8 Methods to Motivate a Team

In today’s society, we’re all part of a team. With business evolving slowly to offering more collaborative spaces, we are uncovering a lot about teams.

Particularly in what some of the best ways for us to be motivating other people are.

After all, we’ve been working so hard at incentivizing people with money, we’ve come to learn there are other motivators.

To give some context, there has been talk about various reasons people want to work with companies. Job Monkey put together a brief list of reasons. Some of those reasons being:

• Flexibility.
• Job security (Some jobs have next to no turnover like cybersecurity at the moment.)
• Perks and benefits
• Reputation
• Or in some cases the overall drive of a team.

That last bit is important since teams make or break companies these days. If you have a great team, you’ll get a lot more done.

There is no denying that a team is crucial to business growth, but it’s an entirely different beast to manage. From what I’ve said above, people are working for you for different reasons. One incentive can entice some, but it’s not going to be enough for others.

So what can we do to keep groups together and motivated?

Some incentive ideas that come to mind are things like:

Give people more flexible working time.

As each generation comes in, we've come to learn that each group has their own needs and desires. They all have varying goals and of course it's important for us to have every person we bring on mesh with our culture and team.

One way that you can bring an entire team together is consider things like adding more flexible working time. After all, people have slowly come to dislike the 9 to 5 grind.

Some people prefer working hourly for prolonged periods of time.

In those situations, one model that a business or a team could adopt is a sort of a to-do list model. Basically every day there is a list of tasks that each person needs to work on.

As long as the list is done by the next business day that's okay, but employees are free to do what they want to do.

How this helps is that you're placing more responsibility into the hands of the employee. This can embolden them and allow them more flexibility to do other things.

Have options to let employees blow off steam.

I once went into an accounting firm and found that they had a shower installed. I'm well aware of other business like Google have all kinds of stuff in their building, but to see something like that in a place of business is unusual and unique.

The thing is though that there is a wonderful reason for Google to have those sorts of things in their building and why others are considering it. One of those reasons is that it can build teams and keep them engaged and motivated.

Having a gym right in your building can allow people to relax and destress in the middle of work. In the case of the accounting office having showers can be a convenient place for workers to go after they're done going to the gym. That or perhaps it can help them to relax as showers tend to do.

Either way, having these things provides all kinds of productivity perks and can help employees.

Consider unlimited paid leave.

This is a strategy that has paid off in some industries. People love vacations and time off work. This is despite so many working the grind day in and day out.

While you'd think this would be grossly abused, that's not the case. Those who are in creative spaces can really benefit this. And under the right kind of expectations, this little perk can work like a charm.

The idea is this: as long as the work gets done and done well, it doesn't matter what the person does up to that point.

This sort of behaviour is what this idea entails. Give someone specific deadlines and expectations for what they want. Up to that point they can do whatever they like so long as they meet those demands.

So why does this idea work? Well like I said, people love to take time off and go on vacations. People don't do that enough and in this day and age many people are overworked and over-stressed.

By giving them this level of flexibility, people can leave behind work and do other more pressing life things. That or maybe take some time off to figure out new and creative solutions to problems.

Offer opportunities to sharpen other skills

In the workplace, it's important for us to continue growing and learning. Often times that means improving specific skills or learning new skills.

What's more is the fact that many people can get stuck in a loop or rut where they are doing the same work over and over again. The thing is people aren't robots and will eventually get bored about doing the same work constantly.

This is one way to motivate people and keep groups together as you can provide opportunities for people to learn new skills to help them branch out to other areas.

Offer praise more often.

Tell someone good job or thank you is something truly amazing.

People automatically feel instinctively happy when getting that sort of praise and it lifts them up. So why not work to offer that more?

Of course, you don't want to go crazy with it and offer it at every corner. Even praise like that can become empty and undervalued when used too often.

Instead, you need to consider another way to measure when to offer praise. With this in mind, I'd suggest offering praise in situations where someone performs above and beyond than usual. To determine this depends on what your business is all about. Either way you want to be look at people who are performing the best and show some praise.

Other forms of praise can stem from people doing things above and beyond what they're paid to do. This doesn't have to be amazing or anything. It can be as simple as making customers a little bit happier. Or perhaps you share a process that cuts the time to perform a particular task and boost earnings for the company.

While each one makes a different impact in their own way, all of these play a crucial role. So give praise where praise is due.

Consider team bonding moments.

The idea with these is not only to understand these people professionally but also personally. These people have lives outside of work. They have hobbies, passions, goals and dreams.

The only way you're going to be able to know that is to sit down and talk with them. To get to know them more.

This has a way of helping team dynamics as well as it can often provide context for why they think a certain way or do things a specific way.

I also consider this a viable option as it brings back what business and a job is all about. The goal of a job is to have it being treated as a stepping stone. While millennials hop from job to job, at the end of the day, our careers are all one big stepping stone to help us live the life we want comfortably.

With this in mind, I think it's especially important for managers and company owners to understand the individuals in their team. The team is going to change over time, but I feel it's managers and owner's roles to help employees lead the life they want to have. This means getting to know them and figuring out ways to help them achieve those goals and dreams.

On top of that, moments where the team is bonding in general can also help as well. The more we understand other people the more we can learn to get along with them and work better with them.

Do volunteer work together

Volunteer work not only boosts company image but it also works in the same sort of fashion as having team bonding moments. Volunteer work still has a professional element, but it also boosts productivity and cooperation.

There is enough of a balance of personal and professional element to boost team work. The only thing is you want to make sure that the work is for a cause people are passionate about.

Stay connected with them.

With platforms like Slack and the existence of text and instant messages, there are all kinds of ways to keep your group together and talking on the regular.

These create a sense of community and can keep teams together. Not only can it be used to share ideas and talk to people directly, but you can use it for other purposes as well. The only thing to keep in mind is to not use it to message people constantly.

At the end of the day, keeping people motivated is simple in science. That being said, you need to figure out what methods will work for each person. So definitely experiment or even adopt a good portion of these ideas into your business.