In this blog we will be looking at how to maximise your team’s performance as we begin to emerge from the crisis caused by COVID-19.
We will be looking at this topic through four lenses suggested by McGregor and Doshi (2015). They are:
- Commitment
- Morale
- Efficiency
- Development
Firstly, let’s look at Commitment, and how it may be tested both during the current pandemic and when we transition towards the “new reality” in our way of working.
The starting point for me is to remember that one person’s motivator is not the same as another’s. People and their personal motivators will be challenged and may be confused because of COVID-19.
Research is telling us that people are split into several camps in terms of their attitude to work:
- Wanting to return to work and find some structure
- Not wanting to be a commuter anymore
- A desire to work flexibly
- A disconnection with their work, it’s practices, culture, process and expectations
- Considering a different career path
So, trying to engender commitment in your people is going to require a lot of energy and time investment to align both organisational needs and employee motivators.
Why invest the time?
Because when people are more committed, they are more engaged in their work. Research tells us that engaged employees are:
- 17% more productive
- Likely to get up to 10% higher customer satisfaction ratings
- Likely to have up to 70% fewer safety incidents
(Gallup)
Secondly, let’s consider Morale in the workplace.
Let us consider one of the many definitions of morale:
“the attitude, satisfaction and overall outlook of employees during their association with an organization or a business. An employee that is satisfied and motivated at workplace usually tend to have a higher morale than their counterparts.( questionpro.com)
What connects both ends of my working life and what I understand by morale is that it is about a state of mind, rather than a competence, capability or skill, and it’s the employee who ultimately can take action to change their mindset but leaders need to encourage them and challenge negativity.
In the workplace our Mindset can be influenced by many factors including:
- Communication
- Leadership and Management actions
- Disruptive employees
- External Events
- Individual Wellbeing and Mental Health
Surprisingly all organisations have a cohort of employees who are actively disengaged with their work. Research tells us that up to 30-40% of employees are actively disengaged.
The third area proposed by McGregor and Doshi is Efficiency
If we are to address this perhaps it is really time to invest not just in the skills of leaders and managers but also their mindset about how they actively inspire their people and motivate them to look for opportunities.
At Co-Creation we help leaders and managers develop this approach using Strengths based techniques. This revolves around two core propositions:
- Look at every employee and what they can achieve by identifying and working with their Strengths- what motivates and energises them-rather than restricting them to job titles and descriptions
- As a Leader step away from the self-imposed expectation of having all the answers- engage the people you have-they could transform the problem into a solution
By working in this way employees will feel involved, valued, and see themselves as a stakeholder in your business performance.
Finally, let’s take a look at Team Development
As a Junior Manager in the 80’s, fired up and making lots of mistakes I was introduced to a book called “The One Minute Manager” (Blanchard/Johnson 1982). I recall many things from the book but the most profound was the phrase “Catch Your People doing something Right!”.
For some companies this will be a challenging mantra as the pressure of recession, company failures and potentially failing markets for their product forces leaders to focus on the short term.
Of course, there will also be those companies that have to re-engineer their product, service and proposition to stay relevant.
Want to know more about any of these topics and how we can help you measure the current mindset of your employees leading to robust actions to help you maximise your team’s performance? As part of our ongoing series, we are hosting a free webinar – “Motivation – Maximising My Team’s Performance” June 29th, 10.30-11.30am join us via the link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0sduihpzkrGtYVjJkW4eg9wuEQ9RlIGOIK