What strategies do you use to motivate a team to work more efficently?

The most important thing to remember when answering this question is that you should always have more than one strategy.

Everyone has different work styles, personalities and performance levels, meaning how they respond to motivation differs too. In other words, it’s never a one-approach-fits-all when it comes to motivating a team.

To let the interviewer know you understand this, explain that you always take the time to get to know your team members in order to understand how they work. Then, talk about how you utilise a variety of techniques based on what suits their individual personalities best.

As always, it’s a good idea to use examples to show how you’ve succeeded at this in the past. Not only will this provide context for the strategies you use, it’ll also prove they actually work.

Right answer: ‘ My main strategies are based around recognising colleagues’ achievements, giving consistent feedback and also ensuring my teams understand the full context behind the work they’re doing. However I’ll focus more on some strategies than others depending on the individual**.** For example, I find that those who are most goal-orientated tend to respond best to understanding the impact of their work, while colleagues that are under-performing are best motivated when given set areas to work on and improve.’