How good is your company? It’s only as good as your employees are. What makes them good is you, the manager. One of your primary responsibilities is to organize, inspire, and motivate them. If you just relax and let things run their natural course, you might witness everything spiral out of control. Therefore, here are 12 amazing ways on how to motivate a team and help them reach greatness.
How to Motivate a Team: 12 Creative Ways
#1. Salaries are as vital as air
Don’t believe us? There are researches which show the following. 26 percent of all employees who currently have a job would leave it without thinking twice if another company would offer them just a 5 percent increase in salary. This is just how necessary money is to everyone.
Of course, that doesn’t mean your employees don’t care about you or your business. It’s just that they have needs. They also know just how much their work, skills, and knowledge are worth.
#2. Stop micromanaging them
Considering you made the right decisions when you hired them, then you shouldn’t feel the need to micromanage your people at all. If they were, in fact, the right choice for the job, you can easily allow them to perform on their own instead of breathing down their necks all the time.
If you were wondering how to motivate a team, this idea is very straightforward and elegant at the same time. Show them you trust them enough to let them do the job they were hired for and they will repay you.
#3. Useless meetings are killing your staff
This piece of advice relates to the one above. Keeping your employees engaged in regular useless meetings is the same as micromanaging them all the time. It proves you don’t trust them. Here is how you should handle things when it comes to meetings.
Build a weekly or even monthly meeting agenda, if you can. Distribute it to everyone in the company. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting anyone. To each session, invite only the people who really have to be there. There is no need for passive onlookers, someone to record what you said or people from other departments. Keep it simple.
Always start the meeting on time and finish it as soon as you can. Don’t dawdle. In this way, you will motivate your team by showing them you care about their precious time and resources.
#4. If they fail, don’t punish them
Nobody’s perfect, and you need to keep that in mind. Apart from that, everybody makes mistakes. We also have good days and bad days. We can even have a productive month and a less lucrative one. Therefore, all this can result in your employees making mistakes. If that should happen, there is no need to punish them. They are not a group of children who broke a window.
The main idea here is to sit them down and explain the mistake as well as the lesson they can learn from here. Encourage them to try all over again, as long as it was an honest mistake, of course. The idea of how to motivate your team is based on trust and understanding.
#5. Self-development is crucial
Not only for the sake of the employee but your company as well. Here is where the PPD or personal development plan comes in. Every single one of your staff should discuss such a plan with their manager. During the talks, they can tell you exactly how they want to develop and grow within your company.
What new skills would they like to acquire? In what other areas would they like to be knowledgeable? Keep in mind that allowing them to grow will make them happy and, thus, motivated. However, it will also give your company a boost. The same employees with new and added skills and knowledge? Yes, please.
#6. A great place to work
We’re sure that you’ve read all about this idea on how to motivate your team before. Still, it is vital. Therefore, let’s detail a bit again here. A great place to work is all about the office space. Your employees will feel a lot more motivated if they have a pleasant environment. It doesn’t even have to cost you a lot of money.
You can always allow your people to bring their own decorations for their desks. Soon enough, you will see how the office is full of flowers, beautiful little trinkets, family photos in nice frames and personalized mugs.
Apart from all this, you can decorate the office space for the holidays. Bring in a Christmas tree and let the staff take an hour or two to trim it. You can do the same for Halloween, the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving.
#7. Pay attention to your employees and find out what they want
To do this, you must talk to them or simply listen when they talk to you. Within a reasoning limit, give them what they want. It can really be anything seeing as people have different expectations and desires. For example, some might want a new coffee machine while others wish for a new laptop. If you can provide it for them, then it is advisable to do it, given that you want to know how to motivate a team.
#8. Always respect your employees
From the managers who effectively run your teams to your cleaning staff, you must respect everyone. Show consideration, and they will then feel motivated to continue the great work they are doing for you. Not only that, but they might actually start performing better once they know they have your respect.
The meaning of respect goes for both their professional and personal life. It’s not enough to show them consideration in the office. You can also demonstrate respect by not scheduling meetings 15 minutes before they finish work or half an hour before they are supposed to be in.
Don’t ask to see them during their lunch break and do not disrupt their weekends if it’s not absolutely necessary to do so. Doing all these things will only prove that you don’t care about them. Or that you don’t respect them enough. So what if you’ve only got 15 minutes left or you have to go eat? I scheduled this one-hour meeting. That is not a good way to handle things.
#9. Be the personable boss
How to motivate a team, you ask? By letting go of the traditional boss persona. It is no longer fit to be the unreachable manager who sits cooped up in his office all day. Don’t make your employees feel like they need a special permit to see you. Be open and personable so that they know they can contact you at all times.
After reading these lines, you might be asking yourself this question. Why do I have to do that or be like that when I have managers who are taking care of the teams? The answer is simple. Because there are certain topics which your employees don’t feel comfortable talking to their manager about. Or it might be that they are not satisfied with the manager and need to file a complaint.
These are all very delicate situations. Therefore, you have to appear as the boss who is always there and to whom they can reach out at any given moment.
#10. Your company’s purpose as a personal motivator
Money is necessary, indeed, but it is not everything when it comes to a successful business. You also started off with a goal in mind. What is it? Can it help motivate your team now? We’re sure it can. Then you should enforce it.
For example, let’s say that you own a coffee shop. Therefore, maybe your purpose was to serve really good coffee to people in the morning and help them have a productive day at work. Or, perhaps, you wanted to bring in some new and exotic types of gourmet coffee which locals in your town can enjoy for the first time. Use it to motivate your team.
#11. Always keep your word
If you know you don’t have a serious plan of doing something, then don’t even bother mentioning it to your employees. Always keeping your word on your promises will make you look like a serious and professional leader. It will also earn you the respect of your staff.
Apart from that, if your team sees that you promise things and then actually deliver them, they will be motivated for the future. Not going through with your promises will only disappoint them and demotivate them. Why should they go the extra mile when you cannot keep your promises to them?
#12. Give constant feedback
Another great way of keeping people motivated is by giving them regular feedback. It can be either positive or negative, as long as it exists. Positive feedback reinforces their belief they are doing a good job. The negative type shows them their mistakes as well as the fact that you are watching them and are on top of things.
However, you must make sure that both types of feedback are personal. Don’t send them emails or engage them in conversations if you don’t have all the facts. In the same way, you mustn’t send out template emails. Keep a stash of cards on your desk at all times and write your employees little notes.
In the end, if you want to know how to motivate your team, you can always look to yourself. You are the manager. But, if you were the employee, how would you like your boss to treat you?
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