For the first time since he became the official driver of the company five years ago, Mr. Peter was mentioned as the most loyal staffer in 2021. He got a plaque, some perks and a cash prize of N25,000. You needed to see his expression. It was priceless and he crossed his heart to bring his A game.
This tells you that a motivated workforce has a range of advantages on the success of the organisation’s success. The level of commitment, drive and energy that a company’s workers bring to the role everyday will hang on this balance.
Now whether you are in the private, public or in the development sector, the following strategies will motivate your team for peak performance.
1. CREATE AN ENGAGING WORKSPACE
An environment where ideas and innovation flourish is one that has been specifically designed to do so.
The office space that has the required tools and resources will go a long way to enable the team for peak performance.
Ranging from the ambience, the general outlook, and the grand feel of the workspace, these seemingly little and insignificant things have a psychological effect on the mind of the workers, and thus will help fan their productivity.
An understanding of how ambience influences workforce productivity is what made big brands like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and more to improve the look and feel of their workspace.
2. COMMUNICATION IGNITES MOTIVATION
Productive communication is a key motivating your team members. The way you communicate with your team members could either accelerate or diminish their productivity.
It could be really challenging for an employer (who always complains and seems to see nothing good in what a team member does) to record peak performance from such team member.
Instead, publicly applauding and pointing out the good areas on what an employee’s efforts will hoist the morale and enthusiasm of the employee to even do more.
If on the other hand, the employee did not perform as expected in a particular area, the right thing is for the employer to constructively criticise the employee in private, and also help point out ways that things can be improved upon.
A counter-productive approach to leadership is scolding supervisors right in front of their subordinates.
It is therefore important for employers to improve their emotional intelligence and management skills so that you can always put your best foot forward in unleashing peak performance from your team.
3. LEAD BY EXAMPLE
Just like children pay more attention to what parents do and less attention to what parents say, our team members look at what you do, not what you say.
If you wish to motivate your employees for peak performance, then be the employer who genuinely leads by example.
Be transparent in your leadership. Try to put yourself in the situation of your employees by showing empathy, listen more, and speak less.
Leadership by example means that you will take tough decisions where you may need to get your ego out of the way. It means no pie crust promises. Learn to delay critical decisions when cranky.
It also means you are intentional about raising other leaders within and across your workforce.
A Champion leads by example and strives to make things better for the team and all stakeholders. A Champion will effortlessly propel the performance level of team members by leading by example.
4. CELEBRATE SMALL WINS
It is the accumulation of small things that turn into big things.
As an employer, only waiting for the mega wins and completely isolating the small wins will not motivate your employees to peak performance.
There is a reason many offices have things like the “Best Salesperson of the Month”, “Employee of the Month”, “Most Punctual Staff” and other categories. This is because these organisations have understood the power of celebrating little wins.
A client once mentioned that, “anytime we implement some of the strategies you share with us to acknowledge and celebrate the inputs of our team members, we see increased commitment from our workforce to put in more effort and achieve the big wins.”
Something as little as sending an appreciation email to a staff member on a good performance, a thumbs up or high five in an open space or an open admiration in words goes a long way to lift the spirit and enthusiasm of the employees.
5. BE OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS
Many employees want to give their best to the organisation, however, they find out that their employer or management is not kind to taking suggestions on improvement.
As a Champion, it is important for you to know that you have blindspots. When you are open to suggestions, it helps reduce your blindspots and enable your team to freely show you the areas of improvement that can birth massive growth for your enterprise.
What we find playing out these days are scenarios where the employer thinks that the employees don’t know what is going on, hence they (the employer) pay little or no attention to taking suggestions and lending an ear to opinions.
Even when it comes to projects, employees will share suggestions that can move the project forward when they find out that the employer actually open to implementing recommendations.
6. AVOID FAVOURITISM
Nothing kills peak performance faster than favoritism.
It brews unhealthy rivalry within the team.
It makes a potential great team degenerate to a toxic workspace with unhealthy competition and rivalry.
Give both your male and female team members equal opportunity. Be intentional with fairness. Avoid overcompensating even in the face of social pressure.
The society continues to program and condition our minds for unfairness through repeated portrayal of unintentional skewed balance.
Ensure you provide a level playing field for everyone in your team regardless of age, gender, religion, race, ethnicity. Let everyone thrive and work together to achieve a common goal.
Keep rocking your world like a Champion.
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