As a leader, you may have noticed that as the temperature has increased over summer, the motivation of your team has decreased.
The reality is that between the Pina Coladas, the vacation plans and the neighbourhood barbeques, summer can be a distracting time for employees. So how do you counter the affects of the summer slump and keep spirits and motivation high? Here are four tips for keeping your team engaged and on-track as the temperature peaks.
1. Celebrate success
Recognition is the key to a motivated and engaged team regardless of the season, but in summer it’s really important. Summer is a great time to make sure that your team feels appreciated and empowered. Take the time to compliment people, send thank you notes and emails, and make sure everyone in your team knows how their work is contributing to overall goals.
The good weather is also an awesome excuse to celebrate together as a team – go get ice-cream, skip off early to throw a Frisbee in the park or have a team barbeque at the beach. It’s usually only a few hours of lost productivity (which might actually increase productivity), and it does wonders for fostering a culture of empowerment and collaboration.
2. Mentor
Quieter periods during the year are a great time to get to know your team without having to react to deadlines, meetings and full inboxes.
Make time for one on one chats with each of your team members to talk informally about work. Chat about their career ambitions, their long-term plans and what you can do to help them achieve their goals. Better yet, involve your whole team in the mentoring process by encouraging them to share their skills with another member of the team.
3. Give back
Summer is the perfect time to get involved in corporate volunteering. Helping out an organisation in the community is a win for everyone – it’s a great way for the team to get to know each other outside the office, the change of scenery is brilliant for recharging energy, and better still, a community organisation benefits from your team’s skills.
If you can manage it, commit to multiple volunteer days over the summer, or arrange for your team to consult on a volunteer project that utilises their specific areas of expertise to ensure a great outcome for the community organisation.
4. Solve a business challenge
Take a leaf from the tech industry’s book and hold an internal hackathon. Every organisation has at least one lingering business challenge that everyone knows is there, but no one has ever had the mental space to solve.
So set aside a day, marshal a team and cut them loose on the challenge. Let individual team members focus on their talents, and use them to solve the problem(s) that are sucking productivity, profits and/or morale. Taking a day to work on something totally separate from your typical duties generates the kind of innovative ideas that just don’t happen when things are busy. The more proactive collaboration and less reactive troubleshooting, the better.
These ideas might seem frivolous, but summer is actually a really good time to cement the kind of culture you want for your team, and it’s also a great opportunity for people to reenergise and refocus on their goals. So give it a go and see what happens. I guarantee no one will ever say no to ice cream.