Employees are often heralded as a company’s best asset.
But if your team members’ or employee’s motivation dwindles, their performance, productivity and creativity begins to suffer. In order to achieve best possible results, it’s important to create a work environment where employees feel motivated and get things done. That is easier said than done. 2016 is just around the corner so it’s high time to polish your management skills, optimize your operations, and set the strategies to make it a phenomenal success.
Here are 3 ways to boost motivation and reinvent your team for next year:
#1 The state of collaboration
The whole point of working together in an organization to achieve a common goal is about facilitating collaboration. It’s fundamental you might say, but the nature of collaboration is changing and the question is if your ways of working have changed with it? Collaboration isn’t just open office landscapes and brainstorming sessions but something that the business leader or project manager must build from bottom and up.
True collaboration comes from empowered employees and team members who feel they have a mandate to drive your business forward. Nothing could be more important for the motivation. The increasingly popular lean and agile principles are tailor-made for this purpose: The team is the core. Do not wait until the job is done but involve stakeholders such as other colleagues and customers in the process. And most importantly, the people doing the work should be the ones planning it. As a leader, you should focus on strategies, objectives and supporting your team.
#2 Gear up your toolbox
Are your team’s tools in place? Are Outlook and Excel still cutting it for you? The digital revolution is a fierce force so you should ask yourself if you are keeping the pace. Collaboration, planning, communication, reporting and analysis – and even people management – are best served with software specifically designed to do the work.
Tools that focus on increasing efficiencies also increase motivation and productivity. Research demonstrates this, as businesses that harness the right technology in order to increase efficiencies also see a direct positive knock on effect in terms of productivity. Time saved through tech-driven efficiencies can be reinvested in company activities, or put towards a better work / life balance for employees. Do the homework: what productivity software would increase your efficiency and motivate your team?
#3 Fuel team communication
Communication within the team and between individual members and managers creates and sustains strong values and a sense of purpose for your project. Common values reinforce the purpose and makes it easier for all to steer towards the business objectives. And we all know that strong values often are what separate the really successful businesses from the rest. So, encourage and support your team’s ability to communicate, discuss and criticize. And as a leader, remember to be the example.
An important part of internal communication is reporting. Keeping your team updated about how work progresses is integral to create this sense of purpose and to motivate. However, the case for many teams and organizations is often the opposite. A lack of communication has led to 87% of employees worldwide feeling unmotivated, which impacts the ability to achieve goals. In addition, 37% of project managers believe that lack of communication between team members is the main collaboration challenge. Just imagine what implications this could have for your business.
Moving forward
Once lost, it’s very challenging to turn the culture in a team or an organization. Motivation and productivity go hand in hand and it’s clear that technology plays a vital role for driving change. If you believe that your team members or employees have untapped potential, start to address these three areas and your transformation will get a head start for 2016.
Learn more about how to move away from status quo, motivate your team, and reach peak performance. Try ProjectPlace Enterprise, an all-in-one project collaboration solution.
