How to motivate your team

If you have a team working for you, they are undoubtedly one of your most crucial assets. It’s therefore very important to help them stay motivated. Not only to ensure they work hard for you, but also to give them satisfaction in their own role.

There are some key things you can do to help them out:

Communication

You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that communication can help with motivation in an independent business. 

When your team is relatively small, it’s a good idea to spend the time getting to know them both as a team and individually. Plus, the more you get to know them, the more approachable you’ll become. And the more approachable you become, the more likely they are to talk to you when there’s an issue, or provide you with honest feedback, both positive and negative.

Give your team goals

If your team don’t know what they’re working towards, they’re less likely to achieve their best. 

Make sure that they understand the purpose of your business and what your business goals are. Getting them involved and invested in this way can encourage them to work with you to achieve your goals.

On a more personal level, it can be helpful to set individual goals - ones that are measurable - so the team member can see how well they’re improving or performing. They can then clearly see their success (hopefully!), making them feel more valued and motivated.

Creating a productive working environment

How do you ensure that your people look forward to coming into work? Making sure that is a pleasant place to be is a good start! The happier they are in the workplace, the more productive they are likely to be too.

Now, we’re not talking about putting a slide in your office, but there are simple things you can do to help. This could be as easy as making sure there is enough natural light, clean air, space to relax and eat lunch, healthy snacks, cold water etc. 

Offer opportunities

It’s important to invest in members of your team if you can. Who knows how useful they might be in the future to help your business grow. This could be training courses, or they could simply shadow another member of staff, or yourself, for a week to learn new skills.

Helping your team grow and develop can make them feel more valued, and more invested in their work.

Positive feedback and rewards 

Sometimes, a “thanks for all your hard work” is all it takes for someone to feel appreciated. So, if someone does a good job, make sure you tell them. Say why they did a good job and how it benefited the business, so they understand their importance.

If you’re setting targets for your individual team members, and they smash them, you could also reward this. How about an extra half day of holiday? Or, if you’ve a small team, you could set them a group target and then treat them to an afternoon out to say well done.