Quick Tips To Motivate Your Project Team

Struggling to motivate your project team on a challenging project? Read on for more information on some easy motivational tips.

It doesn’t matter where you work or what project you are working on, we all struggle for motivation from time-to-time. But lack of motivation is more likely to be an issue on a challenging project so as a project manager, it is up to you to make sure that you keep your team motivated. There are a number of different ways that you can do this but here are some of the most useful tips that can help you.

 

Don’t overwork your team

Yes, there are going to be times when your team needs to work long hours, especially if you have a high-priority project or an emergency request. However, this definitely should not be the status quo for your team. There is plenty of research to show that overwork is not actually productive and, perhaps surprisingly, managers cannot tell the difference between the output of those supposedly working excessive hours and those working their contracted hours.

 

Evidence also shows that overwork is not just bad for employees’ health and well-being but also bad for their companies because overwork results in high absenteeism and lower turnover.

 

 

Connect work to the bigger picture

You should help everyone to understand how their work fits into the larger organisational goals of the business. People are more motivated when they can see how they are having an impact and that their work matters.

 

Be interested

If you are not interested in the project and everything that is going on, how do you expect everyone else to be? You should show sincere interest in the work your team members are carrying out. You should also show interest in them as people too. Make an effort to find out about their special interests or hobbies. They will appreciate that you do not merely recognise them as workers; you view them as individuals too.

 

Collaborate

You can also collaborate on work in order to increase team morale and motivation. Creating something together and sharing ideas helps to strengthen the team bond and make everyone feel more connected. This is a great way to boost motivation.

 

Take a training course

Project management training will help to refresh your own skills and those of team members. However, the benefits of project training go a lot further than this. When your team see that you are dedicated to continual improvement, it will give them the boost that they need in order to be this way too.

 

Find growth opportunities

Leading on from the former point, you should also help your team members to find opportunities to develop their skills further. This not only includes enlightening them to training opportunities, but they could also shadow their peers too. Team members will appreciate that you are trying to help them and that they are able to continue their professional development.

 

Celebrate success

Last but not least, another way to inspire and motivate your team is to celebrate success. A lot of us fall into the trap of only being vocal when something goes wrong. However, if you do this, your team will lose motivation because they will feel like all of their hard work goes unnoticed. Instead, you must give visibility and credit to accomplishments and successes too.

 

As you can see, there are a number of different ways that you can motivate your project team and none are difficult to achieve.