Trust lies at the core of any solid team.
You may have witnessed members joining and leaving a team in your company or other companies. This constant dynamicity affects the team’s productivity and compels you to determine what’s going wrong. More often than not, it’s trust. While hiring the right candidates is the first step to building a reliable team, trust is the sustainable glue.
25% of all professional jobs in North America were expected to be remote by the end of 2022, which has only spiked this year. With increasing workplaces encouraging hybrid work cultures, you will likely encounter several challenges when building and managing a team.
Whether you’re building a team from scratch or willing to upscale an existing one, we’ve listed five strategies to do so effectively. Let’s dive right in.
1. Make the best of the employee rewards platform
Consider using an employee rewards platform when you already have a team and want to instill more trust among the members. Such platforms enable companies to motivate employees, align them to the organizational priorities, and showcase that the business rewards hardworking employees.
Using an employee reward platform also benefits businesses in the following ways:
- Inspire teams with personalized recognition and employee rewards
- Offer meaningful rewards to employees.
- Link employee recognition to your business values
- Create polls to improve employee engagement rate.
Recognizing and rewarding employees leads to enhanced employee engagement. This increases retention and helps build a more positive overall workplace. If you haven’t already, it’s time to incorporate a rewards and recognition program to help increase employee engagement, productivity, and retention.
Choose an employee reward platform enabling employees to give regular feedback. Doing so ensures they’re heard, and the company moves in the right direction. Dig deeper into these reward platforms to choose the one that works for your team.
2. Offer psychological safety to employees
An employee who feels safe is likely to be more productive.
Psychological safety is vital as it dictates how an individual member perceives the wider team and their place in the team. It enables employees to feel secure in their job roles and responsibilities. Employees feeling secure about their position in the team are more likely to put forth the issues and speak candidly with their leaders without fearing consequences.
When employees feel safe, their potential and productivity automatically shoot up, and they’ll take more professional risks. Make your employees feel valued and respected for who they are. Doing so will let them be honest and give them a sense of safety that their insights will be respected.
You can provide psychological safety to the employees in the following ways:
- Create an open work environment
- Identify good work of employees and encourage innovative initiatives by employees.
- Offer multiple communication channels to employees to share their ideas and insights.
- Own up to your mistakes so that they feel safe doing so
- Treat each team member with equal respect
While monetary rewards motivate employees to perform better, the best employees are engaged. As an embodiment of this statement, it’s worth noting that companies with highly engaged workforces are 21% more profitable. So it’s only necessary to figure out ways to offer a sense of safety to employees.
3. Use employee management software
Industries continue to evolve through automation. Whether incorporating Artificial Intelligence into existing systems or automating one manual procedure as simple as employee check-in and check-outs. Similarly, when it comes to building strong teams, automation is key. After all, it would be best if you managed better for the team to improve.
Of the available systems, the employee management software you choose for your company should:
- Handle more users
- be user-friendly so that everyone can use it
- have data access to understand and glean insights
- enable third-party plug-ins and integrations
- enables global usability
- have an all-in-one feature that lets you manage employees in one place
A powerful employee management software not only creates an open platform for communication to keep each employee on the same page but also lets them discuss their tasks and projects. This increases the overall employee engagement level and streamlines internal communication.
Find out the loopholes in your existing management strategy so that you can invest in the right employee management software. Leapsome is a tool with stellar features like setting meetings, checking in on employee goals, and developing other skills. Moreover, it takes constant feedback from users to enhance its features from time to time. So do your research and invest in software that serves you.
The right software will aid in building a stronger team.
4. Invest in employees’ professional growth
Building a strong team demands solid investment.
The investment includes more than monetary rewards. It includes investing in each employee’s professional growth. Industries are, by default, ever-changing in nature. So it would be best to have continuous education to inspire employees and offer them tools to serve your clients better.
A few simple ways to aid in an employee’s professional growth are:
- Organize workshops and training sessions at regular intervals
- Keep discussions and meetings on the latest updates in the industry among the team
- Recommend books or courses for your employees
- Offer discount coupons to employees for specific courses that’d benefit them
If your company uses employee management software, you could also ensure all the training material is available on the portal. Doing so ensures employees can refer to and learn at their own pace and refer back whenever needed. Managers can monitor each employee’s progress and send reminders if an employee fails to complete a section of the training material.
Investing in employees’ professional growth keeps them engaged, increasing job satisfaction and team morale. It also fosters a productive and positive workplace culture that attracts and retains top talent. Hence, investing in employee professional growth directly affects retention and hiring rates.
5. Have clarity in your business values and vision
Hiring candidates and building a solid team is only possible with clear business values. Good teams require realistic goals defining expected outputs. All the team members also need a clear organizational structure to achieve the desired goals. They also need to have a transparent chain of communication channels.
When all employees know the team’s vision, they can develop ideas to perform for a broader vision to the best of their abilities. Empower employees to devise a path to a defined goal, which could become a great motivation tool.
While you’ll easily find tips on making a business successful, you must remember the following pointers when building a solid team.
- Listen to employee feedback and work toward the solution
- Create a comprehensive business plan which is easily accessible to all the employees
- Know your employee’s strengths and weaknesses and tailor individual objectives depending on their skills
- Align the team and personal goals with the broader business mission
- Reframe objectives to make them more meaningful for each team member
The primary goal for a business should be to create a sense of purpose and meaning for each employee. It provokes team engagement and improves work ethic and performance. A few ways to find a sense of purpose are to understand each individual’s motivations, tie specific outcomes to reward, and occasionally conduct CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities.
It’s time to devise your successful team-building strategy
When you build a team from scratch, you spend a lot of time grooming each employee of the team as a leader. To do so, you must connect with every member on board. After all, building a strong team requires more than just skilled and experienced professionals. It requires a leader who will be a cohesive force to ensure the team members work harmoniously.
Having the right policies, timely training, rewards, and work-life balance also play an equal role, if not more, in building a strong team. The process is undoubtedly time-consuming. However, efforts are only necessary to build a lasting team. Apply these tips and build an exceptional team.
All the very best!