How to Cultivate a Motivating Community for Your Employees

In continuation from last week’s blog post, we’ll look at how companies can create an intrinsically motivating environment by focusing on the aspect of community in the workplace.

Effective managers take action and encourage their employees to consistently pump out productive work. Great managers, however, create a sense of community through transparency and genuine communication while encouraging creativity and productivity. Just like in nature, every organization and team is its own ecosystem that can only function as well as the individuals who interdependently work together. But! The whole is by far greater than the sum of its parts, especially when running a company.

The whole is by far greater than the sum of its parts, especially when running a company.

Ideally this sense of community should feel like a family in which each member has different roles and responsibilities, but everyone shares a unified vision. This should fulfill the sense of belonging and self-esteem needed to inspire the team to grow together to achieve that vision.

Working as a unit is excellently showcased in successful sports teams. Take football, for example. A football team that consistently makes it to the playoffs would not be able to do so if the quarterback didn’t know, trust, and depend on his offensive line. The same can be said for wide receivers, running backs, defensive backs, linemen, and special teams players. They all rely on other members of their unit to deliver so that they can perform to the best of their ability. And the team would not know what to do if the coach didn’t effectively communicate the game plan. But, the coach cannot simply state the team’s goals: they need to build up and maintain a sense of community that encourages teammates to get to know, trust, and ultimately depend and rely on each other. On top of that, they need to clearly communicate their vision and unite everyone towards a common goal so they can win the game.

By utilizing clear and authentic communication, both managers and employees can build rapport based on trust and use their collective knowledge to build a strong, cohesive unit. A working environment that places an emphasis on community-focused interactions will fulfill the social, belonging, and self-esteem needs of employees that will increase morale, creativity, and productivity.

Originally published at metricloop.com on March 25, 2016.