Congratulations! You and your team have successfully made the transition, albeit rocky, from working in an office environment to working from home. You have managed to acquire and set up all the required and necessary tech tools, define proper processes and are permanently logged into Zoom in anticipation of daily standup and other video meetings with your team.
But alas, this is just the first step. Now you need to think about cultivating and maintaining an effective work environment for all of your remote team members. This step involves figuring out a way to keep them motivated while working from home.
And since working from home is considered the “new normal” until further notice, this second step is quite vital if your long term goal is to have a happy, well functioning and productive remote team.
It’s no longer just a question of your remote team following the approved project plan and checking items off a list of daily tasks, but rather adapting and shifting to solve the bigger, more pressing problems that the business may be facing.
As a team leader, you may get lucky and find that some team members are more resilient and able to rise above the rest in times of uncertainty and chaos, regardless of the challenges. They are good at adapting and possess a positive attitude which acts as a catalyst to fuel their productivity. Others may not possess such positivity and drive, so working from home for them is likely to reduce motivation.
Negative motivating factors
There are three negative motivating factors that can lead to reduced motivation and therefore reduced work performance for team members and these factors are likely to have been exacerbated due to Covid19.
1. Emotional pressure
You feel emotional pressure to work when an external force threatens your identity. This can be demonstrated practically as guilt. Forms of emotional pressure include fear, peer pressure and shame. Inflicting emotional pressure can involve guilting someone into doing something, or doing something in order to avoid disappointing yourself or others.
2. Economic pressure
Economic pressure can be felt when an external force compels you to work. For example, you work in order to receive a reward or avoid a punishment. It’s important to note that the reason you are pressured to work is not linked to your identity nor to the work itself.
These pressures, emotional and economic when combined make for a perfect storm in the minds of remote team members as they worry about losing their jobs, paying rent and protecting their health due to Covid19. To make matters worse, the news constantly reports on Covid19 stats and how they continue to get worse and how to keep yourself and those you love safe by following certain protocols. Team members who read these fear-inducing articles sink deeper and deeper into inertia, which is the third negative motivating factor.
3. Inertia
Inertia begins to set in when you feel that your motive for getting up in the morning and having a productive work day is so far removed from the work that you do that you no longer remember why you are doing it, to begin with. For example, when someone asks you why you are doing your work, you say, I am doing it because I did it yesterday and the day before. The feeling of inertia increases as team members begin to question if there is even a point of working anymore.
Positive motivating factors
But all is not lost, for every bad motivating factor, there is a good one. This is to say that there are also three positive motivating factors that can lead to increased work performance.
1. Play
Play is when you are motivated by the work that you are doing and enjoying what you do often boosts performance. Play is instinctual and is related to curiosity, experimentation and solving challenging problems. For example, solving a problem over Zoom with a colleague.
2. Purpose
This can be felt when the outcome of your work is linked to your identity. You work because you are motivated by the value and the impact that your work brings. For example, you know that if you finish an important presentation on time, it could strengthen the possibility of landing that new client.
3. Potential
Potential is a highly motivating factor and is felt when the result of your work benefits your identity. For example, the promise of a promotion or the seeing steady growth of your business. Work can also deliver a much-needed boost to your team, even when there’s little choice involved in their work-from-home situation.
It’s therefore important as a team leader, to instil these kinds of positive motivating factors in your team members who work remotely in order to create a shift in their mindsets. Doing this will positively influence their level of motivation so that they can begin to embrace adaptability and develop their creativity, which should be just in time for the post- Covid19 recovery.
