How to increase your company's profit by 22 percent.EN

Carmen López

Psychologist. Master in Human Resources.

Looking for talent doesn't mean that you have to read a lot of curriculums, but to follow the trace it leaves: An excellent work. Because the most important thing is not what you learn, or the companies in which you have worked in. The most important thing is what you do.

You need five things to make your work exceptional: Energy, focus, time, creativity and an total commitment to quality.

Behind these five pillars there's just one thing: Motivation. Motivation is the difference between the world champion and the second classified. Motivation makes a runner run to the finish line when he has no more stamina left, a climber reach an impossible summit, a creator fight against himself until his work is perfect. With motivation you find time where there's no more time, motivation keeps your energy level and your focus at the highest level, and makes you see the world differently. When you are motivated you are capable of throwing away an almost finished work and starting it again until it is excellent.

The motivation is generated by the necessity. It's clear: If someone is hungry, no doubt he will put all his mental, physical and time resources to satisfy that necessity. The necessity is the motive; the necessity shoots the motivation up. This isn´t new. In the 1930's, Abraham Maslow proposed a theory about the human needs. According to it, the people who mobilize their resources do it on account of a necessity: Eating, sex, money, belonging, acknowledgement or self-realization.

But to find the source of Talent we have to look beyond the necessity. There´s no doubt that the physical needs subjugate the rest: Hunger, thirst, to avoid pain... but in developed economies, these needs are very often covered. Most of the people are motivated by the superior needs in the Maslow Pyramid: Money, power, belonging, freedom, acknowledgement or self-realization. And how the marketing experts and the sales people know very well, the needs can be created, changed or slanted. You just need to control one thing: the beliefs. If someone is absolute convinced about something he becomes unstoppable.

The beliefs are the origin of everything else.

The key lies in a psychological factor: employee motivation. This is demonstrated by scientific studies such as Herzberg's, or the latest statistics published by Gallup.

Google actively works on motivation among its employees and achieves 40% above-average productivity.

Here you have some tips to work on the motivation of your team:

Establish a positive work environment for collaboration and give your people a sense of belonging.

Give positive feedback and acknowledge their achievements.

Implement challenges and continuous learning for personal and professional development.

Give them autonomy to carry out tasks.

Once and again communicate the company's goals and the actions to achieve them.

Evaluate the satisfaction of your employees periodically.

Motivation equals Benefits.

That's easy to understand. But how many of these actions do you carry out in your company to increase profits? Two? Three?

It is difficult to apply these points, because it requires time, knowledge and a change of mentality.

The companies that implement those points are those that in the long term attract and retain talent, earn more money and therefore survive.

Do you want to be one of those companies?