7 Ways To Boost Your Employees Self-Discipline

Many important characteristics contribute to a person's success and happiness. But only one generates long-term success in all areas of life: self-discipline.

Setting and achieving goals is one of the most vital attributes in life.

Success begins with self-discipline.
~ Sunday Adelaja

Let's take a well-known example. To maintain a good lifestyle, you must exercise regularly, lose weight if necessary. You have to eat well by cutting junk food, break a bad habit and attain good habits, and be consistent. When inspiring oneself fails, the trait of self-discipline will assist you in achieving the goals that you set.

This pattern explains why we abandon our New Year's resolutions so quickly. Motivation alone will not suffice. It's self-discipline you need to achieve.

What Is Self-Discipline?

You can never conquer the mountain. You can only conquer yourself.
– Jim Whittaker, American mountaineer, and CEO

Self-discipline is a habit that enables you to recognize your strengths and overcome obstacles.

It is the ability to concentrate intensively on an activity or goal to achieve a specific goal. It is also a quality that leads to long-term success.

A set of other attributes, such as ambition, staying motivated, dedication, proper time management, and responsibility, are widely used by self-disciplined people.

Self-Discipline At Work

But how does a lack of self-discipline affect work?

Imagine this. An employee is constantly on the phone or takes frequent calls. No matter how much hard they try, they end up getting distracted at work. Would they be able to do their work efficiently?

Without a doubt, no!

Here, the person lacks self-discipline.

Individuals who are disciplined quietly get their job done, stay focused, and consistently fulfill their goals and objectives.

According to a survey by Weber Shandwick, 87% of workers indicated that workplace discipline has a major impact on work performance. Studies have shown that employees with no self-discipline tend to behave unethically.

Thus lack of self-discipline can hamper employees' work leading to lost business productivity and loss.

A great manager observes how their employees function and looks for trends among the individuals and groups they collaborate with. So, as a leader, your objective is to identify employees with low self-discipline and the ones self-motivated.

Often, an employee's attention to detail is what allows them to develop genuinely. That is to go beyond simply hitting targets and setting new short-term or long-term goals.

For many employees, a job is little more than showing up on time or doing what is expected of them. It is the boss's responsibility to help them develop their motivation.

It's a matter of self-discipline in this case. You may change your team's attitude towards work with a little more drive and stronger willpower to succeed. It also helps professionals in developing beneficial habits that lead to their professional success.

Why Is Self-Discipline Important For Your Employees?

Self-discipline is essential since it allows your employees to stay focused on their goals. It motivates your employees to look for new and better ways to perform their tasks.

Some advantages of practicing self-discipline are:

Increases Your Employee's Prospects Of Career Advancement:

If your employees are self-disciplined, they will be able to visualize your company's goals and make plans to achieve them. This type of employee behavior indicates that they are ready to be assigned new key projects.

Reduces Worry And Stress:

It allows your employees to stay on track with personal and professional goals. It also prevents them from getting behind or submitting work after the deadline has passed. Disciplined employees don't have any qualms about completing their tasks on schedule. As a result, employees will feel more in control and less stressed about upcoming work.

Increases Self-Esteem And Confidence:

As your employee's productivity rises, their self-esteem, happiness, and confidence rise along with it. Completing targets on time offers employees a sense of purpose and inspires them to believe in themselves, thus boosting overall confidence.

Enhances Personal And Professional Relationships:

Keeping track of tasks and goals makes your employees highly motivated, creating a positive workplace environment. Your employee's joy and self-confidence might pass on to their friends and coworkers, making others feel better about themselves.

7 Ways That Will Help You To Develop Self-Discipline Among Employees

There are various ways to introduce self-discipline methods among your employees. Here are some tips we recommend.

1. Introduce Rewards And Recognition Programs

When you see initiative and self-discipline in your employees, reward them. Praise and recognize the employee, and make sure the idea/suggestion is implemented.

Express your thoughts to your employee, and acknowledge their contributions so that they continues to do so.

When you reward an employee for showing this trait, their peers would also want to do the same. One example is rewarding employees for always being on time.

Similarly, when employees get rewarded for good behaviors, it fosters a need to do better. Thus, slowly but surely, they'll learn to be better at disciplining themselves.

