Purpose
Motivation is critical. Well-motivated staff perform better, work harder and are happier.
To ensure staff become and remain motivated, leaders need to understand human behaviour. Psychologists and business gurus have proposed many theories about such behaviour. And among all these competing theories, you can find a number of common threads.
How To Use Motivation
The starting point for any leader is to accept that motivation is necessary. Job performance relies on a combination of ability and motivation. You can arrange for a member of staff to acquire ability through training and experience. But motivation is a different matter.
You can instil motivation, however, far quicker than ability. As a leader, you have to know what strategy achieves this.
There are seven basic strategies. You don’t have to employ all of them. Your organisation’s purpose and the nature of its work play a part in choosing the most suitable ones to use.
The strategies are as follows:
- Rewards. These relate to pay and perks.
- ·Positive reinforcement. By praising and encouraging staff you improve their feeling of self-worth. This in turn boosts motivation.
- ·Fair treatment. Staff need to see that a leader treats everyone fairly.
- ·Setting goals. Staff like to know why they are working. Setting organisational, team and individual goals helps.
- ·Restructuring. Restructuring jobs and teams to match abilities can make staff feel more valued.
- ·Satisfying needs. Establish the reasonable needs of staff. These vary but may include issues such as job security. Once you know what your staff want, try to meet these needs.
- ·Discipline. Many staff want to know there is a fair but effective disciplinary process for people who don’t pull their weight at work.
Motivation is not restricted to money. What many people actually seek, apart from a fair salary, is to enjoy their work and to be part of an organisation that makes them feel valued and even proud.
Staff also like to feel confident that when they make suggestions, managers will listen. And if they want promotion, staff need to be sure the organisation will give them a fair and equal chance of advancement.
Limitations
Not everyone responds in the same way to an organisation’s approach to motivation. But it is far better to have such a policy than none at all. And if you involve all managers and supervisors in your policy, you can address the motivational needs of individual staff.
Related Subjects
There are many topics related to the theory and practice of motivation. Psychologists and thinkers such as Frederick Herzberg, Douglas McGregor and Abraham Maslow, to name but three, have presented a wide range of ideas and practical proposals.
Much of the thinking about the subject of motivation relates to fields such as scientific management. There are also studies about motivation in the workplace that have taken place over the last hundred years. These have led to a substantial amount of literature. The strategies outlined here, however, are a generally accepted starting point.
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