their jobs will be more streamlined and straightforward.