How to Reward Your Architecture Team

A creative and professional architecture team can use their skills to accomplish remarkable feats.  Whether you’re relying on a small team or one comprised of multiple levels such as lead, core, and support members, one thing is true. Recognition goes a long way toward building trust and retaining your best employees.

When the team meets – and significantly exceeds – goals, it’s time to celebrate their success. However, you must measure the undertaken tasks and reward their completion as a team.

To do this, identify your top performers, and support their growth.  This can be letting them take the project lead or start meeting with the client. Then each team member contributes based on their strengths. Everyone in the team provides positive feedback, taking ownership of their particular part of the project. This ownership leads to responsibility, which turns into successful completion.

4 Ways Reward Build Trust Among Architecture Firm Teams

Putting several people in a room and assigning a project does not make the team. You and your team members can take action to build cohesiveness and trust.

• Practice good listening skills by looking at the person speaking, summarizing the key points you heard, and avoiding the temptation to look at your mobile phone.
• Assign specific roles to team members and validate the critical need for their work. Team members want to know that their work has value and provides significance to the project.
• Check on performance regularly, and gauge success consistently.
• You can make your team bonds stronger by rewarding the team.

When used together, these four actions will build trust among team members, encouraging and enabling them to achieve goals collaboratively, not individually.

Team rewards, Big and Small

Some companies go big with rewards, offering cash bonuses for early project completion or award-winning designs. However, team rewards don’t have to cost a lot of money. They should, however, be immediate:

• Treat the team to a catered lunch they can sit down and enjoy together.
• Hand out “late in” or “early out” passes so team members can arrive late or skip out early.
• Offer opportunities to work from home 1 or 2 days a week.

Some of the most-appreciated rewards are the ones that are specific and tailored to individual interests. One team member may treasure a fine writing instrument, and another may appreciate tickets to a sporting event. Customization is vital when recognizing the team.

Customization also matters when creating your team. Suppose you’re looking to fill gaps in your current section or want to expand the human capacity in your architectural firm. In that case, it’s time to talk to a recruiter who can help you build dynamic workgroups eager to take responsibility for their work.