Business leaders and managers should strive to ensure that they can instil motivation, drive, a positive attitude, and happiness within the workplace. The benefit of getting these things right can far outweigh the issues that can arise if these areas are left neglected.

Management should firstly ensure they have a robust set of polices that help to ensure that staff remain motivated, engaged, understand the rules of conduct, understand what is required of them in their job role, have the platform to raise any issues, concerns or voice their opinions and to have a safe and secure level of employment, with the services available to help reduce their stress and, to help maintain their professional development.

Our top ten methods with which organisations and their leaders can develop, instil and maintain a good level of motivation in their workforce are as follows:

1. Communications - organisations should ensure that they develop and maintain effective, regular and engaging communications. Communications are key in producing a motivated workforce. Communications should focus of inclusivity, wellbeing, recognition and appraisal of employee work. Communications in all media forms, based on these areas, help develop a workforce that understands expectations. Employees should see the appreciation that leaders have for their work and their teams performance. One well-known business actually calls their weekly employee newsletter - 'Time To Shine', with a heavy emphasis on appraising and naming people, it illustrates the achievements that have had a positive impact on the organisation within that period.
2. Challenging work - organisations should also ensure that they have the right people for the right jobs, the correct distribution of work between employees and to ensure that they offer challenging work, where employees can use their skills and their initiative, creativity and energy, to create work to a level that can satisfy the need and meet the challenge.
3. Recognition - to recognise good work and to appraise achievements develops a great level of employee satisfaction in the workplace. Not only are employees aware that the work they are producing is recognised throughout the organisation and is appreciated, but others can then recognise the achievement and become inspired to work to an equally high standard in order to gain a similar level of recognition.
4. Request input - employees will work much happier if they can have input into processes, changes, policies, procedures and plans that an organisation is working on or has in place, being part of the creativity process can instil a sense of pride, belonging and motivation. Employees who give input towards the developments within the organisation feel more engaged and part of the whole dynamic rather than feeling unnoticed and a hidden cog in the machine.
5. Increase trust - when companies develop a high level of trust in their employees, it can develop a maturity and an autonomous approach within teams. Employees feel free to work to their best ability without being micro-managed, monitored or watched over during the day. Trust gives employees the feeling of mutual respect and admiration, thus goes a long way towards improving motivation.
6. Lead from the top - leaders in all organisations should lead by example and deliver communications and actions with the vision and values of the organisation at heart, explaining the reasoning and rationale behind the vision for the organisation. Excitement from leaders helps to motivate the employees to join the journey and in turn helps the organisation reach the destination target or goal.
7. Set targets - targets don't have to be time pressured activities or sales orientated activities, they can be objectives that the leaders want to reach. By having employees understand and contribute to reaching those targets, everyone is pulling in the same direction and motivation is maintained.
8. Working environment - by creating a pleasant, inviting and welcoming working environment, employees can feel comfortable and stable, part of a whole, and happy to come to work. A positive working environment can boost enthusiasm and motivation on all levels and helps keep up morale and happiness.
9. Offer career progression - organisations that offer a clear structure of career progression and development have been proven to maintain a strong motivated workforce. When employees can see future opportunities ahead, they are motivated to work towards their own personal goals as well as towards the success of the organisation. Where career progression can't be offered, organisations should work to offer professional development opportunities such as skills development, certificates, courses, diplomas or incentives on further study.
10. Offer benefits and wellbeing - finally, organisations should offer a structure of benefits which include annual leave, pay scales and/or bonus schemes, study incentives, office based benefits and wellbeing services to help reduce stress, increase the level of attainable value for the employee and maintain a happy and motivated workforce.

When a company introduces any of the above into their business practices, they can experience many benefits in return such as higher productivity and performance, lower levels of absenteeism and stress related issues, lower staff turnover and in-turn the retaining of great employees. Employees will become more engaged and will be willing to offer their full ability, teams will innovate and work in coherence, and external reputation will be increased as people talk about what a good place it is to work at.

When businesses thrive it is not only as a result of developing many of the above attributes but also due to having a good regular understanding of employee opinion. Regular, brief, concise surveys help to measure and analyse thought and opinion.

All organisations should drive forward the employee input process when it comes to maintaining success within the business structure. The best survey solutions will display results on a real-time dashboard, allowing easy viewing and analysis of trends and changes, this helps organisations act quickly if they see results or opinions differing from the company views and direction.