How to Engage Team Members - Build up your Team Spirit
A research conducted by Modern Survey in the United States in March 2012 indicates that only 10 percent of employees are fully engaged, 24 percent are moderately engaged, 30 percent are disengaged and the remaining 36 percent are under engaged. Similar researches done by the Gallup Organization tend to confirm this trend. Though these statistics relate to the United States, they are an indicator of employee engagement challenges generally. Similar results could be found in other countries. Now, if these figures don't ring a bell to you as an employer, manager or human capital consultant, then you better hand over your role to someone else at the earliest possible.
But why are employee engagement and team spirit important? I believe you appreciate the fact that engaged employees are more motivated, productive, loyal, and innovative. They are less stressed and also easy to retain and all these factors positively impact the bottom line in your enterprise. Individual engagement eventually translates to team engagement under the right circumstances. An engaged team is emotionally attached to the organization. It truly cares and is committed. The team is success oriented, involved and enthusiastic about work and the entity. After understanding the value of employee engagement, then what next? How do you then ensure that team members are engaged?
Team goals and objectives have to be clearly stated and communicated to the members. You should ensure that the individual member's goals and objectives are in line with those of the team. Team goals should key into broader organizational goals. Conflicting goals and objectives bring disengagement and destroy your team spirit.
Empower the team members with the required resources, tools etc to ensure their engagement. You should make them feel they are part of the leadership and the entity. Develop trust and confidence among the members. You can also delegate as much as possible while balancing freedom to solve problems with guidance.
Build team spirit among the members through working together and sharing information, recognizing achievements in terms of teams and not individuals, ensuring emotional connections, involving people etc. When you build team spirit you will most likely have an engaged team. Don't you think so?
You need to develop team members by providing for them opportunities for advancement. You can achieve this by various training and development approaches including mentoring and coaching. Share important issues with your staffs. Lay emphasis on their strengths. As you develop the team members you can be assured of team engagement. Through considering their future you can get what you want from the members. Isn't this a wise idea?
Communication is another powerful approach. You have got to talk to and listen to them regularly. You should ensure free discussions. You need to understand the members and also know their preferences. You need to communicate the team tasks, responsibilities, progress being made, priorities, how to handle impediments etc.
You can also engage your team members by managing team conflicts and the personalities in the team adequately. Good conflict management ensures engagement of team members. When you understand personality types such as leaders, glues, agitators and workhorses, you are able to minimize conflict.
Recognize and reward team progress and achievements. You need to put in place a mechanism to assess performance and ensure accountability. Competitive rewards and incentives to the individual team members and to the group as a whole are vital in ensuring engagement.
Ensure a good working environment since your team operates within your organizational work environment. Ensure that your leaders and managers do the right things. Show that you care and value your people. Work towards a charged and energized working environment.
As a manager you will always work with teams. The level of engagement of team members to a large extent determines what the team can achieve, and this in turn influences attainment of organizational goals and objectives. Low levels of engagement spell disaster while high levels propel your entity to success. Which path are you going to choose for your organization?
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