What can we do to improve team culture and engagement?

How are we motivated? The age old question. Focus and motivation is so important to how people, businesses and organisations evolve; I know myself, especially in start-up world this rollercoaster ride requires extreme levels of inspiration. Even to a personal level, getting motivated and being fully engaged to do something can be a difficult task for some people.

What can be even more difficult is instilling this engagement and motivation in another person or team of people — traditional forms of motivating people can only go so far. With 78% of people describing their jobs as very stressful, labour turnover being at an all-time recorded high of 15% — the grind on productivity, motivation and engagement is real.

A photo posted by Magna UK (@magna_uk) on Aug 25, 2016 at 11:21pm PDT

There’s also a fine balance of being externally motivated (too much can turn you into a dictator-style Kim Jong Un leader — not cool) and being internally motivated (feeling internally urged to produce quality, enjoying their work and continuously learning — very cool); this balance occurs with every conversation, everything you offer them through every form of communication you have between your people.

How can this be combated? Can’t we just pay our people more?
 Well, studies have shown this only works up until a certain point, and can actually decrease motivation. Strange to believe I know, but money isn’t the biggest motivator at all.

You can give all sorts of employee/team perks?
 Yes, but this is business specific. There may be a lot of trial and error processes to see what works best, and how it effectively works around your business. Some will work, some will fail, and you’ll probably need a kick-ass HR pro to configure these programmes to get this right.

So what is the number one, most efficient and effective way to engage our people?
I hear you cry.

This form of motivated and engaging people can add 19% to your bottom line, increase creativity and problem solving mentality by 59% (both Bonusly), you’ll see decreased absenteeism too; companies can expect to see a 150% ROI from expenditure in this and it can be integrated so strongly into the company culture — I sincerely believe that out of all the perks that are available, this is by far the best.

Just tell me what it is, God damnit.
 Ok, Ok. I urge you to invest in your people’s health, fitness and wellness.

Why would this work? I hate the gym?
 80% of jobs now require absolutely zero physical activity. None. Zilch. Walking to the coffee machine does not count either. This places extra stress on your people, and decreases energy levels and output because of the sedentary working arrangements — in other words, sitting on your arse all day does nothing for your people in terms of productivity, and people can easily switch off.

Exercise, on the other hand, releases endorphins — the ultimate mood enhancing, productivity creating, fatigue decreasing, team building chemical in the world, releases during work outs. People become healthier, happier and far more engaged than any other form of motivation — continuing this throughout weeks and months integrates into culture and you’ll see constant improvements in your team. You don’t even need the gym to do this, exercising can be done in so many different, weird and wonderful ways.

This is gold dust, but how much would this cost me?
 Well, you could hire a wellness manager for £30K per year, or take out a lot of valuable time to organise activities yourself — but this is no-where near the most time and cost effective way of doing this.

A photo posted by Magna UK (@magna_uk) on Sep 25, 2016 at 12:36am PDT

You can actually get all of this for your company for less than £50 per week using Magna — the company can tailor these solutions to specifically suit your team; the network is so good that it is literally ‘candyland’ for teams and groups of people to get exactly what they want in the most cost effective way. Anything from weekly yoga, to one-off extreme watersports, to circuits and conditioning every evening — there’s scope for anything and everything.

So get your team engaged, motivated and happy. Make your business more productive and creative, and invest well into your team to get the best out of them.

“Take care of your people, and your people will take care of your customers” — Richard Branson

A photo posted by Magna UK (@magna_uk) on Oct 6, 2016 at 11:49pm PDT

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