Low motivation can rear its head in every workplace from time to time. From feeling unmotivated in your own role, to noticing a general lack of staff motivation throughout your team, low motivation at work is a concern within the NHS and healthcare.
In this blog, we explore some of the key causes of low motivation in the workplace, and what to do to turn the situation around.
What causes low motivation at work?
Low motivation in the workplace can stem from a multitude of causes, leading to various effects on staff and leadership teams.
1. Burnout
Burnout is a particularly prevalent cause of low staff motivation within the NHS and healthcare teams. Burnout is a state of mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. Its symptoms can vary from person to person, but signs include:
- Feeling tired or lethargic.
- Difficulty in concentrating.
- Feeling incredibly negative, defeated, or helpless.
Experiencing burnout can be detrimental to a person’s physical and mental wellbeing, and severely impact their motivation at work. Burnout can lead to fatigue, decreased productivity, more mistakes and, in healthcare, increased risk to patients’ wellbeing.
2. Personal problems
Sometimes, it can be incredibly difficult to separate your personal life from your work life. Whether someone is worrying about family and friends, or feeling overwhelmed with something going on at home, exterior stress can easily spill into a person’s work life and affect their motivation levels.
3. Toxic work environments
Sometimes, work environments themselves are the root cause of low staff motivation. From unsettling workplace politics and uncomfortable working environments, to a lack of trust in the leadership team, the factors that create an unpleasant work environment come in many forms.
Being subjected to a toxic work environment increases stress and anxiety levels for staff, and can seriously inhibit motivation – leading to increased absenteeism and reduced productivity.
4. Poor leadership and lack of teambuilding
A lack of skilled leadership will eventually reflect in low motivation amongst staff. Leaders who do not let their staff have enough autonomy, for example, will find an increase in disengagement amongst their staff. Employees will do what they do because they feel they have to, and feel little connection to the outcome of their work.
People want to feel like they are part of something in their workplace. Building strong relationships and making time for teambuilding is vital to keeping motivation levels up in the workplace. We develop bespoke Leadership Programmes for healthcare leaders and leadership teams, helping them build the skills needed to create thriving, motivated teams.
How can you increase staff motivation at work?
As a leader, it is your responsibility to foster a work environment where people feel motivated to work. There are many ways to achieve this.
1. Maintain a positive working environment
Making your workplace a nice place to be is a hugely impactful way to improve staff motivation. This can be hard to achieve in healthcare, where work environments are frequently busy and stressful – but it’s not impossible.
Our Process Improvement coaching programme tackles the issue of staff engagement by helping you foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement in your healthcare team. We work with you to hone a tailored approach to the unique issues facing your team, and create actionable solutions that motivate your staff.
2. Establish meaningful goals
A lack of meaningful goals is a common contributor to low motivation. Giving every member of your team clear, personal, realistic goals will help them feel purposeful and driven at work. Staff can also play a part in creating and establishing their goals, enabling them to see why they have been given a certain goal, and how it will benefit them and their team.
3. Recognise staff achievements
Once goals are established, it’s important to acknowledge when your staff achieve them, and commend them for it. It’s also key to recognise day-to-day achievements, or someone who is working especially hard.
Marking personal achievements and special occasions is also important too. Buying a first home, getting engaged, birthdays – celebrating all these things, even with something as simple as a card signed by colleagues, enforces the fact that your workplace is far more than just a group of people who work together; it is a team who support and value each other, and recognise each other’s achievements.
4. Create open communication
By creating a workplace where staff feel comfortable having open and honest conversations, both with their colleagues and their leaders, you will establish a work environment built on trust.
By contrast, a workplace where staff feel silenced, overlooked, and wary of talking openly about any issues is a hotbed for low motivation. Open communication is beneficial to staff and leaders alike, as it allows managers to get on top of potential issues before they snowball into a bigger, teamwide problem.
Team dynamics and the establishment of open communication are some of the elements directly addressed in our Executive Coaching course.
How can you manage low motivation at work?
If you personally are struggling with low motivation at work, there are a few techniques you can try to help get on top of it.
1. Reward yourself
Build things back up slowly by rewarding yourself for completing tasks, be it with a cup of tea, or a few minutes to yourself – whatever is realistic within your workplace and role.
Incentivising yourself with small rewards for completed tasks will slowly build up your motivation again. This only works with short-term goals and motivation – but it is a useful stepping stone towards building up your long-term motivation too.
2. Treat yourself with compassion
While denying you are experiencing low motivation isn’t helpful, nor is beating yourself up about it. Instead of criticising yourself for the way you are feeling, practise treating yourself with compassion instead. Try simply acknowledging that this is the way you are feeling at the moment, it’s a bump in the road – but it’s normal. Being compassionate towards yourself will help you work out what you need to feel motivated again.
3. Connect with others
Feeling isolated and distant from the people you work with can lead to low morale. By forming meaningful social bonds with your colleagues, you will feel more connected to your work – and more motivated to work hard and be held accountable for the part you play in your team.
Talking to others can also help uncover if anyone else is feeling similarly to you, and open up a wider conversation. Discussing these issues frankly and comfortably can help bring them into greater clarity, and move towards a resolution.
