Team Building 101: 9 Tips to Motivate Your Employees
When you run a business, your team is your backbone. The right group of people should create a solid foundation upon which you can build a successful company. Ideally, you want your teammates to feel pride, passion, and enjoyment in the work they do. While some of these qualities may come about naturally you, as their leader, can help maintain their motivation and foster an inspiring corporate culture within the office. These team building tips will help make your business even stronger:
- Be trustful and transparent
- Invest in your employees
- Give them a purpose
- Involve them in big decisions
- Recognize their hard work
- Address and solve their problems
- Encourage socialization in the office
- Offer prizes where appropriate
- Foster an enjoyable work environment
Be Trustful and Transparent
If you can’t trust your team, then they can’t trust you in return. This mutual distrust is a surefire way to create rifts within your organization and foster an overall toxic corporate culture. Avoid this by easing back on the micro-managing, offering your employees challenges that fit within their skill sets, and being transparent about the successes and failures of your company.
Invest in Your Employees
No matter how good your business is, it can always be better. One of the best ways to do this is to invest in your employees, to make them stronger and more skilled than ever before. You can accomplish this through offering to pay for educational classes, providing mentorship programs, offering job shadowing to allow employees to learn other roles within the business, and more.
Team Building is Better When Employees Have a Purpose to Aim For
No one wants to go to work, stare at a computer for 8 hours, then go home wondering what the point of their day was. Those thoughts lead to unhappiness in the workplace and can lead to high employee turnover when your staff leaves your office for a better opportunity. Make sure your employees always know what their purpose on your team is. Clearly outline their role and its importance in their contracts, and routinely provide them with data about how their job improves your organization. A yearly review is a great way to do this, because you can reassert an employee’s importance while also addressing any concerns they may have about their job.
Involve Them in Big Decisions
No man is an island, especially when surrounded by a great team. That philosophy is excellent to keep in mind when team building. The members of your organization all contribute to its successes and are affected by its failures, so it’s only fair to involve them in big decisions. As the brains behind your business, they may have excellent input and ideas, as well as unique perspectives, to contribute to the decision making process, which can strengthen the overall decision. Being asked to contribute also shows your employees that you value them.
Recognize Their Hard Work
While this part of team building may seem obvious, many business owners forget that recognizing the efforts of their employees is both a verbal and action-based effort. While telling your teammates that they’ve done good work is excellent, it’s also important to show them. You can do this by offering promotions, buying lunches, taking them out for fun activities, and more.
Address and Solve Their Problems
Trying to run a successful business is a difficult and stressful task. It makes sense that you don’t want to take on the stress of your employees as well. However, when an employee encounters a problem in the office, that problem can impact their work and the work of the rest of the team. Taking a few minutes to sit down with them and address or solve their concerns together can mitigate any negative impacts that snowball out of control if not dealt with.
Encourage Socialization in the Office
A workplace with strict rules preventing employees from socializing during work hours is a workplace devoid of teamwork and shared ideas. While many business owners believe that chatter during work hours is the enemy of productivity, socialization in the office actually fosters strong bonds, and helps refresh motivation.
Offer Prizes Where Appropriate
A little bit of workplace competition can be a healthy thing. Offering prizes for jobs well done can encourage employees to improve their work overall, and makes them feel more valued.
Foster an Enjoyable Work Environment
Abstract team building efforts are a great way to improve motivation and inspiration in the office. However, tangible efforts shouldn’t be forgotten. Having a nice physical environment can drastically increase employee morale. Add pops of colour, use plants to freshen the air, take stacks of boxes off the windowsills to let in more light, and encourage personalization of work stations to bring a touch of home into the office.
A strong, cohesive team results in a strong and successful business, and team building can help give you that strength.
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