Keeping Your Team Motivated and Productive

It doesn’t matter if your team is big or small; you need to make sure that they are motivated, productive, and giving maximum output at all times.

Activate value; this can seem like you are pushing your team to extremes. But really, what you are doing is supporting them to maximize their efficiency. People generally like to achieve, as achievements bring positive reinforcement and a sense of self.

Putting together a team that you know has all the skills you need isn’t easy to start with; most often, you start building with a talent pool,  and from that talent pool, you make a very selective, highly functioning team.
Each team member will bring different personality types and different skills. This will drive your business to the next level.

However, it is not uncommon for some team members, or the team in general, to lose motivation from time to time. It is part of your job as a manager or a business owner to make sure you’re getting maximum output at all times. It is not as simple as telling them they need to do more. This is entirely ineffective. Instead, you can inspire them and motivate them, so they want to do the best for you and your company.

So how can you keep your team motivated and productive? 

Recognition

It is your job to ensure that your staff is doing the best; you also need to recognize the team going above and beyond. More people will perform when you openly acknowledge good work and celebrate it.

What can be difficult, however, is keeping track of that. Using the best employee recognition software, you can get a head start. You’ll get all the information you need to make the right decision when it comes to your staff.

Have motivational products and perks in place and recognize the excellent work being done.

Goals

Each team member should have a range of personal and professional goals; the entire team should also have goals.

However, to push the capabilities of your team, there should be some stretch goals that seem to be slightly outside of the team’s reach. Your stretch goals should not be something that can be finalized when it is met.

They should also be straightforward goals to keep track of. For example, if you have a sales team, you can opt to have an extra 2% on your stretch call. So say your average sales goal is 50% of leads turn into sales, push that to an additional 2% on top.

This stretch goal is entirely in range of the capabilities and will strive for something.

When you are looking at goals, they should be broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks. An overarching goal is excellent, but most people will need a guide to reaching it. This means each step to reach the goal should be outlined and measurable.

What is your why?

If there isn’t a purpose to the task at hand, does it appear as vital as it could be a question mark? Most often, the answer is no.

Here’s an example: you ask your content writers to write 500 words on a specific topic. You haven’t given them anymore context, and not a deadline either. Instead, you approach this differently; you ask them to write 500 words on a specific topic because it supports the work that another member of the team is doing.

When you explain the reasoning, or in this case, the why, you add value to the task, and your team member is much more likely to feel like it is a piece of work that matters; after all, feeling like your work is impactful is essential.

Then why isn’t it just about a specific task; it should extend to the team as a whole. What is the team’s purpose? Why are they working on particular things? What is it about their goals that will push the company forward? Everything should be explained and easy to track.

Remote togetherness

It has become more difficult than ever for businesses and managers to keep their team on track. We have all of the tools covered, and productivity generally rises when people work from home. But there can be a slight disconnect between the employee and the company.

In the last few years, there has been a massive increase in companies putting together excellent work from home kits for their employees in the previous few years.

You can often find hats, bags, t-shirts, mugs, and other branded items. This leads to the idea of team and team players. For example, when a football team goes onto the field, you know the part of the same team by the clothes that they’re wearing. The same applies here.

Branded merchandise delivered to your staff might seem like a gimmick, and while not all of them will wear it, it will make them feel like part of a team.

Ditch micromanaging

You might feel that you can do each member of the team’s job, but you can’t. And if you spend all of your time micromanaging them, they will not be able to do the work to the best of their abilities. Each of your team members will value autonomy, giving them control over their time and the task.

It is essential that you keep them in mind why you hire them in the first place. They have demonstrated that they have the skills and are valuable to the team.

Even though most team members are going to value autonomy, it’s something that is still isn’t common in many businesses. Verbal and written warnings often come into play, and gentle nudges are more than in the micromanaging ball court.

You must allow each member of the team to take ownership of what they are doing; this will make them feel like it is their responsibility and want to perform the best possible.

It also demonstrates that you trust your team members to make the correct decisions, and you are focusing on the outcome rather than the details in between.

That’s not to say if you have some team members that struggle with autonomy that they should not have a support network that they need, you’ll need to work on a member-by-member case.

What motivates them? 

One member of your team might be motivated by the idea of the weekend. While another team member is inspired by the idea of a promotion. Very important is that you have a good understanding of each of the personalities in the team and what they need to have to do better.

Each of your employees will be at different stages of their lives and have different backgrounds, avoid the mistakes that many managers and business owners make; they offer a one-size-fits-all approach to motivation.

It is essential that you set time aside to personally get to know your team members. Or at least enough to make an educated guess about what will motivate them and implement it.

A critical factor to remember when looking at what motivates your team is that some people will have intrinsic motivators, and others will have extrinsic motivators—so having an availability of both types of things or at least a network that can support both of these motivations.

Understanding what your team wants to achieve and getting some out of bed in the morning will set your team apart from others in the industry.

A work environment

If your team is working remotely right now, you should invest in ensuring that they’re working in comfortable surroundings. Working from home is not idyllic for everybody, and not everyone has an office where they can work quietly. 

This might mean that you should look into co-working spaces for them locally, support membership options, or supply what they might need to work for long periods at home.

For the staff that does work in the office, the office environment should be inspiring and motivating in and of itself.

If you have small grey cubicles, and every booth needs to be the same, there is no personality and uniqueness to any workspaces. This can save money, but it will mean that the team members do not feel like individuals and do not feel valued in the long term.

You should aim to create a work environment where people want to spend their time. If they are willing to spend their time there, and it is somewhere they enjoy being, it will also be seen in their final products.

Comparison

If you have three or more people doing the same job, one of the most detrimental things you can do is compare them to each other. While they most likely have the same skill set, their personality, motivations, and work speed are likely different. 

It makes it very important for you to avoid comparing these staff members.

If you choose the route of comparison, you are creating a cutthroat kind of culture within your company, and eventually, this will spoil the motivation you have worked so hard to create. 

Aside from motivating your staff, there could be other things impacting your business – can you be sure you’re not making these mistakes? 3 Mistakes That Could Cost You Your Small Business – And How To Fix Them ⋆ Horseshoes & Hand Grenades.