Top Methods Payroll Managers Can Use to Increase Team Motivation – Part One

Payroll day tends to be serene in most workplaces, but it is also active. Certain intervals are markedly busier in the workplace compared to other intervals such as month end, the end of quarter and the end of the year. Closing out payroll when its hectic along with it happening just before the holidays may have a negative impact on enthusiasm in the workplace.

Payroll managers can improve their work team’s ability to do their job well and their own job too through doing a scheduled assessment with staff about capacity, workplace issues and problems confronted with on their job. Harried employees tend to make more errors and experience expensive negative financial charge backs compared to employees with high job satisfaction.

Be aware that you cannot eliminate all workplace tasks and inherent job stresses, but featured here are the top methods you can employ to assist your employees and grow workplace motivation:

Acknowledge Top Results & Strong Efforts

When your payroll team works additional hour to accomplish everything during a hectic time-period, they need to be acknowledged. It is ok for the acknowledgement to be straight forward, such as recognizing a teammates’ amazing effort in a team-wide email or purchasing breakfast burritos or pizza for the entire staff. When a team member goes the extra mile, like work nights and weekends to get a big project completed that had to be done then to not interrupt normal daytime work tasks, acknowledge their accomplishment with comped staycation at nice local hotel or with a paid day off.

Reports over the years about worker workplace satisfaction and contentment consistently feature quantifiable results that demonstrate one of the top motivators of work satisfaction is knowing one is valued for the work they perform.  To assist team members to continue being driven, be certain to show your acknowledgment so it is exact, recent, and real.  

Tailor Fit Feedback to Match Employee Work Results

Team members are their own person who desire to get feedback on the quality of the job they are performing and how they can do it better. However, you as a manager must tailor fit the feedback team members receive so it matches the job they are doing and where it is timely, but not too often. People in today’s generation desire and expect regular feedback from their immediate superior or department manager. Boomer teammates may view ongoing feedback as overdoing it. Adapt how you manage each person with feedback to match the perfect balance of consistent feedback and autonomy.  

Invest in Team Skill Training and Professional Development

To grow your team’s skill sets you must invest in their professional development and skills training. Furthermore, when you place faith in them by investing directly into their growth both professionally and skill sets, your team will deliver back an improved workplace commitment to success for the company and themselves. With many companies’ work-place training gets put off when things are busy, but do not permit a jam-packed busy workplace stop training from being scheduled and taking place. Team-mates are happy to take a timeout from the daily workplace routine and work on something new or on skills training and professional development. Company’s across the U.S. offer professional development training sessions during the lunchtime. Participating team-mates are served lunch or the bring their own sack lunch and the company sets up a training session with a lecturer that does training while participants eat and listen. Some company’s offer a job shadow or job rotation to enhance cross training on skill sets from team member to team member. There are payroll conventions and conferences offered around the country that feature training sessions and breakout meetings that companies can have their payroll staff attend to learn from top industry companies and peers.  

Team commitment is an ongoing endeavor you as a payroll manager must stay dedicated to for the good of the company and its staff.  Assisting your staff so they stay engaged and happy has positive advantages for everyone. The benefits are for the team, the company and in the end, its ongoing profitability.