Our earlier blog “5 Tips for Instant Team Motivation” was so popular that we have put together another with details of 5 more ways to boost productivity and create a great working environment.
Someone send this manager the link to this blog!
So here are the 5 extra routes to raising team morale in an instant:
1. Chat with each of your team on a one on one basis at least once a week. This shouldn’t be a meeting to discuss a specific issue but a two way conversation without an agenda. It demonstrates that you are interested in the person not just their work. Make it a significant event by setting the time for the conversation in advance and choosing an appropriate meeting place, not just across a desk from each other. In advance think of specific ways you can encourage and praise that person.
2. Create a buzz around the workplace by setting a simple group challenge. It could be to suggest names for a new project or to think of ways to wow a challenging customer. The task itself isn’t as important as the process of involving everyone’s ideas. It’s not even necessary to run a formal brainstorm session, even an email conversation can generate a buzz of excitement and creative energy.
3. Laugh together, several times a day, share a joke, a YouTube clip or a story. Laughter releases good chemicals into our body that counter stress and fight off illness and, most importantly make being at work fun. Even if the work you do is serious you don’t have to be serious about the way you do that work.
4. Treat the team to some chocolate, cakes or an extended lunch break. Spontaneous acts of kindness are increasingly rare in our society so when we receive them they are all the more valuable.
5. Write a handwritten card or note of thanks to one of your team for going the extra mile. Don’t be tempted to send an email – it won’t have the same impact – and don’t simply leave it on your colleague’s desk. Send it to their home address, ideally to arrive on the Saturday morning so they have two days of feeling great about themselves, charging them up for the week ahead.
Do let us know if you have any other ideas by commenting in the box below.
