10 Winning Tips to Boost Team Motivation

“If you take out the team in teamwork, it's just work. Now, who wants that?”- Matthew Woodring Stover

In business, success is typically the result of many hands and minds working together towards the same goal.

Leading a team to greatness is not an easy task. That is even more true in the corporate world. Every day employees are subjected to new challenges, uncertainty, stress, and anxiety. This naturally has an impact on their morale and motivation.

As leaders and managers, inspiring and motivating teams and keeping team morale high should always be a top priority.

Presenting 10 Effective Ways to Boost Team Motivation among employees:

1. Recognize. Recognize. Recognize.

Recognition is the secret sauce for team motivation. Timely and meaningful recognition is a powerful tool to inspire your team. Small and big wins in the workplace are golden opportunities for recognition that you must not miss out on.

Whether it is a personalized note of appreciation, a shout-out on the internal portal, or bringing every member together for a team lunch, try to highlight how their effort made a difference. Even a tiny gesture like praising them can uplift team motivation. Make the praise powerful by showing gratitude and recognition through unique, substantial ways.

2. Collaboration over Competition

Workplaces in the past had been the hotbed for competition and conflicts. The newer generations in the workplace, however, are changing that. They believe in collaboration over competition, and this can prove to do wonders for the organization.

In a collaborative workspace, employees do not hoard off each other’s ideas. Instead, they uplift one another and are more focused on the greater goal. The result is a pool of ideas, resources, and perspectives. This can together lead to improved outcomes and a healthier bottom line.

More and more organizations should mold their cultures into collaborative ones to organically boost team motivation and camaraderie.

3. Team-building activities for the Win

For a team to work together and deliver desired results, they must be in sync. A great way of strengthening teams and bringing them closer is via team-building activities.

Team-building activities are nothing but quick games and exercises suitable for being done in the workplace or with work teams. They present an excellent way for employees to know each other better and learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Apart from providing your employees a great time, these activities will also inculcate skills that they can use both in their professional and personal life.

Also, since the number of remote teams is now on the rise, here's a list of virtual team-building activities to unite them.

4. Leverage Cross-functional Teams

According to Business Dictionary, a cross-functional team is a “group of people with different functional specialties or skills. People who are responsible for carrying out all phases of a program from start to finish.”

Read: A Brief Guide On Cross-Functional Teams

In simpler words, when you bring people from various departments together to achieve specific goals, they are referred to as Cross-functional teams. E.g., a team of people from sales, marketing, development, and operations.

CFTs can exist as primary teams in the company or as additional teams on top of the main hierarchy structure. They naturally enhance communication within departments and create a cohesive work environment. Building cross-functional teams will lead to effective and faster results and aid in team motivation.

5. Transparency and Fairness

It seems that employees have won the war of talent. They now have higher bargaining power and unrealistic expectations from employers. A high degree of transparency in the workplace is non-negotiable.

The key to retaining top talents is giving their very best on the job. When you set your employee’s salaries, be sure to be fair and consistent with the numbers.

Most conflicts and confusion arise when there is no clarity about what is happening in the organization at the highest level. Making employees feel involved in big company decisions and including them in the decision-making process can immensely help sustain team motivation.

6. Supportive Working Environment

If you want teams to thrive, you must give them the means to grow. Technology, for example, plays a big part in the modern workforce. To maximize team efforts, you should offer your teams with state of the art tools and technology.

The company culture should necessarily facilitate career progression. Keep an eye on whether your employees can achieve their personal goals. You should also provide them with assistance and opportunities to hone new skills or improve existing skills.

Next, you should be personable. The team should feel they can come to you at any time with a problem, issue, or concern.

7. Lead By Example

The fastest way to motivate a team is by leading them by example. Unless the leadership doesn’t set the right tone at the top, you can’t expect teams to do so. When you hold high standards yourself, you will inspire your team to do the same. They will rise as per your expectations of excellence and deliver desired results.

Related: Leadership Skills For Managers That Will Help You in 2020

8. Encourage Creative and Innovative Thinking

A workplace should be the breeding ground for creative and innovative thinking. You hire your employees for their unique and special traits if you ignore their brilliance, there is no bigger mistake that you can make.

When you encourage open dialogue, employees get to explore their potential and think out of the box. Additionally, it unlocks the opportunity for business innovation and growth. Creative thinking also boosts problem-solving and improves workflows.

9. Create Pleasant Working Space

You often tend to overlook the importance of good design on the motivation of members of your team. Our immediate workplace environment has a big impact on the state of our minds. Create an enjoyable workspace where employees look forward to coming back to.

The workplace vibe depends on many factors such as noise, air quality, privacy, natural light, etc. The workplace should also have well-designed co-working spaces and areas to relax. Having an in-house gym area and a loaded snack station at work can do wonders for team collaboration.

Related: 8 Actionable Ways to Improve Workplace Environment

10. Optimize the Meetings

Meetings are a crucial part of running a business. But are they that effective? Let’s quickly refer to these shocking statistics:
More than $37 billion is spent on unproductive meetings.

During a meeting, 39% of meeting participants admitted to dozing off.

According to an estimated report, 25-50% of the meeting time is wasted.

Meetings are still relevant and helpful. It allows you to stay updated, discuss ideas, solve problems and make collective decisions. But the key is to optimize team meetings. Keep meeting short, simple and invite people who are needed for the meeting. Have an agenda for each meeting and try to stick to them. Meetings should be frequent, but you shouldn’t conduct them just for the sake of it.

This article is written by Darshana Dutta. She works as a Content Creator and Digital Marketer at Vantage Circle. She writes extensively on trends around employee engagement and transforming company culture. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com