How can you increase team engagement and investment in their work?

An effective way to increase engagement and investment among the team is by giving them the opportunity to co-create the vision and goals as much as possible. When team members take part in this process, you can create a feeling of ownership and responsibility that will be much more powerful than a vision coming from the top could ever manage to build.

Increase team engagement and investment in their work by fostering open communication, recognizing and rewarding achievements, providing professional development opportunities, encouraging collaboration, ensuring a healthy work-life balance, and aligning individual goals with the team's overall objectives.

I agree, the most important is to be a great leader because a great leader can influence employees engagement and productivity. Because one of the important things you need yo know as a leader is that your employees want to have a sense of purpose in their job and they really want to mirror their goals, values and company’s mission with their own. Employees are needing clear communication, support, honesty and compassionate and supportive people leading the flock. Employees need their talents to be recognized. We really need good leaders, a good leader knows how to inspire and create a positive engagement!

Fostering team engagement in remote/hybrid settings starts with open communication and trust. Use digital tools to create a collaborative space. Encourage and support collaboration with and without leadership participation - teams that collaborate on their own build trust and camaraderie. Regular check-ins and feedback loops ensure everyone feels heard and valued. Adapt the frequency and format of these check-ins for each employee as they make sense. Empower your team with autonomy and recognize their achievements. Offer development opportunities to foster growth and investment. Building a culture of engagement is an ongoing journey that thrives on adaptability and empathy.

Think of your team as a mini-ecosystem to amp up engagement and investment. Within this ecosystem, the currency is trust, and the language is collaboration. Kick off with open forums where ideas aren't just spoken but heard. Add creative huddles to your timelines; these aren't just for troubleshooting but also for celebrating small wins. When team members see their leaders not as infallible figures but as fellow travelers on a shared journey, investing emotionally and intellectually in their work becomes easier. This camaraderie morphs individual tasks into collective triumphs, driving engagement and quality.

Iteration is key. Not every experiment will stick, be easily adopted, or be a good fit for every team. Experiments should be iterated upon until the right methods become identified and adopted by the team organically.

Create an environment where risks are not just tolerated but encouraged! Allocate innovation hours during the workweek, where teams can step off the treadmill of routine tasks to tinker with new ideas. Implement a brain day, where cross-functional teams aim to solve one big organizational challenge. Encourage them to prototype, fail fast, learn faster, and iterate. When employees see their fingerprints on a successful innovation, their investment in work skyrockets!

In my role leading diverse teams in architectural projects, increasing team engagement and investment was often about creating a sense of ownership and purpose. I implemented a strategy where each team member was given the opportunity to lead a part of the project, aligning with their strengths and interests. This approach not only bolstered their confidence but also deepened their commitment to the project's success. By empowering the team in this manner, we saw a significant uplift in engagement, creativity, and overall project quality, reaffirming that when individuals feel valued and responsible, they contribute their best work.

In my experience, if your team is not motivated enough you won't see the results you need. Every leader has to come up with some approaches based on the team's characteristics. However, these are the one I seems to have found common in all that can motivate the team: - Come up with a motivation statement, make sure it's unique and aligns with your company and project goal. This will be a team slogan you can use to remind them who we are! - Everyone is equal, no matter what rank they hold. You have to treat them as equals. Sometimes, lowest lowest-ranked member of your team can amaze you a lot. - Always lead by example, this way they will be more motivated. Help them, be a leader to them. Guide them to success.