Why a motivated team is better than a lousy one - Ultimate guide to team productivity

Employee motivation is more than just a concept; it is what drives employees to work efficiently. Understanding the importance of motivation within one’s workforce is one of the most important parts of running a successful business.

Employee motivation is vital to an organisation’s prosperity. It's the degree of responsibility, drive and energy that an organization's employees bring to the job regularly. Without it, organizations experience diminished utility, lower levels of output and all things considered, the organization will miss the mark of arriving at significant objectives as well.

Like everything else, motivation varies across different people and their personalities. While some people seek motivation from their colleagues or managers, the other half is driven to work in providing motivation to their co-workers.

So which category do you fall into?

In this article, we look into why employee motivation is important in any startup and how to motivate your team to perform better!

Does your manager motivate you to do better?

Truth is that employees are already motivated! That is the reason why they cracked the interview and landed up with the particular job in the first place. But, as time passes by the work they are assigned starts becoming monotonous. The initial excitement of a new job and taking up assignments subsides. Motivation is pushed back as a cycle of monotony and passivity takes over.

“An employee’s motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.”

– Bob Nelson

Here comes the role of a manager! Along with all the other duties on a manager’s shoulders comes the responsibility of figuring out how to tap into the eclipsed motivation and bring it back on the table in order make their team accomplish their work and life goals.

Akeel Javaihttps://www.linkedin.com/in/akeel-javaid-91a9b3152/d - Associate Director of Sales at PlanetSpark keeps his team motivated in a number of ways.

Whenever one joins an organisation as an employee there is a cycle of expectations which begins. The employee has certain expectations from the organisation and the job. Likewise, the employer has certain expectations too.

But is it okay for the employer to keep their demands on the table as soon as the employee starts working?

That sounds way too dictatorial, doesn't it?

Now let's view the same concept in the "Akeel Javiad" way!

Rather than demanding work, Akeel aims at understanding what his team members are looking for in their work. He tries to understand where they are coming from and what their purpose is. Rather than demanding things out of your employees, show them how it is done.

Akeels’s TLC approach to a highly motivated team

Talk
Listen
Connect

Let's delve a bit deeper than just postulating, here we go:

Talk

As everyone is already aware, communication is indeed the key. Talk to your team members, yes, that's about it. It is very important for your employees to relate to the purpose of the organisation and to the person they are working with.

Share your journey and experiences with your team members. Tell them about the challenges you faced and how to overcome them.

Listen

Give your folks time and space to think, process and execute tasks. As human beings, we never stop learning. Learning is an on-going process. As employees we learn new things about our work every other day. It is important to stay patient and listen to the issues and dilemmas your team members are facing.

Sometimes lending an ear can prove to be highly productive (and all that is needed).

Connect

Developing trust and connections will help employees feel happy and motivated to work. All the talking and listening will become a mere wastage of time if they are not accompanied by established connections.

One of the most basic ways of doing so is to stay in touch with your team. Be there for them when they need you. Stay connected to them and watch them do wonders.

But how does it work?

Motivation happens when your dopamine spikes because you anticipate something important is about to happen. The brain can be trained to feed off of bursts of dopamine sparked by rewarding experiences. You create the dopamine environment, and the brain does the rest.

Motivation is the main impetus that continues to push us to arrive at a specific objective through our activities. At the point when you accomplish a work without motivation, you neglect to do it with full devotion and effectiveness. Motivation assists in expanding work efficiency and draws out the best of an individual's actual potential.

Coming back to the point - So how to motivate your team?

Even after looking for an assortment of impetuses, you are still seeing negative side effects of low motivation? You’re on the correct page! In some cases even the best supervisors need to consider some out of the box possibilities to find innovative and reliable ways of motivating their teams.

Gamify things

Humans work more efficiently when there is an incentive. Maybe that is the reason incentive based government policies prove to be more successful than the others.

Whether in school or in a workplace, the key motivator is alike, earning a “badge” or points for accomplishing goals.

Akeel’s TLC approach

Connecting on an individual level with your employees, earning their trust and giving them space and time to understand things in order to arrive at a common purpose proves to be highly effective.

Transparency and Positivity

If employees don’t feel included they will eventually lose interest in their work. Opening up to your employees about what is happening and giving them a chance to share their opinion and perspectives will help them connect with the goals of the organisation on a personal level.

Importance of Work- life balance

You must be having a profound knowledge of this point by now.

You don’t? Well you cannot miss out on this extremely interesting and highly meaningful conversation with Kartik Srivastava on everything you need to know about work-life balance.

Check it out here!

Recognition and Appreciation Rituals

Last but not the least, It is very important to recognise a person’s work and appreciate them for what they have contributed.

Even if an employee has contributed a small amount to the organisation’s growth, they have worked hard in order to do so. Appreciating them for the time and efforts they have put in and rewarding them with recognition help employees do better and work harder.