Ways to Boost Employee Morale and Motivation at the Start of the Year

Once December arrives, many employees begin to “log off” for the year. Motivation and productivity may dip as staff take time off. Many companies also enter a quieter period around this time of year, when there are fewer projects to work on and clients to connect with. Once employees return in the new year, it may be difficult to get the team motivated again after this period of “logging off.”

If this sounds familiar, you may be wondering how to boost employee morale and motivation at the start of the new year. Luckily, there are many strategies to implement in order to keep your team’s morale and motivation levels high through Q1 and into the rest of the year. Keep reading to learn a little more about why motivation drops at this time of year and what you can do to remedy the issue.

Employees need a motivation boost at the start of the year, but keeping morale high doesn’t have to be difficult!

Reasons for Drops in Employee Morale and Motivation at the End of the Year

Before discussing how to boost motivation in the new year, it’s important to understand why motivation drops at the end of the year. Drops in employee motivation are common near the end of the year, especially within companies where Q4 is the quietest period. Your team’s workload may be reduced, and tasks left to work on are more mundane. Having to work more frequently on “housekeeping” tasks can cause motivation to decrease.  

Many team members will also have reached their yearly and quarterly targets coming into the end of Q4, having no new targets to work towards until the new year. Having no real goals relating to their output makes gaining motivation to complete tasks more challenging. It can also be difficult to work on team projects due to staff members being out of the office more frequently. 

Lastly, your team will likely have many out-of-work commitments on their mind that they’re looking forward to and are thinking about while at work, potentially distracting from productivity. If some of your staff members use the bulk of their vacation time around the holidays, they’ll understandably also be tired by this point in the year, having worked non-stop since the last holiday season.

The Importance of High Employee Motivation

It’s also crucial to answer the question: Why is employee motivation important? 

Employee motivation affects productivity, job satisfaction, and even the mood around the office. Highly motivated employees with good workplace morale get more done and to a better standard, look forward to coming to work, and have strong and friendly team bonds. 

On the other hand, staff members with low motivation will likely show lower productivity levels and may cause the morale of other employees to go down. Unmotivated employees are also more likely to quit, increasing your turnover rate and the time and money spent hiring annually.

High employee motivation and morale improve productivity, team bonding, and job satisfaction.

How to Improve Employee Morale and Motivation

The following tips, when implemented, should help keep employee morale high through the start of the year onwards. If your business is a little less busy at the start of the year, you can also use this time to meet with employees to plan career goals for the year ahead.

1. Set Achievable New Year Goals

Your team will most likely have yearly goals that were set at the end of Q4. If that’s not the case, be sure to sit down with employees to do a review and set goals for the year that will help them grow and improve, while increasing productivity. Having an outline of what is to be achieved each month, and seeing how that fits into career growth, is sure to motivate employees from day one of the new year.

When conducting reviews and setting goals, stay positive and offer constructive criticism if there is anything the employee needs to improve on. Next, let the employee tell you what they've enjoyed doing in the last year and what they struggled with or what the company could do to make their job more efficient and productive this year. Make sure you listen to this feedback and make plans to act on it.     

Lastly, discuss the employee’s career goals for the new year. What tasks would they like to work on? Are there any responsibilities they’d like to have? What new skills would they like to gain? Then, set up an employee development plan that will help them achieve these things. You can also set some small and easily achievable goals for teams and individual employees to meet in the first few months of the year. The ease of achieving these goals will instantly improve morale.

2. Reward Your Employees

Another important element of employee motivation throughout the year is rewarding achievements. Along with verbally recognizing achievements, rewards can include bonuses, extra time off, taking time off for fun company events, and even promotions. If the time around the start of the year is one of your busier periods, recognizing achievements becomes even more necessary to keep morale and motivation high.

Rewarding employees for achievements is one way to boost employee morale and motivation throughout the year.

3. Lead By Example

One of the easiest ways to boost employee morale and motivation is by setting a good example for your staff. You can't noticeably put in less effort when returning to the office while expecting your employees to be performing at a normal level. 

Alternatively, if you’re encouraging employees to relax a little as they come back to work, do the same and don’t let them see you working non-stop every day, or they’ll likely feel the need to do the same. In the latter case, you can also plan some events, like a happy hour or extended staff lunch, to encourage staff to relax and build team relationships as they return to the office. Continuing to lead by example throughout the year is also highly important.

If you want your employees to relax as they return to the office, host a fun new year event, like a happy hour.

4. Host a Fun Team Event and Bonding Activities

As mentioned, a fun way to boost employee morale and motivation at the start of the year is by organizing a team event or activity. These events can include a happy hour near the end of the workday or a lunch during work hours.

You could also plan some team bonding activities, which is especially recommended if you have new team members joining the company in the first few months of the year. If some or all of your team works remotely and in-person events aren’t an option, you can still host a virtual event.

In Conclusion

If you’ve been wondering how to boost employee morale and motivation at the start of the new year, this article should have given you multiple ideas which are very easy to implement. 

When thinking about motivation, don’t overlook making plans to keep employees engaged and motivated throughout the entirety of the year. Lastly, when managing remote teams, don’t forget to stay on top of implementing tactics that prevent burnout when working from home, like encouraging at-home employees to stick to a schedule and setting up team-building activities so that work-from-home staff don’t feel isolated.