6 Effective Team Motivation Ideas for Turbulent Times

It may seem obvious that motivation is crucial in ensuring a productive work environment and a healthy work environment, which collectively contribute to a well-functioning workplace. However, achieving this can be more challenging than one might expect, especially when striving to maintain employee performance and employee engagement.

There are numerous strategies to motivate teams, including team building activities and regular feedback sessions that foster a positive work environment. Some employers may find it challenging to keep employees motivated and ensure employee satisfaction during regular days, highlighting the need for regular communication and employee feedback.

If your workplace culture is experiencing challenges, how do you proceed to drive motivation and maintain engaged employees, especially during uncertain times?

If you want your entire team to succeed, they must be driven to interact with you, with one another, and with the task at hand, fostering open communication and a healthy work environment.

Some team members excel at self-motivation, often needing less external tangible rewards to stay driven. Nevertheless, given last year's difficulties, even teams that usually feel valued and are naturally motivated may struggle to find the drive to achieve their team goals.

And what about individual employees who struggle with motivation even under the best circumstances, indicating a need for more development opportunities and constructive feedback? Most likely, the epidemic reduced their job satisfaction and employee morale to an all-time low, disrupting the work-life balance.

Nonetheless, motivated teams outperform and contribute to a highly engaged workforce, enhancing better customer service and employee satisfaction. As a manager, it is your responsibility to increase employee engagement, keep employees motivated, and ensure they have access to flexible schedules and psychological safety.

In this article, we will explore the six effective team motivation ideas for turbulent times and maintain a positive work environment—strategies that are critical especially in uncertain times.

What is Motivation?

Before we progress, it's essential to measure employee motivation and grasp what truly drives our entire team. While we might instinctively comprehend motivation, articulating it clearly can challenge even the most experienced leaders, emphasizing the need for open communication. We may even have to explore what motivation really means for us.

Consider motivation as the fundamental essence that propels high-performing employees to excel and overcome workplace challenges. It is the compelling force that drives employee turnover down and enhances employee morale, getting you out of bed and into action. Generally, our team's motivation can be categorized in two ways: push or pull, each affecting how employees feel and perform.

Push motivation is driven by basic needs or desires, which can include monetary rewards or tangible rewards that motivate employees. Pull motivation is predominantly fueled by passion, encouraging employees to pursue tasks because they align with their personal or professional growth, leading to finding motivation through meaningful work.

Why Be Motivated?

Without sufficient motivation, your team may complete their tasks, but not to the peak of their abilities, potentially impacting employee satisfaction and company goals. A motivated team not only achieves quality and productivity but also ensures substantial growth, contributing positively to the company's goals and performance reviews.

And if you are facing difficult times, there is no better time to make sure that your team is motivated. It may be just the thing to keep your team pushing when the going gets tough.

What drives team motivation?

Many employees are feeling burned out as a result of negotiating the uncertainties of the pandemic, adjusting to working from home, and juggling work and home/family/personal obligations — and finding motivation in the face of that burnout can be difficult.

That is why, as a manager, it is critical to understand what inspires teams and how you can leverage it to encourage your team.

A recent Harvard Business Review article described a research that identified three positive motivators that often lead to greater performance:

• Play: Allowing people and teams to explore, experiment, and have fun may be a powerful motivator.

• People are motivated to accomplish better when they believe their work has purpose.

• Potential: The ability to develop and grow is another important component in inspiring and motivating teams.

If you incorporate these three components into your management plan, you will encourage your team and inspire them to do their best job.

So, how do those driving aspects manifest themselves in practice?

How to Motivate a Team?

Now that we understand what motivation is, how do we go ahead and motivate teams?

1. Celebrate Individual Successes to motivate teams

Every team member desires to have their hard work recognized, seeking positive feedback that fosters a sense of well-being and drives continued success. This desire is shared by employees and employers alike—and you can motivate teams through this shared value. You need to acknowledge the efforts individuals put into accomplishing a task or meeting a goal set for them.

People tend not only to enjoy being appreciated, but they also strive harder when they see others succeeding around them. Celebrating other people's successes motivates individuals because it makes them feel like they have been successful too.

