It can be challenging to energise a team of people. Different skill levels and interests mean it’s unlikely the whole team will find the same task energising and fulfilling.
It might be the first time you’ve had to rally your team together and find an inner sense of enthusiasm. Or maybe you’re a seasoned pro and are looking for new ways to energise your team this year? Plus have you found yourself wondering if CPD is important for your team? Either way, we hope this blog helps equip you with five simple ways you can energise your team this year.
No.1: Set monthly activities that are not related to work
It might seem odd that our first point on how to energise your team this year is something that’s not related to work, so bear with us, there’s a method to this apparent madness.
Quite simply, an activity that’s not related to work will do wonders for your team’s social awareness and relationship skills. This activity could be anything from a lunchtime walking group to a book or baking club. Getting your team members together to create a delicious baked treat is an opportunity for them to develop skills in communication and teamwork. If the facilities available don’t allow group baking, why not have a designated baker each week and sit down together as a team to try out the baked goods.
If your team work remotely, a book club can be a good idea. Take it in turns for your team members to recommend a book and gather once a month to discuss the themes of the book. Short stories or even poems can be used if time is short.
Give these activities a go and see how your team start to bond in new ways. This will then create a different type of energy that they’ll be able to bring to work-related projects.
No.2: Review your resources
Are the resources your team use for their CPD the best available, and are they up to date? And most importantly do the resources suit every type of learning style in your team?
If you want your team to feel energised, investing in their continued professional development (CPD) is important. It will help them feel like a valued member of your organisation and shows a commitment and appreciation from you.
Why is CPD important?
Every hour spent doing CPD will pay you back several times over. Whether through increased recognition, professional prestige, personal authority, and usually increased remuneration: the reasons why CPD is important are numerous. Taking an active approach to professional CPD is certainly worth it. Furthermore, comprehensively recorded CPD is proven to assist in accelerated career progression.
With this in mind, the next thing to consider if your team record their CPD is how they can safely and securely record their CPD. An online, accessible platform such as Leap Like A Salmon’s CPD platform the LEAP Hub, could help your team keep track of their CPD. Certificates, course attendance notes and projects can all be uploaded and safely shared with people of their choosing. As a team leader, you can be granted access to their CPD portfolio to keep track of how they are progressing. CPD is important in energising your team as it shows you are invested and committed to their professional development and the effort they put in is getting a reward.
No.3: Celebrate the wins, no matter how small
The words celebrate and energise have a lot of synergies. If you’re asking your team to put energy into something and there is a success born out of it, it’s important to celebrate this success, no matter how small.
In order to celebrate the win, no matter how small, it’s important to break down larger outcome goals into performance and process goals so that there are small wins to celebrate on the long journey. For example, an outcome goal could be to win more business this year, but what are the process goals along the way that will help you do this? More training for your team? Attend more networking events? With the latter in mind, an employee having an encouraging conversation with someone at a networking event could be celebrated as a win.
Acknowledging these small wins will energise your team and spark a fire within to achieve more of it. There’s science involved too. Rewards spark the release of chemicals in our brains that give us a feeling of pride and happiness – meaning the next time we are asked to do something we’ll remember how good it felt last time.
No.4: Establish a blameless culture
Allowing vulnerability and openness is another way leaders can energise their team this year. Instead of turning to one individual or select team when things go wrong, dig deeper. See where the company’s systems or culture could be at fault rather than an individual. This is something Jeff Lawson from tech firm Twilio knows all too well.
“Every employee will make mistakes, that’s unavoidable. As leaders, we have to build systems in which mistakes are non-catastrophic. If you have created a system where one person can ruin the entire company, then you as a leader are at fault.”
BBC Business Review, September 2021.
So don’t point fingers, raise hands instead and gather your team to ask how collectively you can do better next time. With point number three in mind, leaders can energise their team by picking out some positives from a sticky situation. Every situation will have some positives and no matter how small or insignificant they seem, it’s important to share them.
No.5: Prioritise away days
You might have guessed by now that to energise your team this year you need to step away from the office, emerge from screens and boardrooms, burst through the office doors and head into the outside world.
Ask your team to choose a charity your company can support with fundraising events or away days. This process alone will help you learn more about your team – you might learn more about what drives people outside of work and thinking back to point one, it will do wonders for your team’s relationship skills. It’s also an opportunity to demonstrate corporate social responsibility to your customers – something that is high on the consumer’s agenda for 2022.
Team building days are also a great idea to help you energise your team this year. These range from community projects to swinging from treetops at an outdoor adventure park or hiking across mountains. Make sure your choice of team building suits all team members – the last thing you want is to ostracise one of your employees.
Stepping away from the office will refresh your team and when they find themselves back behind the computer screen or workstation they will be there with a renewed sense of purpose, energy and determination.
We hope these five simples ways leaders can energise their team this year has been helpful. We’d love to hear from you on how you energise your team – head to our LinkedIn page to tell us more or tweet us at @leaplikeasalmon. For more from us please check out our Knowledge Base for further resources and support with our Ask The Experts
