The value of well-integrated, high-performing teams has long been recognised to be crucial to boost business performance. While all companies – from multinational organisations to medium and small-sized businesses – face unique challenges, there are core similarities when it comes to creating productive teams.
What can you do to motivate and engage your teams? What do employees seek from their management? Follow our 5 tips to successfully create a good team dynamic and increase performance.
1. Clearly define responsibilities & objectives
Most professionals will at some point experience some kind of overlapping of individual roles or team functions, which can be a source of confusion and frustration. Having clearly defined responsibilities and objectives at both an individual and team level is a key to employee engagement and motivation. Start by creating suitable job descriptions and complementary day-to-day responsibilities. It’s also important to define how the performance of a position is measured to keep team members stimulated.
2. Learn the art of recognition
A crucial factor in high-performing teams is rewarding good performers and adequately addressing poor performers. While receiving monetary compensation is always a nice incentive for a job well done, simple recognition can go a long way to help team members feel valued. Words of praise for effective performance – whether through team meetings, internal communications or newsletters – can ensure team members maintain a high level of motivation and wellbeing. Equally, recognising when a team member is struggling or not achieving their target and giving constructive feedback to help enhance their performance, will help encourage respect within the team.
3. Provide varied and interesting work
Varied and interesting work is what keeps individuals and teams most engaged. In order to keep work interesting, it is important to fully utilise the individual talents of team members, allowing them to play to their strengths and trade tasks that they are less suited to. Regular evaluations/catch-ups are also important to assess whether staff members should be taking on more or less responsibility to stay engaged.
4. Develop a leadership style that engages and motivates
If left unaddressed, poor leadership can decrease employee trust and openness, block performance and prevent team alignment with organisational goals
When speaking about employee engagement, it’s important to review leadership methods to see whether a certain style in fact works for the team and the goals needed to be achieved. Instead of selecting one specific leadership style, effective leaders are able to move among styles, selecting the one that is required in the moment. If you tend to have leadership style that is more “top-down” we would recommend you to communicate with your team to make decisions appear to be more consultative, which helps boost employee morale. This is especially important when changes need to occur, as employees will be able to accept change more easily when they feel involved in the decision-making process.
5. Implement mentoring programmes
A manager’s ability to support and mentor team members is seen as one of the highest rated qualities in the eyes of employees. If you have too many immediate reports and not enough time to see them one-on-one on a regular basis, we would recommend implementing a mentoring programme to ensure all staff are getting the support they need. A mentor can be anyone who is a role model and who can share knowledge and advice to help other employees grow professionally. The benefits of mentoring include greater productivity, higher job satisfaction and a more positive working environment for both the mentor and mentee.
More advice
Employee health and well-being issues can also lead to a decrease in productivity and engagement. Follow our 4 tips to implement a workplace wellness programme.