As previously said, some people are inherently more driven than others. Such people might be one of your most powerful team-motivational resources as a manager.

Spend your time and effort supporting the team members that are the most motivated and upbeat. With a 1-on-1 meeting software, arrange regular conversations and ask how you can help. Give them responsibility for planning team meetings, initiatives, and projects. As many chances as you can provide them to lead and coach others.

Offering your naturally motivated employees a visible, leadership-focused role can help them spread their joy and enthusiasm to others, encouraging new skills and positive feedback to overcome challenges and ensure continued success. The staff will consequently be more inspired and upbeat.

2. Create a Sense of Belonging and Identity

People are social beings, thriving when they feel like an integral part of a group that promotes project goals and new ideas while helping other employees to stay on the same page: this is true for employees as well. When they feel like the company actually cares about them, their productivity increases, and it becomes easier to motivate teams.

Even simple things, like making sure someone knows their role in an organization, or giving someone a nickname, can go a long way in ensuring people feel they belong in a team.

3. Establish Goals and Provide Feedback to Motivate Teams

Establishing company-wide goals with specific deadlines makes it easier for people's efforts to be seen in terms of tangible results. When individuals know that their hard work will lead them towards a goal or help achieve one, the chances are high that you have managed to successfully motivate your employees.

Once you have established goals, maintaining momentum is vital, especially in remote work environments where motivating employees to achieve project goals can promote work-life balance. You need to provide your team with good feedback that makes them feel they are on the right track.

When employees know that their work is actually achieving something, they will do even better next time around.

Identify the most enthusiastic and determined members of your team and invest your time and energy in them. Arrange regular meetings with them utilizing 1-on-1 meeting software and ask how you can help them. Provide them the responsibility of arranging team meetings, projects, and initiatives. Offer them as many leadership and mentorship chances as you can.

Giving your naturally driven staff a role that is both more visible and leadership-focused will help them inspire others. As a result, the team will be more motivated and upbeat.

4. Reward Good Work With Tangible Incentives

When individuals clearly understand what is expected from them and see that their efforts are being rewarded, there is little doubt that they would not be motivated. Rewarding people for good work through bonuses motivates teams because it makes an effort seem worthwhile in more ways than one.

Rewards may be used as tools to motivate teams when economic growth seems stagnant, providing all the answers to maintain morale and promote work-life balance, thereby ensuring continued success It helps motivate employees to keep going while giving value at the same time. Employers can also easily track giving out bonuses through paystub generators. 

5. Having Fun at Work to motivate Teams

People love to be happy at work, which not only improves their well-being but also fosters more autonomy, making them feel valued in a job that offers unique challenges and opportunities.

There is no way around the fact that having fun while working motivates employees and makes them want to return to work every day. This can take many different forms, like watching movies or taking trips. Whatever it is, having fun at work makes for a motivated team. Make sure to generate invoices for all these bonus expenses to make them easier to keep track of.

Employee motivation does not have a one-size-fits-all answer; various teams require varied motivators. Thus, if you're wondering how to encourage your staff, just ask them!

Arrange a meeting with your team and ask what they require from you to feel more inspired at work, ensuring everyone is on the same page and moving head-on towards continued success Follow up with one-on-one conversations to further understand how to encourage specific employees. Finally, using the knowledge you gathered from your team, inspire them in a way that suits them.

6. Encourage Camaraderie

When employees feel like they are part of a team, the chances of them being motivated go up. When people know that their colleagues have their back and vice versa, it creates an environment where everyone is more likely to motivate each other.

It promotes teamwork which can lead to better results in general. This is something that employers should try to achieve at all times.

You may have ideas about where you want to motivate your team to go, but if you truly want to drive them, you must offer them a sense of power over that path. Arrange regular team meetings (for example, once a quarter or at the start of a new project or effort) to ask your staff how they want to see the team grow and change.

What are their perspectives on the current situation? Where are the present prospects for growth? And how can you collaborate to develop, alter, and evolve in a way that resonates with the objectives, purpose, and preferred direction of the team?

Final Thoughts

Motivation is a crucial factor in creating a productive workplace. And if you are in turbulent times, then motivation is something that a team all the more needs. It only serves to push everything forward and bring everyone upward.