Motivation

Introduction

The role of the leader goes far beyond project management, it has a great human component. As the person in charge of a group, you have to be able to motivate your team, to achieve the proposed objectives as a team, but it must go beyond your own work objectively, and improve the personal relationship with team members since it has been shown that motivation goes far beyond an economic perception.

In the long term, if an employee is not happy in his position, he will end up leaving the company and the work team that fulfilled the proposed objectives will be dismantled little by little. To avoid this, a good leader can implement various initiatives to retain the talent that goes far beyond simple financial compensation.

Once this lesson is completed and approved, learners will be able to:

1. Learn the keys about teams motivation.
2. Apply some team building tips.

In this lesson, we will learn about the importance of motivating a team, starting with the acknowledgement of efforts and the benefits of simply telling “thank you”.

Motivating a team would be as simple as saying thank you? Well, it might not be enough, but it is a good start.

How to motivate your team

As we have commented, salary increases, as well as an occasional bonus, will only suppose a small momentary bonus in the professional's morale that will be quickly diluted, (it has been years talking that the motivation for the salary increase only lasts two months) however, what causes its discomfort will continue to be present in your day by day.

To avoid this, these are some of the strategies that organizations can implement to maintain long-term motivation:

• Define each professional their work and her role within the company.
• Provide the employee with the necessary resources so that he can satisfactorily perform her activity.
• Promote programs aimed at improving emotional control and solving problems.
• Facilitate training and information.
• Promote flexibility and promote conciliation.
• Promote the participation of workers in the organization and improve communication networks.
• Encourage teamwork to improve the work environment.

Team building

This last point is precisely the most important for professionals to feel comfortable in the office. Living is living together, both personally and professionally. We spend a good part of our day to day at work, interacting with people we have not chosen, contrary to what happens in the private sphere.

For this reason, it is the responsibility of the company to implement the necessary initiatives and activities, if applicable, to facilitate a healthy and pleasant work environment. In fact, the work environment is the third reason why employees would choose a company to work for according to the Employer Brand Research 2018 report.

Respect, predisposition, empathy, or mutual learning are attitudes that can be encouraged and that will facilitate interpersonal relationships and, consequently, the environment in the company.

Betting on Team Building, as its name suggests, activities designed to build teams, can bring countless benefits to the company. Some of them are:

• Increase the motivation of professionals and teams.
• Encourage self-knowledge, strengths and weaknesses of oneself.
• Improve communication between employees and different departments.
• It establishes personal relationships within the workforce and, therefore, the general work environment.
• Reduces and prevents stress, as well as increases resistance to it.
• Build trust and cooperation.
• Enhance creativity by maximizing individual potential. It allows the analysis of areas for improvement and their correction.
• Increase the feeling of belonging and team spirit.

Some of the most common practices to increase employee satisfaction and motivation are the creation of workgroups and the promotion of group dynamics (such as brainstorming), the firm commitment to online cooperation (chats, blogs, corporate pages ...) -very useful when some of the team members work remotely-, promote activities outside the workplace or, for example, set up a leisure and rest area where the team can relax.

Reward policies

Employee rewards are an essential component of effective employee engagement strategies. Rewards will improve the motivation and performance of the team. They can be financial but also have other nature. Here are some examples:

• Money incentive/bonus on salary
• Safety bonuses
• Company stocks/profit sharing policy
• Promotion in new / higher position inside the company
• Offering work flexibility: on schedule, work from home, etc
• Giving free vacations
• Restaurant / food tickets
• Offsite activities
• Fun at work
• ...
• Saying thank you!

When establishing your policy and process, you should consider that:

• Reward should be aligned to the organisational values (Clearly identify what you want to reward, such as individual or team performance, effectiveness, etc.)
• Reward should become part of the organisation's culture (Encourage supervisors and peers to say thank you, informal recognition at meetings, formal recognition programs, etc)
• Determine the most effective types of recognition and reward. (Recognition is as simple as saying thank-you or as elaborate as a formal presentation at a company event and ask employees what kinds of rewards they would appreciate (within the limits of your start-up budget)
• Determine who should make the reward decision (implementation of an evaluation process)

Conclusion

Acknowledging efforts, showing the results, follow-up, promoting high-quality relationships and a positive, inclusive collaboration framework will set up the basis for a motivated team and successful results. 

Here you have the contents of the lesson in PDF: