Improving Team Motivation

The challenge in improving team motivation is the fact that a team is made up of different individuals with varying needs and motivating factors. Some team members find financial rewards as primary motivators while others value challenges more. Hence, the needs of each team member must be met in order to boost team motivation. Here are some general guidelines to improve team motivation.

Get to know your team. Spend some time with your team members. Do not force it and keep it casual. Start with a few minutes of small talk every day to build rapport. Find out what other things you have in common with your team besides work. It could be an interest, a hobby, or maybe something about family life. Later, you can also organize team building activities like games and trips to create more opportunities for everyone to get to know each other better.

While you do not have to be a best friend to your team members in order to boost team motivation, you need to have a positive and open relationship with every individual in your team so you can better understand what motivates each person.

Performance assessment and coaching are important elements of team motivation. It is the job of the team supervisor to provide regular feedback to each team member about their performance, whether good or bad. Keep in mind that one of the factors that highly motivate employees is recognition. Everyone wants to be recognized for a job well done. It does not have to be a big public event, although that is a great way to boost team motivation. You can simply ask for a few minutes during a meeting to recognize the best performing team, team members and supervisors.

At the same time, if you want to improve team motivation do not hesitate to give negative feedback if there is any. Ignoring poor performance or behavior will not help your team in any way. The important thing when giving criticism is to do it in a considerate and respectful manner. Otherwise, you will lose team motivation. But show them that you are serious and you expect them to do a better job next time.

Lastly, empower your team. The concept of empowerment may be an old-school management technique since it has been introduced decades ago but the reason management experts still recommend this is it works. Unfortunately, many companies are not putting this concept into practice leaving many employees and teams of workers underutilized.

Utilizing employees does not mean overloading them with work, which to be certain will not help team motivation. Empowerment means allowing the team to make certain decisions regarding the project, which enables them to make use of their experience, skills and knowledge. Empowerment increases team motivation because they can initiate changes and are, therefore, more engaged with the project.

Implement the above strategies as soon as you can and discover how effective they are in improving team motivation and realizing your company goals.