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Why It’s More Important Than Ever To Reward Your Team

September 15, 2020

Team Management, Monitoring Teams, Workplace Culture

How is your team morale at the moment? Do you think your employees could benefit from a dash of positivity and recognition? Working through a pandemic is understandably taking its toll on everyone’s mental well-being, so if you think your team’s motivation might be slipping, perhaps it’s time to praise your team.

Let’s talk about employee morale

Why is employee morale important? Well, the chances are, if individual morale is high across a team; this is instantly going to benefit a group of people working together. For an individual to display a high level of morale, they’ll perform with a positive, can-do attitude, one which is likely to be infectious to those working with the employee. This optimism will inevitably drive results - it will increase productivity and performance across the wider organisation, as well as individually. In contrast, an employee with a low level of morale will lack motivation, which can lead to increased negativity, poor performance and loss of revenue - all of which managers want to avoid in the workplace.

Employee morale is more important than ever

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut in the current climate, so managers need to boost employee morale more than ever before. A low employee morale can be a product of many issues in the workplace, including: lack of peer support, poor leadership, poor company culture, high stress levels and insufficient organisation. However it can also be a product of external issues happening outside of the workplace, which are likely to have increased in the current climate due to personal lives being turned upside down.

Offering support and positivity is arguably harder in the remote workspace, particularly if your managerial style thrives by leaving chocolate cakes on your team’s desks every week. But even in the remote environment, ideally you should aim to confront as many of these issues as possible for your team who might be internally struggling with maintaining positivity at the moment. While it’s not down to you to confront issues beyond your means, as a leader, you can certainly do your bit by boosting team morale through positive leadership, support and praise.

Introduce rewards

Introducing a reward and recognition system doesn’t need to be complex, and likewise - it doesn’t need to be implemented for the sole purpose of cheering employees up. The sheer intent of rewarding your team is to show appreciation through acknowledging their work. Nobody likes to spend hours on a project to receive zero praise, which is why even when constructive criticism is given, positive feedback should be included too. To keep team morale high, employees need to feel appreciated and valued - it’s imperative they feel their contribution is recognised and helping the business in some format, otherwise they’re likely to ask the dreaded question of: “what is the point?”.

There are many different ways to reward your team members, and deciding how best to praise them is entirely up to you. Words of affirmation always go a long way, so shouting out great work on a chat app will always be appreciated by an employee. You can get creative with this too by introducing categories such as “achievement of the week”, “attitude of the week” or even “everyone’s best achievement this week” - such ideas can inject positivity into the end of a working week and leave the team feeling as though they’ve achieved something valuable.

Equally, rewarding through gifts and social events is another great way to recognise good work. Creating mini gift boxes or hampers, sending out a virtual card, sending a bottle of wine through the post are great physical ways of saying thank you for your efforts, as is having a beer together on a Friday afternoon (via Zoom or socially distanced in a pub of course). The opportunities to praise are endless, so why not get creative with it?

Rewards offer long-term company benefits

Team morale requires two to tango. For your employees to feel recognised, they need to be appreciated and rewarded, and for them to feel this way, managers need to put in the effort to do so. Let’s face it, it can take 3 seconds out of your day to value someone’s work.

The team who wishes their manager would stop rewarding them simply doesn’t exist. Teams will always enjoy appreciation, and their best work will be achieved through being acknowledged. A reward system only benefits your team and organisation. They will reduce staff turnover, increase productivity and increase employee well-being - all of which are useful factors in increasing company profit. Likewise, if you have a big project coming up, if your employees feel appreciated, they're likely to chip in with over-time and go the extra mile - an ethos which every company enjoys.

Why not try Wundamail’s reward and recognition system?

As a team leader, you can set up Wundamail to automatically assign points to active Wundamail participants. You can also call out good behaviours and reward individuals for reaching the specific tasks or milestones you wish to praise. Everyone can view their progress and goals online, and once team members have scored enough points, they win their chosen reward. After one reward is secured, they are free to choose another, and the motivational cycle continues.

So if you want to drive progress, empower team members and hit more goals, implement a reward system - what have you got to lose?



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