Also Read: The Ultimate Guide To Employee Rewards and Recognition

2. Remove All Distractions

In some cases, a lack of focus is the root of workplace indiscipline. The modern workplace is full of distractions, which makes it easier to lose focus. Similarly, with most people working from home, the amount of distractions has increased even more.

As a manager, you must take necessary effort to eliminate anything in the workplace that may cause a work-related distraction.

Anything could be used as a distraction. It could be because of technology, with employees glued to their devices, or it could be because of the office design.

Take, for example, social media. It can be a significant attention sucker, diverting people's focus away from the vital work they are supposed to accomplish.

Again, there is a delicate balancing act to perform. In certain extreme cases, outright banning social networking sites might be a brilliant idea, but it isn't the only possible option. Talk to your staff to see what policies will work best for them in terms of resisting temptation.

You can try redesigning your workplace by introducing silent rooms where employees can work without distraction and implement a minimal design.

3. Consider The Employee's Age Census

When most business leaders think about their personnel, they rarely consider the employee’s age demographics. The strategy you'd take to encourage self-discipline in a young workforce is vastly different from what you'd take with older staff. You'll need a unique approach that's tailored to your company's demographics.

When creating policies to develop discipline among your employees, you should consider their age and overall disposition. Some employees are more receptive to a more laid-back approach laced with gentle encouragement. Others expect you to be more assertive in your system. Applying a standard strategy to everyone is something you should avoid.

4. Discuss Policies And Procedures

Make your guidelines explicit if you want your employees to obey them. First, figure out exactly which regulations you want your employees to follow. The fewer rules there are, the better. Millions of ambiguous laws will consistently be outperformed by a few unambiguous ones.

Some examples of company policies that define the code of conduct expected from employees in various contexts are

• Attendance
• Leave process
• Dress Code
• Submission of expenses
• Sexual Harassment
• Employee interactions, customer interactions, etc.

The ideal situation for your rules is to fit on a single page. After that, you may print them out, laminate them, and put them on display for everyone to see.

Remember, one of the simplest methods to persuade your staff to follow your instructions from the start. Also, to make sure they understand what is expected of them.

5. Provide A Safe Working Environment

Distractions in the workplace are not merely physical. It might also be psychological. If a person does not feel safe at work, no self-discipline will motivate them to perform better. You want your staff to look forward to coming to work each day and to feel energized.

Your employees' productivity levels will be abysmal if they feel like they are somewhere else every time they step into the workplace. It will be challenging to maintain discipline in such a setting. Consider brightening up the office environment by adapting the following points.

• Create a positive workplace culture

• Good conflict management

• No Discrimination

• Fair and equal opportunities

• No office politics

• Focus on physical and mental wellbeing

6. Encourage Open Communication

Finally, remember that open communication is the essential factor of your engagement with your staff. Employees should feel free to express themselves and that the manager will hear their concerns.

Workplace engagement is enhanced when employees have a personal connection to the company, according to a case study by Walden University. As a team leader, make sure you're interacting with your team members in a meaningful way.

In a business, communication is essential and should not be overlooked. It can make a notable impact on your bottom line.

Make sure that your staff is willing to listen to you, as well as that you are eager to listen to them. Here are some ways to encourage open communication:

• Feedback culture through regular employee surveys
• Regular 1:1s
• Performance discussions
• Invest in good team chat and collaboration apps
• Conduct engagement based workshops

Learn more: Key Tips To Improve Workplace Communication

7. Take Action For Unexpected Behavior

In some cases, probably, your employees are not self-disciplined enough. In these situations, deal with the problem behavior right away. Seeing bad job behavior go unaddressed affects the morale of your contributing employees faster than almost anything else.

Read more: 6 Self-Management Skills That You Need

Conclusion

Self-discipline is a necessary attribute that distinguishes individuals who are successful in life from those who aren't. To see significant business success, your employees must display this trait too.

These ideas will assist you in creating a great working environment that is disciplined. Your advances in discipline will eventually translate into higher productivity, which will benefit your bottom line.

This article is written by Sukriti Sarma who is an International Marketing Specialist at Vantage Circle. She is dedicated to making workdays a little brighter for everyone and passionate about dancing and acting. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com.