As we transition into the second quarter of 2025, it’s important to take stock of your team. Often around this time, the excitement of the new year wears off, and things slow down before end-of-year deadlines begin looming. Thus, we’re examining ways to give your employees a morale boost. Motivation can be a hard concept to implement in the workforce, but with the right approach, you can turn your team around in no time.

Realigning With Q2 Goals

‍Goals, especially shared goals, are practically a necessity in today’s professional world. Giving yourself and your team an objective to work towards has been proven time and time again to be the best way to get work completed. However, while the understanding of goals as a necessity is widespread, their implementation is not. 

Many people and companies subscribe to year-long goals or five-year programs but fail to break those larger chunks into attainable goals each quarter. This process of attacking goals in manageable amounts is crucial to making those large-scale objectives a reality. Reigniting motivation with quarterly goals is the first step.

Clearing The Air With SMART Goals

One of the most important facets of goal-setting is clarity. Having clear goals is essential to keeping yourself on track and making sure that your goals become a reality. While there are many methodologies to accomplish this clarity, an easy one to remember is the SMART system. SMART is an acronym that pertains to goal setting and means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. A goal should be all of these things. 

A specific goal means that you’re clear in what you’re achieving. You don’t say I want to boost revenue, you say I want to boost revenue by 20 percent. Instead of saying I’m going to reduce my team's late jobs, say I’m going to cut the number of jobs we had late in half from last month. This specificity gives you clear metrics for success and allows you to communicate your goals much more easily, which is what makes them measurable. Measurability is so crucial because of the clarity it provides to yourself and others. 

Attainability is also crucial. Setting realistic goals is the best way to make sure that your goals are achieved. In order to make your goals achievable, take a critical look at the metric you’re trying to improve. If you want to reduce the number of late jobs your team is submitting, saying that you’ll have 0 late jobs is simply setting yourself up for failure. Instead, consider where your team is at now and what you’ll be able to accomplish in a reasonable time frame (the fifth part of SMART goals). 

You also want to make sure that the goal you’re trying to achieve is relevant. Reducing late jobs by ten percent in a month isn’t going to help your team if they’re struggling with quality assurance. Relevant goals can be hard to identify, but ensuring that the metric you’re targeting for improvement is right will ensure that your efforts are placed correctly.

Linking Company Goals & Employee Aspirations

A great way to reignite employee motivation is to align their goals with the company’s. Helping employees understand what they’re working towards will help them see the impact of their work. The reason this clarity is so effective at motivation is because of that understanding. When an individual’s role is surrounded in obscurity, it can be hard for them to feel connected to their team and their company. Conversely, when they see how their individual impact makes others’ jobs and lives easier, it can bolster their commitment to their coworkers and help their coworkers help them, creating a positive feedback loop where everyone is working to help each other. This culture of cooperation is only possible when everyone has a shared vision.

Creating A Motivating Environment

Creating motivation through goals is just one way to get your employees back on track. Environmental motivation is an often overlooked factor when trying to boost motivation, especially with the shifts in office culture and remote work over the past few years. Flexibility is a great way to foster increased motivation. Flexible schedules and work environments show employees that you have a lot of trust in them and their work, trust that will be reciprocated. Creating that level of trust across the company goes a long way to getting employees excited about the work that they’re doing. Providing mental health support is another way to give back to your employees and show that you care.

Fostering Motivation Through Collaboration

The work environment isn’t the only way to foster employee motivation at the workplace. There are plenty of ways to engage your team and have your team engage each other in ways that can help increase motivation. Chief among these is a collaboration space, an area in the office that allows people to work together in the same space. Providing these spaces, as well as incentives to use them is a great way to increase bonds between coworkers and help develop the kind of open communication within the company that is so crucial in the shifting work environments of today.

Maintaining Motivation Through Leadership

Of course, self-motivation can only go so far. A great way to get your team engaged as we enter the spring season is to give them a source of inspiration. Leadership is a key part of every organization; having motivated leaders is part of the reason why. Leaders are in a unique position to influence those around them. If a leader is motivated to hit goals and grow business, the team will necessarily have some of that rub off on them. Motivated leaders also go a long way towards fostering a motivated environment, whether that is being visible in an office space or providing encouragement and examples while working remotely.

Partner With Premier

Employee motivation is typically a difficult endeavor. The obscurity that occurs in larger companies means that it can be hard to provide every worker with an idea of what they’re working towards. At Premier, our talent is full of experienced individuals who are familiar with the professional world and motivated to learn and make a difference in your company. Our decades of experience ensure that you’ll find the perfect match for any open position you’re hiring for. Learn more today about how we can help jumpstart your second quarter!