7 Ways of Motivating Your Team in 2021
Fortunately, the pandemic is easing off, and employees are returning to the office. This blog helps identify a few techniques that help managers lead better, motivate their teams, and inspire individuals to perform better.
Invest time in Aligning the Team Objectives
It is essential to realize that the team should align the goals to maximize efficiency and productivity. Everyone needs to put in their focused energies and work on the same strategic plan to cultivate the best results.
The actual challenge lies in motivating the team and bringing them on the same page, which managers can only do by creating a special relationship with each employee. Additionally, explaining your motives to the team and ensuring that they understand your long-term goal is essential to ensure your team’s commitment aligns with company goals. If each employee realizes that their work contributes to the organization’s greater purpose, it becomes easier to motivate them.
Provide Opportunities for Skill Development
Every employee wants to further their career and do so in an effective manner. The more opportunities they have to do that, the more motivated they will be. That’s why providing opportunities for skill development is essential to motivate teams and employees.
In larger corporations, this means providing employees with the freedom to work on various products. This will help them develop different skills suitable for various fields. In small to medium-sized enterprises, managers need to invest in the technical development of teams and employees. This means providing opportunities for certifications that might help employees utilize tools for future growth.
Give Regular Feedback to Provide Purpose
One of the key factors in motivating teams is honest and valuable feedback. Teams need third-party feedback to know what’s working and what isn’t. This requires vigilant monitoring on the part of the manager and integration with team functions. Thorough feedback will not only motivate teams and employees but also compel them to achieve organizational goals.
Feedback also provides employees with a sense of accountability and oversight. When teams realize that there are consequences for their efforts and proper leadership within the company, they become motivated to do better.
Reward Efforts with Non-Monetary Rewards
Innovative managers use non-monetary rewards, including intellectual challenges, greater responsibility, autonomy, recognition, flexible benefits, and more significant influence over decisions. When creatively devised and applied, these and other rewards for high-performing employees can continue to motivate when pay and promotions are scarce.
In addition, not all employees are looking for only monetary rewards. Some teams thrive on appreciating a superior or the sense of accomplishment that comes with successfully delivering a project. It’s up to the managers to understand what rewards motivate their teams and employees the most. Only then can they reward effort and outcome adequately through non-monetary means.
Show Trust Through Responsibility
Sometimes, the best way to motivate teams and employees is by expecting more from them. A survey found that 72% of American employees wished their boss would give them more responsibility. That’s because employees often equate repetitiveness with stagnancy. As such, managers can motivate teams and employees by empowering them to take on more responsibility.
This also shows employees that managers trust them to get the job done. This trust, in turn, motivates them to perform better and take up more responsibility. If managers can develop this pattern across the organization, teams would be encouraged to work harder and improve upon performance.
Develop a Harmonious Culture
Employees need to like what they do and who they do it with to be motivated. These two aspects capture the culture of the organization. Developing a harmonious culture ranges from creating an inclusive work environment to reducing job stress for employees. Managers have to aim for a culture that generates interest and develops cooperation in teams and employees.
One of the best ways to do this is to understand what people want to get out of work. Employees must think about what their jobs provide them and what is not, but could be, provided. Managers should consider how people may differ in the valences they assign to outcomes. It’s also important to know the needed theories of motivation and their implications for identifying essential outcomes. The result of these little actions would be a harmonious culture that motivates teams and employees to perform better.
This step is even more important in corporations with a diverse workforce. LGBT-owned businesses are usually better at developing a harmonious culture since inclusion is better within these organizations. However, the LGBT community still remains one of the most significantly affected communities when it comes to unequal workplace practices.
Provide Adequate Financial Reward
Finally, providing adequate financial rewards has always been a great source of motivation. This strategy for financial incentives has to go beyond the conventional attribute of salaries. Employees need to know that their companies pay them for their efforts and outcomes, which is why bonuses play a significant role in motivating teams.
In addition, rewarding teams based on collective effort may also bolster cooperation and coordination. However, it is essential to remember that financial incentives must never eclipse the drive for achieving organizational objectives.
Conclusion
As employees get used to spending more time in the workplace, motivation to perform better will slowly but surely return. However, managers need to ensure that good performance is followed by personal recognition and praise, favorable performance reviews, pay increases, and other positive results. It is also helpful to realize that bosses usually control rewards and punishments, but others do so. Peers, direct reports, customers, and others tend to provide rewards in compliments, help, and social punishments.