All organisations rely on their teams to accomplish fundamental tasks and projects that help the company move one step closer to attaining goals and objectives. However, even the most productive team members can lose their energy or burn out, which can result in missed deadlines and substandard work.
The way your team feels at work can have a significant impact on productivity, engagement, and even your bottom line—approximately $300 billion a year in absenteeism and lost productivity for U.S. business owners. On the flip side, taking necessary steps to reduce employee stress can help bring up business and foster employee happiness, which can improve sales by 37%.
Here are some tips on how you can re-energize your staff:
1. Express your gratitude
For leaders wanting to re-energize their team, improve their well-being and keep them engaged and motivated throughout the year, showing gratitude is the best option. Studies prove that appreciating and recognizing employees for their time and effort on a project can be extremely powerful. The best part is, it is very easy to implement.
You can write hand-written thank-you notes whenever someone goes the extra mile and surpasses the expectations. Celebrate accomplishments together and reward the team with perks that they will enjoy.
Expressing gratitude for making a difference and helping the company accomplish important goals is going to help boost your employees’ happiness and morale, especially during stressful periods.
2. Scale back on the “tough love”
Leaders tend to follow different management styles. And if you’re a leader who generally takes a strict and intransigent approach to your manager/employee relationships, you may be putting negative pressure on them, mistakenly thinking that it will increase performance. The truth is, however, this may be doing more harm than good.
According to Harvard Business Review, placing your employees under negative pressure or showing “tough love” has been found to increase levels of work-related stress, fuelling employee turnover and poorer performance.
So, instead of leading with toughness, focus on leading with warmth and empathy even before establishing your competence. Your employees will feel greater trust with someone who is kind.
3. Use setbacks as learning opportunities
I understand that it can be exasperating and stressful when someone makes a mistake. However, freaking out won’t help. Ask yourself: is that going to fix the problem? Will this be conducive to a positive and collaborative work environment? Your answer must not be in the affirmative.
Rather than being infuriated, use mistakes and setbacks as learning opportunities. Address the problems candidly and openly. For example, ask your employees what went wrong and how they can improve instead of belittling them. Figure out how you can help the team succeed.
Not only will this energize your team, it will also create a culture of accountability.
Learn how you can take your leadership teams through a growth model which will help them mature on a personal and professional level by following me on LinkedIn and subscribing to the Keijzer Community.
Paul Keijzer is the CEO and Founder of Engage Consulting and the co-Founder of The Talent Games, which aims to transform HR by digitising talent processes and creating more engaging and productive workplaces through gamification and mobile technology. As a global HR and Leadership Management expert, Paul knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.