The benefits of motivating teamwork

In many businesses, motivating teamwork - or more specifically, motivating your staff to win as a team - can trump the pursuit of individual achievement and bring a higher level of success. In fact, a joint study by the International Society for Performance Improvement and The Incentive Research Foundation found that “Incentivized teams increased their performance by 45%; incentivized individuals increased their performance an average of 27%”.

This learning equally applies to retail stores, restaurants, and cafes. In many of these businesses, an emphasis on shared goals and rewards can lead to better results.

Here are a few areas where we think motivating teamwork leads to better outcomes compared to individual performance:

Lots of part-time staff

Motivating part-time staff to go above and beyond is a challenge in any situation. But if a business can successfully instill a sense of teamwork amongst its employees, even the part-timers are likely to feel motivated and do their part to help achieve the goal.

With teamwork, each member feels that they’re a part of something bigger than themselves. If one member doesn’t do their part, then they’re not just letting themselves down, but the entire team.

And when the goal is achieved the whole team shares in the success, not just one person. This avoids the possibility of demotivating employees who didn’t win.

Employees frequently rotate roles

In many retail businesses, employees tend to specialize in one area. However, in certain sectors, such as Quick Service Restaurants, it’s not uncommon for an employee to work the cash one day and to be in the kitchen the next. This rotation of tasks provides some healthy variety to staff, but it also requires that they work together to communicate, transfer knowledge, and share tips and tricks.

As a result, this type of role rotation is another prime candidate for teamwork. What better way to nurture collaboration and knowledge transfer than through shared team objectives and rewards? Staff will feel more motivated to ensure their counterparts are equipped to perform the tasks through their rotations and to help one another.

Serving the customer requires teamwork

Businesses where multiple employees are involved in serving the customer - cafes and restaurants, for example – are ideally suited to team goals and rewards. Because the employee who takes the order is usually not the same person preparing the coffee or the food, shared team goals and rewards can be essential to success.

Teamwork is key to innovation

The Society for Human Resource Management cites teamwork and collaboration as key ingredients to successful innovation. And team-based incentives are a great way of emphasizing and fostering collaboration amongst employees to produce innovation.

The SHRM goes on to add that team incentives also benefit organizations by focusing employees on shared goals, fostering teamwork that leads to better group problem-solving, improving peer-to-peer support, and cross-organizational performance.

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Visit us at Qarrot to learn more about motivating teamwork and rewarding your staff for winning as a team!