Allow people to do what they do best every day. Give them the tools to do the job right. Make sure they know what’s expected. Regularly recognise and praise good work. That’s it!

If you can provide a workplace that delivers these things then you’ve addressed the Top Four Motivators (*) for most people.

Here’s my simple take on employee engagement, motivation and world class manufacturing:

• There’s no such thing as a world class plant without an actively engaged workforce.
• The more employees who are engaged, and the fewer who are actively disengaged, the better the organisation performs.
• Employee engagement can be measured.
• There are 12 Top Motivators.
• If you want to improve the performance of your plant, company or organisation, do as much as you can to address these, measure the results, and keep at it.

* The Gallup organisation (www.Gallup.com) has conducted more than thirty years of research into employee engagement, with nearly two million employees. They’ve boiled all of that down into the Top 12 Motivators and these are the Top Four. If you want the best motivated workforce in the world, try all Twelve! They’re at http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/811/feedback-real.aspx and you can read about them in the book “First Break All the Rules.”