Management: Keeping People Motivated

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You miss the point totally paying a decent wage, give a payrise that covers bill increases and not inflation (as inflation is always lower than the amount bills go up) and give a bonus that means something to the employee and will make a difference to the employee. Pay overtime, stop making employees feel like criminals if they are off ill. Give a decent number of days holiday a year (over 20) and be flexible on working hours.
All this will motivate employees, but then this costs money and will stop employees worrying about money, and you wouldn’t want that.

Hi Darren

Thanks so much for your input. I accept that money is clearly a consideration in terms of people being motivated.

At the same time, many pieces of research into what motivates people indicate that money alone is not a top motivator for employees (while many managers believe it is).

As Maslow indicates in his hierarchy of needs, we all have some basic needs around things like food and shelter which obviously require money. However, once those basic needs are met they no longer act as motivators.

The great thing about a topic like this is that there are many perspectives and your comment adds one of real value.

All 3 tips are good. People are motivated by many things and prefer recognition in different ways. Some people want public praise while others prefer recognition in private. For those who are not motivated by money, waving $100,000 in front of them will not make them more productive. Yet, that same person may be more productive if allowed to take 2 hour lunches to get errands done. The point is, motivation differs based on the individual. Managers should take the time to determine what motivates each person on their team and work with them accordingly.

Thanks Shannon. You are so right. Different people have different motivators which is probably just as well as things would be rather dull if we are all the same.

I think it is key if you are a manager that you discover what the motivators are for individual members of the team so that you can adapt your approach to get the best from each individual.