Boosting Team Motivation: Driving Success at Tim Café

 

Introduction

As a trainee store manager at Tim's Café in Winnipeg West, my responsibility is to support the store manager in overseeing various management tasks. In response to the store manager's request, I have conducted research on motivational theories to develop a comprehensive plan that will increase our team members' motivation. The aim is to align everyone's efforts toward the shared goal of boosting turnover and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Team Description and Organizational Objectives

Our team consists of all the hard-working people in the cafe, including baristas, cashiers, servers and kitchen staff. Among the staff, some are looking to gain some work experience by working here. Others are looking to work here for a long time and earn a good salary or promotion opportunities. I have to identify their needs and combine them with our management goals to draft a reasonable employee motivation plan.

Actions to increase team motivation

• Performance Rewards Program

Action: Implement a monthly performance-based bonus system where employees who achieve sales goals can receive financial rewards, such as cash awards or gift cards.

Reason: To act as an extrinsic motivator by offering tangible rewards to attract employees who value monetary rewards. When team members are aware that there is a chance of financial reward, their motivated to work towards a specific goal.

• Career Development Opportunities

Action: Provide monthly skill-building workshops and training focused on improving customer service and coffee-making skills. Team members who actively participate and demonstrate progress may be eligible for advancement to higher positions.

Reason: Develop team members' skills and gives them opportunities for advancement to motivate them toward personal growth and career development. This is intrinsic motivation and will satisfy their intrinsic need for competence and autonomy.

• Team building and collaboration activities

Action: Organize a monthly team-building activity, such as a visit to a local roastery or a themed dress-up day at our café.

Reason: It fulfills our team members' intrinsic need for belonging and social interaction outside of work, allowing them to build stronger relationships and camaraderie. Through this type of intrinsic motivation, it will also promote a positive work environment.

• Performance-based recognition

Action: Create a program such as "Employee of the Month" that recognizes top performers and displays their photos in our cafe.

Reason: The efforts of our team members will be publicly recognized and appreciated within our café. This type of extrinsic motivation will increase the self-esteem and motivation of our employees and encourage healthy competition among them.

• Transparent and collaborative decision making

Action: Involve employees in café operations decisions, such as menu updates, staff shift schedules, etc., to promote open internal communication and collaboration. Hold regular team meetings to allow employees to voice their opinions.

Reason: This is intrinsic motivation, which satisfies team members' intrinsic motivation for power and fulfillment. By involving employees in decision-making, they feel valued, empowered, and motivated to contribute to the café's success.

• Employee Referral Program

Action: Employee referral program to encourage current team members to refer qualified candidates for job openings in the café. If the referred candidate is hired and successfully completes the probationary period, the referred person will receive a referral bonus.

Reason: Motivates team members to actively participate in the hiring process by recommending qualified individuals who they believe will make a positive contribution to the team. This allows the team to find the right candidates and also fosters a sense of ownership of the team's success. Due to the bonus component of the incentive, I consider it more of an extrinsic incentive.

Conclusion

The above is my motivation plan for Tim's Café in Winnipeg West. I combined the identification of employee needs to develop internal and external incentive programs such as performance rewards, career development, team building, recognition, transparent decision making and employee referral programs. This will hopefully contribute to creating a positive work environment and increasing motivation and engagement among team members, ultimately helping the café to achieve its business objectives of increased turnover and enhanced customer satisfaction.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and I would appreciate it if you would leave any comments.