Top 10 Ways to Motivate Your Team

In today's competitive world, it is highly essential to have a team with full of enthusiasm and dedication to overcome the challenges. A significant drop in those parameters can derail the progress of your work and may even overthrow you from getting the success.

It is often seen that a highly motivated team can make the impossible work possible with their passion and teamwork. On the other hand, a simple task cannot be achieved success when the team is demotivated. There are many examples you may have been heard or seen where the team overcome the challenges to achieve the success with the help of motivational leadership.

A leader should have that special skill which keeps his team motivated. Especially in the corporate world, where the team gets demotivated due to various reasons, that may be extreme work pressure, monotonous work, imbalance family-work life and much more. That is the reason you can find many organizations conducts regular workshops by hiring the external speakers to motivate the team.

There are many ways to keep motivating your team, at times few words of appreciation can boost the team. But that may not work when the team is expecting a substantial input from you rather than the words of praise. So, it is important to read between the lines to take the appropriate measures which not only boost the team but also overthrows the challenges in achieving the way of success.

So, it is important to know the needs of the team before making your plan to motivate them. Let's discuss the common needs of the team while working in a corporate world, and when those needs are not fulfilled, they get demotivated.

A common thinking across the leaders of the industries is that a good compensation package can keep the team motivated. That is not completely true. Even many Human Resource managers play this trick by offering a higher package to retain their top talents, but they failed to control the attrition. Though money plays an important role in motivation but it is not the sole force to keep an employee engaged. In spite of getting higher paychecks if there is no job security then you cannot feel motivated to work in your organization, isn't it?

So, there are other needs of an employee rather than the compensation. According to Abraham Maslow, there are 5 stages of basic needs of human which are essential to keep them motivated.

Let's discuss the popular Maslow's Hierarchy which is explained by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation".

Physiological Needs

In the bottom of the pyramid, there are physiological needs. That is nothing but the basic needs of human beings to survive like Air, Water, Food, Clothes and house to take shelter. A person cannot feel comfortable at any place without these basic needs; whether it is the place he lives or works.

Safety and Security Needs

The next in the hierarchy is another important part of anyone's life that is safety and security. Every human being needs the safety and security at the places he lives or works. In a workplace, it is important to build that atmosphere where the employees feel their job is secured.

It is seen that the attrition rates increases double folded when the news/rumours of layoffs are at its peak in the organization.

Social Needs

After the financial and personal security, the next levels of human needs are the social needs. A friendly workplace or friendship with co-workers keeps them engaged in the organizations.

Many surveys indicated that employees who work in a friendly atmosphere can be more productive than working in a hostile environment. There are also other social needs people want to fulfill after the financial and personal security, such as marriage, plan for family etc. So, the organizations should have a friendly and fair policy to help them in meeting those needs.

Esteem

While moving to the upper levels, they more inclined towards the name and fame. They need their status should be improved, their work should be recognized. At this stage, they need self-respect and feelings of self-accomplishments.

They need freedom to the work, a fair and active policy for appreciation and reorganization of the good work, and respect from the colleagues. The leader should not do the micromanagement which can demotivate the team up to a great extent.

Self-Actualization

That is the ultimate level when a person desires rose higher from all the materialistic needs. At this stage, they need the ownership of their work. They become subject matter expert (SME), Module owner and even take the responsibilities of the complete project. It is important that the organizations should have fair and decent policies to help them in achieving those goals. That creates the atmosphere to reach their desired levels.

As we discussed the various needs of the human being at different stages, let’s find out the best ways to keep the team motivated and engaged in their work.

1. Provide Them a Pleasant Workplace

It is important to have a clean and comfortable workplace where your team can sit and concentrates on their work rather than worrying about the dust, noise, and broken furniture. The simple things like comfortable chairs cleaned work area and an air-conditioned room can increase the productivity as well as keep them engaged in their work.

The work environment should be suitable and friendly so that your team can focus on their work which keeps them motivated to achieve success. After all, they spend most of the time of the day at their workplace, so they deserve a comfortable place to work.

2. Be With the Team When They Need you

Gone are the days when the managers used to keep a big wall between them and their employees. They cannot be accessible easily. That attitude demotivates the team.

As a leader, you need to stand with the team in their moments of happiness and sorrows. The team feels more comfortable to work with a leader who cares about them and their families. Celebrate their happy moments and offer your help in case of crisis.

3. Set the Examples as a Leader

A good leader always leads from the front and they set the examples for the team. You should be motivated, enthused on the work to create that positive vibes where the team also equally feel the same. Do not hide your emotions, smile, and laugh and have fun with your team when needed.

4. A Big No to Micromanage

Never stand over their shoulders, let them do their work. Your focus should be on the final output and goals of the milestones. You should trust the team and their style of working. Micromanage can destroy the team spirit and demotivate them up to a great extent.

There is a fine line between team management and micromanagement, know that and do not cross that line.

5. Treat Them with Respect

You should not be arrogant enough to forget how to give respect to others. Though they are working under your supervision but without them, you cannot be a leader. So, it is important to give them the respect they deserve.

Yelling, accusing and passing insulting and sarcastic comments can destroy the work environment as well as productivity of the team. In case anyone did some mistakes, discuss with the individual in private, not in public.

6. Recognize their Work

Appreciation of the good work always motivates the team. That increases the thrust of doing more good work. It creates a healthy competition among the team members to perform better work to reach the milestones and get recognized.

It is important to have a fair and transparent policy for reorganization. A hidden agenda can demotivate other team members.

7. Make them Accountable

While giving them freedom to work, at the same time make them accountable for the work they are doing. Show them the big picture; they should aware that how their work aligned with the organization's goal. The feeling of ownership and answerable to their work keep them engaged to achieve the higher success.

8. Listen to their voices

You should always accessible to listens to their voices. You need to establish a clear and reliable communication channel to ensure that the team can reach to you when they need.

You may not have a proper solution to their grievances at that time, but hearing their issues patiently and assuring them a fitted solution in near future can cool down their frustrations.

9. Keep Providing Your Feedback

It is not that you should provide your feedback only at the yearly appraisal cycle. That surely surprised them and enough to demotivate them from their work.

It is essential to provide regular feedback in a proper manner so that they can take the precautionary measures to improve on their weak points. Similarly, they can leverage their stronger points to improve their productivity.

10. Help them to Overcome the Challenges

There may be many challenges, such as work pressure, lack of knowledge in specific work areas etc. You should identify those areas and work upon them to eradicate those problems.

Arrange training session for the team to gain the required knowledge on the area they are lacking, as well as on the latest technologies so that they can use that knowledge in their work to increase productivity.

Encourage them to use automation tools which can ease up their work pressure and allow them to manage their work-life balance.

Apart from these much-needed steps, there are other ways to motivate your team such as allow them flexible working hours, take the team for team lunch, celebrate the milestones with them etc. Those are the additional measures to keep your team always motivated. After all you can reach the success only with a motivated team.