I ask you; what are you doing to inspire your hire? So you found that gem the one who is passionate and motivated. You’ve sold them on working with you. Did you sell them short? Wohooo; you have a competitive comp plan! Rock on; you have an awesome Christmas party! Awesome sauce; you get to wear jeans on Friday! Really though, what are you doing to inspire your hire? No doubt people are money motivated by compensation and perks but those are things you use to entice them to join your organization. That is drastically different than tools used to keep them at your organization. In my experience when it comes to the long-haul most of us are truly motivated by three factors value, empowerment and learning.

 Value; people want to feel valued. What are you doing to make your team feel truly valued? Keeping your job isn’t a motivating factor yet most KPI metrics are based around the do this or else mentality. To combat the negative effect of rigid KPI’s we implement snazzy mega contests with super-duper rewards. Sure, giant contests and incentives are great (and often needed) but they really do not dig into the core of what makes us all feel valued. Value is simple it comes down to one word; individualism. As a leader you need need to know your people as well just that: people. Understand what it is that makes them great as an individual and give them the one on one time to nurture and support their strengths and ambition.

 Empowerment; the cornerstone of buy in and motivation. What are you doing to empower your team? You have taken the first step by acknowledging their individual strengths now you need to foster an environment in which each person feels empowered. Yes I get it we all have a nice clean HR job description sitting in a binder somewhere that describes the daily duties that our job titled is tied to but we are all more than that. Meeting minimum expectations are important but what is often overlooked is how we can best achieve our goals by collectively playing to the strengths of our team and empowering people to step up to the plate in areas where they excel. Give your team the right to make some on the spot or as needed calls versus always having to put on the breaks and ask for permission at every single juncture. You are already working with them on identifying their strengths, give them a special project or two and let them ease up in an area where they are not as strong and somebody else excels.

 Learning; something we think we hate but we really love. Let’s be honest most of us were elated when we were done with school. We were happy to say goodbye to finals and all night cram fests. Even though we were glad to say goodbye to finals and mean professors a bored mind is a wondering mind and the wandering mind of an employee is dreaming of working for your competitor. You need to make sure you are actively engaging your team that you are offering as many learning opportunities as possible. You are not sitting in a glass box high in the sky above your team you are there with them in the battlefields. You need to share lessons learned and invite them to ask questions and even challenge the system if they see a more efficient way to get things done. A part of learning is questioning the status quo and understanding the why behind every “no”. If they don’t understand the why they are not learning and if they are not learning from you they will move on to learn from somebody else.

 Instilling value and empowerment in your team while continuing to foster their learning is nothing revolutionary. They are pretty simple concepts but concepts that can be easily watered down in the daily grind of our leadership roles until the practices dissipate completely. I promise you if you focus on these three things you will be able to inspire your hire!