Many business owners struggle with the concept of engaging and motivating employees. Although it may sound a simple idea, it is of huge importance in terms of company productivity and success. Recent research has shown that the most effective way of doing so is to offer then the experience of ownership and responsibility.

Since the 1970s, major corporations have been testing the concept of ownership to motivate workers. As a result of an overall dip in productivity, the US Congress passed legislation incentivizing the sale of company stock to current employees, thus creating the employee stock ownership plan. The results were mixed and this led to a new area of ownership being investigated, that of ‘psychological ownership’, making employees feel that they own the company and are thus responsible for its success. Although this is a less quantifiable concept, it has certainly proved to be effective. Through experiencing a sense of ownership, employees feel increased responsibility for the success of the business as they feel it directly reflects on their own success and what they could potentially get out of it.

Retaining staff and reducing staff-turnover comes hand in hand with a happy, motivated working environment, which of course leads to profitability and success. In order to retain experienced and useful staff, companies must empower then, instilling this sense of ownership to ensure that they feel responsible, influential and that they have some control.

Both feelings of ownership and of empowerment should be an integral part of company and employee training and coaching. If you are to give employees greater responsibility and involvement with the workings of the company, they need to be appropriately trained. The other important area of training, much advocate by Trevor McClintock, is how much it unites employees. Group work and team bonding may feel a bit corny but there is enough research to show that it does work.

The essence of it is that empowerment and ownership directly improves employee commitment, creativity, productivity, satisfaction and motivation. Motivation comes from within but must also be encouraged daily in the workplace. Appreciation, meaningful work, a happy and flexible work environment and a feeling of personal achievement are powerful motivators and have proved to be much more so than financial incentive.