4 Reasons Why You Need To Motivate Your Team Now
“Driving The Volvo” by Thomas Anderson – used under CC BY 2.0 / re-sized from original
Lack Of Motivation
Before the TV remote, the viewer would have to get up from their comfy couch and walk over to the TV set and adjust the knob to either change the channel or volume. It isn’t hard to imagine many people were not bothering to stand up and change anything at all after they sat down and got comfortable. Now, as we have remote controls and even apps on our smartphones that allow us to do those features, we might not even want to reach on the far side of the couch for it.
Are people becoming increasingly lazy as things are getting more convenient? Maybe, maybe not. But what it does show, is that even if something is convenient and the task is simple, without motivation, it likely won’t get done.
Imagine yourself being an employee that doesn’t necessarily hate their job, but shows up and to do the same task every day with no end in sight. It becomes easy to understand why people can be easily demotivated in their work environment. But how exactly does an unmotivated employee affect the business?
Impacts
- Low-Quality Work: Firstly, the most noticeable factor of unmotivated employees is low-quality work. For someone that doesn’t even want to be there (aside from the pay), you can imagine why they would want to put only the minimum amount of effort it takes to get the job done.
- Low Productivity: You may think that because unmotivated employees may take the minimum amount of effort to get the job done, at least they would be completing the task on hand quickly. Not so! If the employee doesn’t feel there being a purpose in their work, the obvious answer would be to “make use” of the entire allotted time and produce a result that is merely acceptable. Why accept more work if they don’t enjoy it?
- Low Creativity: Many people may think that creativity only affects jobs relating to design or writing, but, creativity is important in every workplace. Take for example a warehouse job. Although logistics may not seem to have much in the way of creativity, there’s certain efficiencies that employees pick up on the job that make their process run smoother not just for themselves but for the entire team. However, if they are lacking motivation, they will be less aware and ultimately not care enough to do beyond what needs to be done.
- Low Morale Spreads: We’ve probably all heard the saying that smiles are contagious. In fact, there is science which works to support this claim. What many probably know but don’t notice is that low morale and negativity are also contagious. If not dealt with immediately, it can quickly spread and even affect the overall culture of the company. Here’s a scenario: a new manager is brought in to an existing team. The team works well together and collaborates well. However, when crunch time comes, because the manager is new to the team and unsure about the team mechanics, decides to micro-manage all the aspects of the project. Nearing the end of the project, team members will one by one become more negative towards the new manager. This doesn’t stop there. Even new employees joining the team, while being all excited to start, will soon adapt to the negativity around the office. Have you ever been in or even worked in an environment where nobody wants to be there but shows up just for the salary? Yes, it’ll be exactly like that. And since nobody wants to be there, don’t be surprised if the rate of turnover increases, which in turn increases company cost.
How then do we prevent this from happening in our companies? Is there anything we can do to raise company morale? Take a look at our next blog post and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date.
Let us know what drives you at work or what small things you think makes team morale plummet in the comments below or on Twitter.
