Lead Through Video: 10 Motivational Topics for Employees

A good job is hard to find; however, a good employee is even harder to keep. Great managers don’t only see the potential in their employees, they strive to help them reach it by exploring motivational topics to engage their teams.

It’s more than being a leader worth following and providing tasks worth fulfilling. Keeping employees motivated requires finding new ways to maintain productivity and providing each person with the drive they need to perform at their best.

How do you do this? You can get started by sharing world-class thought leadership content with your employees and teams. Here are ten of our favorites.

10 Videos on Motivational Topics for Employees

The following ten videos can help you and your employees feel inspired.

License them, then use them to kick-off or end a meeting, or share them internally to help boost everyone’s energy.

1. The Psychology of Happiness, Motivation, and Emotions

Topic: Handling Negativity at Work

Persistent workplace negativity seriously affects employee morale. It drains your organization of energy and diverts crucial attention from work and productivity.

Sure, you can monitor internal discussions and coach managers in the appropriate ways to handle negativity. But you can also challenge your employees to change how they relate to problems.

According to writer Benjamin Hardy, you can actually enjoy having problems.

Hardy believes that most people think problems are going to be significantly worse than they actually are. He relates it to the hesitation people feel before jumping into the deep end of a pool. We’re capable of adapting quickly and embracing a focus on the negative. It might be a small change in outlook, but it’s a colossal change in your brain.

2. What Makes Us Feel Good About Our Work?

Topic: Acknowledging Individual Professional Achievement

Surprisingly, money isn’t what motivates most people at work. That’s why we’re exploring these motivational topics for employees.

Most of us thrive by feeling a sense of purpose and making continual progress in our careers. But only 30% of US employees feel engaged at work.

Karl Marx once predicted that as skills became more specialized, the individual contributions of employees would become less distinct. This would lead them to lose sight of the results of their efforts. Without this sense of accomplishment at the end of a task or project, employees would eventually become apathetic to their roles.

In today’s digital world, this sentiment continues to grow. So, how do you help your employees acknowledge their individual professional achievements?

In this video, behavioral economist Dan Ariely reveals two unexpected experiments that reveal our surprising and nuanced attitudes toward a purpose in our work.

3. Lateral Thinking: How to Workshop Innovative Ideas

Topic: Providing Opportunities to Discover New Ideas

Smart employees get bored.

Your team may operate like a well-oiled machine, but are your employees challenged enough to learn new things and grow?

The work we consistently do builds routine thinking, which makes us experts in our areas. As these patterns of thinking get deeper, we become locked into them. Once this occurs, it becomes a challenge to think differently. Then, it’s impossible to conceive new ideas.

To climb out of this rut, Dan Seewald thinks teams should embrace lateral thinking. He encourages us to play—to approach problem-solving from a perspective of fun. In fact, attacking a problem in this way helps us lose the fear of failure, which allows us to think boldly and break out of our patterns.

4. The Power of Laughing at Ourselves at Work

Topic: Embracing a Sense of Humor in the Workplace

If your goal is to make your team more productive, maybe you don’t think humor exists on a list of motivational topics for employees. But you’re wrong. On the contrary, humor is one of the most vital—and overlooked—tools in business.

At least, that’s what cartoonist and author Tom Fishburne has to say in this light-hearted talk. He explores how we can build a more creative, productive, and open work environment by laughing at ourselves.

5. Teamwork Tips From the World’s Most Effective Team: Navy Seals

Topic: Promoting Teamwork

Poor leaders only invite a few into their “club,” which makes others feel that they don’t belong and their ideas are insignificant.

Great leaders build trust among their teams and make everyone feel included. This fosters an environment in which employees feel safe asking questions, offering new ideas, taking risks, and admitting blunders.

Anyone can make a decision when things work in their favor, but what about in turbulent times? You need a solid team. So, learn from Rob Roy, retired Navy SEAL, who teaches leaders how to walk into any situation and come out ahead.

6. The Happy Secret to Better Work

Topic: Maintaining Balance

Most people believe that we must work harder to be happy, but are they thinking about things in reverse?

Research shows that happiness among employees fuels performance and accomplishment. A study of call center service employees found that happy employees not only worked harder, making more calls per hour but scored 13% higher sales than their grumpy colleagues.

The best, most successful, companies understand this. They have explored motivational topics for employees and use proven ways to keep employees happy at their jobs.

While some employees still prefer a traditional office, many are working remotely. There are great tools available to help workers be more efficient at their jobs, but have fun while doing it. If you’re not making these tools available, you can bet other employers are.

In this fast-moving, funny talk, psychologist Shawn Achor claims that happiness inspires us to be more efficient.

7. The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers

Topic: Fostering Creativity

People who complete their work well before the deadline are less creative than those who procrastinate moderately.

(No, you can’t use this as an excuse to procrastinate.)

Those who procrastinate too much think about random things, so they never have any new ideas. But people who rush to solve a problem don’t have original thoughts either. Studies show that the best approach to a problem is to procrastinate a bit, thinking about the task in the back of your mind. In this way, you’re looking at a task from several different angles.

When you’ve seen all the angles, you can proceed with the best idea. This is one habit endorsed by organizational psychologist Adam Grant.

Grant studies “originals”: thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, he discusses the three unexpected habits of originals.

8. Forget the Pecking Order at Work

Topic: Empowering Individuals

Traditional organizations place a higher value on star employees who outperform others. However, this isn’t what drives the most successful, high-achieving teams.

In this video, Margaret Heffernan argues that it’s social cohesion within teams that leads to great results. Social cohesiveness means the employees want to be a part of the team and contribute to its success. These social and emotional bonds to each other—and to the overall team—motivate higher commitment and performance.

As Heffernan says, “Companies don’t have ideas. Only people do.”

9. Why Working From Home is Good For Business

Topic: Rethinking Remote Work

Remote work is a trend that is showing no signs of slowing down, and it’s changing how businesses operate across the globe.

More and more employees are working in remote positions due to the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. A large percentage of the workforce continues to look for job opportunities with flexible schedules, while successful companies are embracing this growing desire and exploring motivational topics for employees as a way to entice new talent.

How can you make sure that all of your employees—at headquarters and at home—feel connected? Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, shares his secrets.

10. Lessons in Mindfulness from Sherlock Holmes

Topic: Handling Stress by Embracing Mindfulness

Do you ever take the time to do absolutely nothing for at least ten whole minutes? This means no texting, talking—even thinking. Encouraging your employees to do so is a great way to help them manage stress.

Maria Konnikova, author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, argues that antisocial Sherlock Holmes is a master at optimizing his brain. While he was born like Watson, in the beginning, Holmes started with a “greater potential for certain elements of observation.” In short, he’s an expert at observing.

So, how can we think more like Sherlock Holmes? Konnikova says the secret lies in mindfulness. We must learn how to focus on our mind to avoid any distractions. Watch this video to learn how to avoid the things that veer our minds off track.

License Videos on Motivational Topics for Employees

Staying connected with your employees and teams is vital, especially with workers being told to work from home, self-quarantine, or otherwise dislocate themselves from their normal office routine. A happy, educated, and informed employee is a worthy investment—and an organization’s best asset.

These videos on motivational topics for employees are only a handful of what we can license for your organization—thanks to our partnerships with world-class thought leadership content producers such as TED, The Big Think, Wall Street Journal Events, Yahoo Finance, and Bloomberg Live.

Ready to license thought leadership video to help your employees feel engaged, motivated, and safe in uncertain times? Contact us today and we’ll happily discuss services and options with you.