Is your virtual team in a motivational rut? As work pressure increases and schedules become tight, team enthusiasm reservoirs can deplete faster than a river in a drought. It’s important to recognize that to achieve success, maintaining team motivation should be an ongoing practice and responsibility for team leaders. Here are 3 ways to get your team back in the game, happy, engaged and ready to roll!
1) Encouragement
Fact: 69% of employees would work harder if they were better recognized (Workforce Mood Tracker Survey)
It’s amazing what wonder a little pat on the back can do for team motivation. But encouragement is more than complementing an employee for their work. Sure, saying “good job” or “nice work” may be a genuine remark and pleasing to hear, but these words are also generic. For an employee to feel recognized for their services, team leaders should try and complement them on a personal or detailed, level, even if the achievements are small. For example, after a successful meeting, say things like, “I really liked the way you handled that question with the client this afternoon. I could take some pointers from you”, or “The report that you submitted last was excellent. I was very impressed with how you…”. It’s important to let the employee know that their presence is significant to the company.
2) Take action
Fact: Engagement surveys without visible follow-up action may decrease engagement levels (2011 Employee Engagement Report)
Walk the talk. If you find that your team is disengaged through your own observations or through formal tools such as engagement surveys, it is important to take action immediately. Your team will respond if they realize you are making a conscious attempt to engage them. The first step is to talk to your team. Isolate where you need to take action by recognizing where the problems lie. Is the work pressure becoming too heavy? Is there a lack of team cohesion? Are there additional problems occurring in the individual’s personal life? Depending on the degree of sensitivity of the issue, address the problem on a one-on-one or group setting, accordingly. Some suggestions to engage your team include creating fun and meaningful virtual meeting activities, or treating your team to free e-books or gift-cards—or even occasional half days!
In some cases however, the team leader may even have to the find the solution beyond him or herself, as there is only so much one person can humanly achieve alone. Luckily, there are excellent support systems, such as the Virtual Engagement Diagnostic Tool, which are designed to address the specific problems of your team. Having external support systems reduce the load on the team leader. He or she can now focus on managing the team projects, while having a secondary support system diagnosing and facilitating employee satisfaction.
3) Free/creative time
Fact: 59% of engaged employees say that their job brings out their most creative ideas against only 3% of disengaged employees (Human Resources and Employee Engagement Statistics)
High work satisfaction and engagement is directly related to high levels of innovation. This correlation is not surprising when considering how Google handles employee engagement. The Internet tycoon harnesses innovation by literally allowing workers to have free time. They call this the “20 Percent Time” rule. Here, Google engineers spend 20% of their time working on their own leisurely interests—which means tasks that have no relation to their job description. Through this strategy, the company encourages creative thinking, which enables them to develop new IT ideas and address gaps that have been overlooked in existing services.
At the end of the day, the team leader’ responsibility is to ensure that team members are excited about their work. This is the only way tasks can be completed and company growth can occur. We hope these strategies help you. Talk to us. Let us know how you facilitate motivation at your virtual workplace!
