How To Motivate Your Team To Increase Productivity


We often see spiritual and motivational leaders on television who gives non-stop speeches on motivation. Whether by following those speeches you will feel motivated or not is a different topic to discuss, at least not following them may not affect your work. But if your team is not motivated in the workplace then it seriously affects your project work.

Now, the world is becoming more and more competitive where there is scope for only motivated and dedicated resources to run a successful business or venture. A dull and sluggish work environment can kill the spirit and ruin your project. So, it is important to motivate your team constantly to keep their spirit up. At times a simple pat on the back and few words of appreciations can do the magic.

But that may not work always when the team is struggling to complete their work in a tight deadline, it’s necessary to find out a perfect solution to ease up their work. You should have that required skills and knowledge to help them to overcome the difficult situations.

Let us now discuss some of the proven techniques to motivate the team. But before that, let’s find out what the team needs from their managers while working on a project.

What the Team Needs From You?

You may think that money is a major factor behind motivation. But that is not completely true, though people want money for a better life but there are other needs which also play an important role to stay in an organization. That is the reason, despite playing the money games by many HR managers to retain their top talent but still they are not able to deal with the attrition.

So, let’s find out various needs which play the important role in motivation of an individual employee. To understand it better, let’s refer the famous motivation theory of Abraham Maslow which described the 5 basic stages of human needs.

  • The first and foremost priority is by fulfilling the basic needs to survive, such as Air, Water, Food, Clothes and a House to take shelter which can be termed as physiological needs.
  • Once the basic needs are fulfilled, the next thing they need is the safety and security. So, the feeling of securing a job can keep them in an organization, where frequent fear of lay-off can demotivate them.
  • After the financial and personal security, they require a friendly workplace or friendship with co-workers which can bind them in the organization. It has been seen that people are more productive when they work in a friendly environment. Also a good and fair policy towards marriages and leaves can multiply their commitment towards the organization.
  • When all the above levels are fulfilled, the person needs status, recognition, fame, attentions, and above all the needs for self-respect and feelings of self-accomplishments. So freedom to work and timely recognition of the good works can highly motivate the team to achieve higher goals.
  • Then the person desires to accomplish everything, be a subject matter expert, owning a module or a complete project. So, a fair and timely growth of deserving employees can have positive impacts on their commitment towards the organization.

So, it is important to understand their needs first and then plan the best ways to keep them motivating to increase the productivity and minimize the attrition.

9 Ways to Motivate Your Team

Let’s discuss the 9 useful motivation techniques.

  • Better Work Place: A clean and comfortable environment surely increase the team’s productivity. Nobody wants to work in a messy and uncomfortable work environment. The small things like comfortable chairs, air-conditioned rooms have a bigger impact on the productivity.
  • Stand with the Team: The team feels more aligned when you stand with them when they need you. Stand with them in their sorrows, while being a part of their happy moments. Do not hesitate to smile, laugh and have fun with your team.
  • Strict No to Micromanagement: Not trusting your people, standing over their shoulders to get the work done is the biggest blunder which can surely demotivate your team. Let the people perform their work, you should have trust in them.
  • Timely Recognition: A fair and timely recognition of deserving members can motivate the team to continue their good works. The acknowledgment of good work both privately and publicly can motivate the rest of the team members to perform hard towards reaching the same milestones.
  • Regular Feedback: Whether a member is performing well or lacking somewhere, a timely feedback on his performance can provide a clear message that their works are being measured and recognized. This motivates them to give their best, which in turns improves team’s productivity.
  • Clear Communication: A clear and reliable communication channel ensure the team that someone is there to hear their voices. It has been seen that when people do not have proper channels to communicate their voices then frustration raises. That resentment can reduce the team’s productivity.
  • Skill Development Training: Training and workshops on latest technologies should be conducted on a regular basis to keep the team at par the market needs. That gives them the stratification that in terms of skills and knowledge they are not lagging behind inside or outside the organization.
  • Ownership and accountability: Give them the freedom to work, provide them the ownership and make them accountable for the work they are doing. That will give them the feeling of direct engagement with organization’s success and failures. By having that visibility they will motivate to work towards reaching the organizational goal.
  • Use of tools: Using various automation tools can reduce the manual intervention, which eases up the workload and gives them the much-needed family time to maintain the work-life balance. So, encourage the team to study the various tools available in the market that can be replaced for manual work.

A motivated team can make the impossible task possible. In this competitive world where organizations are competing for each other to launch their product into the market in the shorter time period, it is advantageous to have highly motivated teams to meet the challenging deadlines and win more opportunities.

Samual Sam
Samual Sam

Learning faster. Every day.

Updated on: 23-Jan-2020

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