How to Motivate Your Team in 2022 [Using Data and Culture]

Sometime during our career, we’ve all taken a five-minute brain break at work to watch a movie trailer on YouTube, scroll social media, or beat the next Candy Crush level. 

But there is a dark side to this type of team disengagement. Not only are disengaged team members less productive, but they also cost companies hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Not to mention, they’re also at higher risk of leaving for “greener pastures”.   

And alarmingly, about 60% of the workforce falls into this category, as only 39% of teams in the U.S. feel engaged and motivated at work, according to a Gallup poll conducted in 2021. 

So, how do we, as leaders, change this paradigm? How do we keep our team members motivated and excited to do their jobs? In this post, we’ll look at six ways. Let’s dive in.   

Build a Culture of Transparency

Your team wants to be kept in the loop. They want to know why you’re making certain decisions, what metrics are most important to their personal success, and how they’re performing compared to their peers. So naturally, the more light you shed on your processes and team performance, the happier and more engaged they will be. 

One of the easiest ways to do this is by making data available to them routinely. If possible, you should find a way to update them on progress daily, if not in real-time, so your teams can see exactly how they’re doing and self-regulate by making impactful adjustments quickly. 

Praise Publicly, Correct Privately

No one likes being called out in front of their peers. It’s embarrassing and demoralizing. 

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t correct mistakes or challenge your teams. You absolutely should! All it means is that you need to choose the right time and place to do it. 

As a rule of thumb, the best way to approach team feedback is to praise in public and correct in private, during your weekly one-on-one meeting or in a separate one-to-one conversation. That way, your teams will be more focused on your feedback and less on the reactions of others. And more importantly, they’ll be more motivated to use the feedback to improve their performance. 

If in doubt, just remember: time and place. 

Set Clear Goals for the Whole Team

You don’t need us to tell you just how important shared KPIs are. After all, that’s what keeps your team on track and moving toward your larger organizational objectives. Breaking down those objectives into smaller key results, optimizes company performance by bringing clarity to every individual’s contributions in the context of the collective goals.

• Sharing individual CSR conversion rates help motivate your call center to find ways to convert more of your leads into customers, thus lowering your customer acquisition cost
• Reopened tickets can highlight inefficiencies and help reveal flaws in process to fix
• Sorting pending invoices by age helps accounts receivable prioritize their efforts
• Marketing teams lean on customer acquisition costs and ROI for better budget allocation
• And for sales teams, closing % can speak volumes about your strategy and execution

But KPIs have a lot more potential when it comes to driving team performance. With a little creativity, they can be an ongoing source of motivation and healthy competition for teams. 

Yes, for the record, we’re talking about gamification. Why? Because with gamification, 48% of teams are more motivated and 90% of teams are more productive. The ability to compete, check leaderboards, and get feedback in real-time encourages teams to work hard. And it keeps them focused on improving their own metrics, which is a business win multiplier once you’ve empowered an entire team with data. 

Lead with Vulnerability

It’s difficult to motivate your team if they view you as out of touch with their situation. So, as a leader, it’s important that you take the initiative to be human and approachable. This means sharing your own successes and failures from your career, as relevant, and acknowledging areas where you still need improvement. 

By showing your teams that you’re still building skills yourself, they’ll be more open to discussing their career challenges with you and listen when you have constructive criticism for them.  

Create Incentives for teams

Nothing motivates quite like the promise of reward — whether you’re offering sales commissions, gift cards, special recognition, or some other prize. The trick is knowing what your teams want when they meet certain goals or exceed expectations. 

Luckily, it’s easy to find that out. All you need to do is compile a list of options and poll your team to see what they find most motivating. Or, you can simply ask each team individually, so you can give each person exactly what they need.  

Encourage Peer Mentorship and Training

Even though managers usually have the most team management training, there’s value in stepping out of the way and letting your teams motivate each other. Here are two ways you can do that: 

• Connect your top performers with newly onboarded team members or those who are struggling, and encourage one-on-one peer mentorship
• Give your top performers time during team meetings or in special training sessions to teach the skills they excel at to the entire team (i.e. run their own training). 

Either way, encouraging peer mentorship can elevate the knowledge and skill set of the entire team and give your top performers valuable experience that will prepare them for future management opportunities. 

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Knowing how to motivate your team is a challenge. After all, everyone is different. What works for one person, may not work for another. But, there are lots of different strategies you can use to boost team engagement. And with the right combination, you can get it done. 

If you’re interested in using leaderboard software to gamify your teams’ workday, schedule a demo to see our custom KPI + real-time team ranking boards.