Are you struggling to keep your team motivated? Learn the various ways to motivate and inspire your team to produce greater results.

A good leader understands the benefit of having a team that is motivated and inspired to get the job done.

However, keeping the team excited and motivated about their work can be a big challenge for any leader, even where members are passionate about their work.

Therefore, there is the need to understand some of the reasons why people lose motivation, to enable you to develop a motivation strategy accordingly.

This ensures the motivation level of members is on a high at all times.

Here are some of the effective ways that you can motivate your team and inspire them to greatness.

1. Set clear goals

As a leader, your ability to communicate your vision, goals, and ideas to members is one of the qualities that make a good leader.

According to Inc. employees who can find meaning within their role tend to be happier, healthier, and more productive.

Members become motivated only when they have a clear knowledge of what they are working on and what the end goal is.

This makes it necessary to communicate the vision and ultimate goals to members of the team.

Members should know exactly what the goal of the team is, what the priority is, and what role each member of the team needs to play to achieve the overall goal.

The goal should be communicated as often as possible as this inspires everyone to work collaboratively towards the achievement of that goal.

2. Create time for individual members

A study highlighted in a Harvard Business Review article shows that building connections with members, and giving them a sense of belonging could positively impact the productivity and emotional wellbeing of members.

As a leader, giving a member one-on-one time can be of great value.

It can be quite motivating for a member to have a relaxed conversation with ‘the Boss’ without having to dwell on urgent operational issues.

This builds a strong relationship which a leader can draw upon in difficult times or where extra effort is needed.

3. Adequately pay and compensate members

According to Inc., 26% of engaged members are willing to quit their current job for a 5% pay increase elsewhere.

Despite the motivating effect of a high paycheck, a leader must understand that the relationship between motivation, compensation, and productivity is a complex one.

In a meta-analysis by Timothy Judge and his team, the relationship between salaries and job satisfaction was shown to be very weak.

Gallup’s engagement research also shows that adequately compensating members has no significant impact on employee engagement.

This shows that to effectively keep your team motivated and engaged, money isn’t the solution.

For better results, there is a need to support a good paycheck with other effective ways of motivation.

4. Offer opportunities for self-development

Research shows that a team gets motivated when their leader shows a genuine commitment to their self-development and personal growth.

This shows that the ability to provide members of a team with development opportunities is an essential quality of a great leader.

To effectively motivate and inspire your team to greater success, it is important to provide them with the opportunity for personal development and growth.

When team members are afforded this opportunity to learn and develop their skills, they feel valuable to the team.

As a leader, it is important to tailor these opportunities specifically to suit the individual member.

Self-development opportunities could be given by way of further training, or personal spending your time mentoring and teaching the team member.

Encourage team members to set learning goals for themselves. And teach them transferable skills which would remain valuable to them even when they find themselves working elsewhere.

5. Provide a pleasant workplace

The environment we work in has a significant impact on our creativity, contentment, and productivity.

For everyone, working in an environment that is clean and stimulating gives a good feeling.

Providing a healthy workplace reduces the stress of team members and maintains their energy level.

Creating a nice and pleasant work environment does not necessarily require spending a lot of money.

6. Give positive feedback

Never overlook the motivating impact of recognizing and appreciating the achievements of team members.

The survey conducted by IBM shows that the level of engagement of employees who receive recognition is almost 3 times higher than that of employees who receive no recognition.

This shows just how important it is for leaders to recognize the effort of their members.

With such applause and recognition coming from the leader, members feel inspired and motivated to work harder towards achieving the goals of the team.

When team members do outstanding work, put in extra effort, or achieve results tell them how grateful you are.

Also, remember to praise individual members.

For instance, rather than just saying ‘thank you or ‘good job’, take your time to explain why it was a job well done, and how the effort has benefitted the team.

This instills confidence in members and motivates members to go on and succeed with future tasks.

However, publicly praising members and expressing gratitude may not be enough in certain situations.

Only 24 percent of employees are happy with the amount of recognition they get at work

Remember to reward your team for the hard work. Such a reward could be a monetary reward, a gift, a sponsored vacation, or a promotion.

7. Make work fun

In a research, 63% of employee respondents reported a waste of time at work because of boredom.

By nature, man is a social animal, and as human beings, there is that inner child within us that wishes to get things done enjoyably and entertainingly.

This makes it important as a leader to create a playful and lively collaboration process that attracts voluntary participation by members of the group.

For example, ways to make work fun and enjoyable could be through Gamification, giving out trophies and badges to encourage members’ achievements, as well as providing an enhanced visual experience.

Friendly competition among different teams could also be encouraged.

No one likes to feel pressured.

By engaging your members in a fun and playful manner, team members feel less pressured and are motivated to put in some extra effort.

8. Avoid unnecessary meetings

In a study, respondents consider 67% of meeting to be a total waste of productive time as it fails to communicate the sole purpose of the meeting.

In another study, 65% percent said meetings keep them from completing their task at work.

This shows that calling for unimportant meetings can be a big waste of members’ time.

Instead, create a meeting agenda, and have it distributed to members in advance.

Invite only those who need to attend, commence the meeting on time, and end as quickly as possible.

Aside from the motivational benefit, members are afforded more time to work creatively and efficiently to get the job done, especially when there is a looming deadline.

Conclusion

When a team member feels like their work is helping them develop as a person, they are sure to be motivated to do their best.

By promoting self-development and providing members with opportunities to progress in their careers, you are giving your team something more motivating to work towards than just a paycheck.

Your opinion

What one action are you going to take immediately to motivate your team to higher levels of work performance?

Leave a comment below.

This article was contributed by Godwin Amanyi.

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