There’s no denying that team engagement is key to a healthy, productive workplace. Increasing the team engagement is largely in the hands of team managers, and a good manager ensures their team is dialed in to their responsibilities, not just clocked into the workplace. Several management strategies can help increase the motivation of the team and get them to give their best to the role. While you must be a little intuitive when handling your team’s morale and motivation, here are five tries and tested ways to keep the team’s bonding level high and avoid a compatibility crisis between you and your team.
1. One-On-One Meetings Work!
That’s right, those one-on-one meetings you have with your team members biweekly or monthly are a great chance for you to become a better listener for your team. Ask them questions and provide them with a safe space to share their concerns. If they know they can trust you they would openly tell you what’s working for them at the workplace, what isn’t, what kind of support they would appreciate from you, and what they would rather you did not do, that you might consider productive but actually impacts their performance negatively. For instance, if you tend to check in with your team about the status of a task too many times during the day, you might subtly micromanage them. Your job in the check-in meetings should be letting them have the floor and objectively dealing with whatever comes up to help them out.
2. Appreciate Their Input
Gratitude attracts blessings, but if we were to look at this idea from a corporate lens, it would look something like: when you acknowledge your team member’s efforts and what they have achieved for the team, you need make them feel seen, heard and appreciated you also open the room for improvement, an increased drive to perform even better and an overall sense of satisfaction from the job that your valued team members need. For instance, always acknowledge the link between small efforts from different members of your team to the bigger picture of the win your company took home. If you landed a marketing client, consider the efforts your graphic designer put in helping you prepare the pitch deck. They might have only designed some visuals for you, but if you appreciate their contribution, they will feel more inspired to do even better the next time.
3. Delegate Autonomy
As a manager, your job is to make sure you’re constantly looking for a win-win situation for you and your employees. What that means is bridging the gap between organizational goals and individual professional goals of your team. Once you have outlined the project’s outcome and basic contours, for instance, ask your team questions like what they have been working on. Is there something they would like to work on instead? Do they see any value in the experience they are gaining? If not, how do they propose the company can help them? These are some hard-hitting questions that will not only bring you clarity about how to get the best from your employees, but it will also provide your employees with some clarity around their trajectory if they are unsure. In the end, a good employee on the record of your company can’t hurt, so you might as well help your employees grow in that direction.
4. Put Together an SOP
People respond to a codified set of rules a lot better than when they process information that’s verbal and unclear, and a little raw around the edges, which is usually what happens in face-to-face meetings and even during orientation day at work. Your best bet is putting together an SOP of how things work your organization uses knowledge management tools. This act will help ensure all your employees have a code to refer to when they decide.
5. Be Available
Last but not least, a well-engaged team does not have communication gaps. As a manager, you should be able to communicate with your team as frequently as needed. It helps if your employees are aware of what is going on in the bigger picture. For instance, if you’re looking to gather with a pool of investors, letting your pitch deck guy know how high the stakes are will drive them to deliver better.
Conclusion
Managing people is probably the toughest task in the corporate world, but with the help of a few tried and tested options, you can really get good at it and build the kind of team that makes all the other departments in the company a little envious. Just make sure your team can communicate their concerns and feel fulfilled in their role.