Motivation is the lifeblood of a successful engineering team. Motivated employees are more productive, engaged, and creative than their counterparts. They’re also more likely to stay with your business and adapt rapidly to changing workplace dynamics.
That’s crucial when the engineering marketplace is navigating constant evolution and growing skill shortages. Unfortunately, motivation can be difficult to cultivate and preserve. Even the most committed team members can lose their drive and enthusiasm over time.
The good news is there are ways to nurture motivation in your workforce. Here, we’ll examine some of the easiest but frequently overlooked ways you can reinvigorate your team.
1. Unify Your Team Around a Shared Vision and Goals
A person’s motivation is largely affected by their sense of purpose in the workplace. It’s hard to feel enthusiastic about a role and the tasks you complete each day if you don’t know what you’re working towards or how your efforts are paying off.
Unfortunately, many business leaders and managers in the engineering industry fail to share their vision with their team. Simply helping your employees understand their purpose in the workplace, what their targets should be, and why their work is important makes a huge difference.
Based on your knowledge of your company’s goals, set clear, realistic, and measurable goals for your team members, and help them understand how their targets align with your organisation’s “bigger picture”.
2. Cultivate a Culture of Appreciation with Regular Recognition
A Nectar study found that 83.6% of participants believe regular recognition directly impacts how motivated they feel at work. Praising your engineering employees’ efforts and celebrating achievements helps reinforce good behaviours in the workplace and keeps teams pushing towards new targets.
There are plenty of ways to reward your team members, from giving them additional paid time off, financial bonuses, or flexible work opportunities. However, expressing genuine gratitude with a personalised message or comment can make a huge difference.
Additionally, when giving positive feedback, it’s worth explaining exactly what you’re commending your employee for. Don’t just tell your team members they’ve done a “good job”; tell them you appreciate their creativity, intuition, or adaptability.
3. Provide Opportunities for Growth and Development
Engineering employees are more likely to feel motivated if they see they’re making genuine progress in their careers. Prioritising your team’s development doesn’t just help them become more efficient and productive in their roles; it also improves their job satisfaction.
It also shows your team members that you believe in their potential and see a future for them within your business. Provide your staff members with various ways to improve soft and hard skills through training, mentorship, and online courses.
Try to tailor these development opportunities to each employee’s professional goals and aspirations, as well as the needs of your business. This will boost motivation and ensure your engineering company can benefit from a more skilled, adaptive workforce.
4. Build an Inclusive, Collaborative Environment
A supportive, collaborative, and inclusive company culture is crucial for success in the engineering landscape. A recent study by Forbes revealed that companies with robust cultures have up to 72% more engaged employees, and engagement is closely linked with motivation.
First, focus on building an inclusive environment where every team member feels respected and valued by their managers and colleagues. Next, ensure you’re constantly strengthening the bonds between your team members with cross-departmental collaborative work, team-building activities, and regular meetings.
Encourage staff members to get to know each other and praise employees who empower and elevate their colleagues. When hiring new team members, consider how they’ll contribute to the company culture you’re trying to build.
5. Create a Feedback Loop
We’ve already mentioned the importance of sharing positive feedback with your engineering team, but all feedback forms are valuable for growth. Constructive feedback, even when addressing an error or mistake, directs your team members.
It shows them that you believe in their ability to improve and inspires employees to keep progressing with a growth mindset. Crucially, however, feedback shouldn’t be one-way.
Opening yourself up to feedback from your team is also important. When team members can freely share their thoughts and opinions, they feel more invested in the company. Additionally, showing your staff you value their input shows trust and respect, improving team morale.
6. Promote Work-Life Balance and Wellbeing
Burnout and stress harm employee motivation and engagement. Unfortunately, in today’s fast-paced engineering workplace, it’s easy to overlook the importance of employee wellbeing. Creating an environment that promotes good mental and physical health reduces the risk of burnout and shows your team members you care about them.
Consider offering access to flexible work schedules to ensure your team members can balance their work with their personal responsibilities. Encourage teams to make the most of their time outside the office and allow them to “disconnect” from the workplace by turning off notifications.
You could even look into implementing wellness programs, giving employees access to discounted therapy sessions, gym memberships and healthy food. The happier and healthier your teams are, the more motivated they’re likely to be.
7. Empower Through Autonomy
In the competitive engineering landscape, it can be difficult for managers to let go and give their employees independence. However, micromanagement stifles creativity, demotivates employees and even increases turnover. Up to 69% of people say they’ve considered leaving their role after being constantly micromanaged.
Show your employees you trust them by giving them the freedom to complete tasks in their own way and make their own decisions. If you need to monitor the progress of a project, arrange an end-of-week meeting where you can discuss things with your team and plan the next steps.
You can even improve autonomy by clarifying how often you expect your team members to check in and provide updates at the start of a project.
8. Embrace Frequent and Open Communication
Communication also has a direct impact on how motivated your employees feel. The more your team members can connect and share information with their colleagues and supervisors, the more clarity they’ll have on their goals and targets.
Additionally, creating an environment of open communication, where everyone is encouraged to share insights, feedback, and ideas, nurtures creativity. Committing to constant and transparent communication with your engineering team is also beneficial.
Regularly keeping employees up-to-date about project changes or important things happening in the organisation makes them more likely to trust their managers. It’s hard to feel motivated when you don’t know whether you’re being kept out of the loop.
Finally
Consistent motivation is crucial to success in any industry. However, nurturing high motivation levels in your engineering team requires more than a commitment to setting goals and occasionally distributing rewards. By implementing the strategies outlined above, you can boost your chances of keeping your staff members motivated and engaged.
What’s more, you’ll benefit from a stronger, more attractive company culture that helps reduce talent turnover and attract new employees.
All the best
Steve
At Coalesce we have been partnering with engineering companies for over 28 years; if you would like our input on ways to motivate your engineering team, then give me a call on 07512 821708 or email us here.