When you are busy crunching numbers and trying to run a successful business, it’s easy to overlook your employees’ emotions and thoughts towards the company. This is an all-too-common mistake that many CEOs and owners make when running a company. The problem in doing so, however, is that all of the hard work and effort put forth by the employees goes unnoticed. If you want them to strive for excellence and really push their limits (which you should), you’ll need to keep them motivated.

Contrary to what some people may believe, motivation doesn’t come in the form of a weekly or bi-weekly paycheck. After all, your employees will likely get paid the same amount whether they push themselves or not. So, how are you supposed to keep them motivated without the use of a paycheck? Let’s take a look at three simple ways to motivate your employees.

#1 – Stress The Importance of Teamwork

No matter what industry or line of business your company is in, chances are it relies on teamwork to succeed. If one position ceases to exist, the rest will suffer as a direct result. You can help motive your employees to perform their tasks more efficiently by stressing the importance of teamwork. Employees want to feel like they are working for something larger than just themselves, and this is essentially the principle behind teamwork. When one person begins to work harder, the rest will follow in line.

#2 – Have Individual Discussions

Most companies have mandatory meetings where they force all of the employees to gather in a large room and watch some video or listen to a speech. These large meetings can be effective when done correctly, but a more rewarding and beneficial approach is to have individual discussions with each of your employees. Even if it’s only for a quick five minute session, it still shows that you appreciate their work enough to sit down and talk with them.

#3 – Set Goals

Lastly, you must set goals for your employees to strive for. Depending on how many different job positions there are, you may need to get creative when setting goals. For instance, you could set a goal of 50-100 leads per week for the sales team, and then set a different goal of 95% customer satisfaction from the customer service or tech support team. This way both sides of the business will have reasonable goals to try and accomplish at work.