Employee Motivation

Employee Engagement and Motivation: How can I increase employee engagement?

First and foremost effective employee engagement is a leadership philosophy requiring leaders at every level to become well versed in particular tools, techniques and capabilities.

Employee engagement starts from the top. How can you teach employee engagement effectively?

Enabling effective engagement cannot be the preserve of just one area, it requires the combined and aligned efforts of communication and HR as well as the co-operation of those responsible for technology and the acceptance of well governed power sharing as a way of working by leaders at every level.

The new work place must offer real opportunities for employees to be engaged in every day performance and big ticket change. The real war for talent is just beginning and the winners will be organizations which have a culture of distributed leadership and adult to adult relationships.

The old workplace mentality was in many ways characterized by hierarchy and a bureaucratic way of thinking. The new work place is defined by fluid and dynamic decision making.

The new workplace is shifting fast from my loyalty for security to my talent for more voice. Our research confirms that to enjoy the benefits of engaged people, organizations need to be radical in how they govern decision making in a much more considered and involving way.

Gather the sponsor group and negotiate the dimension of the givens of any situation where employees need to adapt to change. Seek to expand the boundaries of influence that wider groups of employees can have on the end result.

Imagine a peach with it’s stone in the middle. The plan of action is to reduce the size of the stone, which are the key negotiating subjects and grow the size of the flesh, the ability of your employees to decide and collaborate in the workplace.

The peach should precipitate the design of interventions which give some or much of the work to those affected and ultimately everyone whether it is strategy, change or recovery.  Find out how to improve your employee productivity and retention now.

Top 10 Worse Ways To Motivate Your Employees.

Managers find it easy to accept some misunderstandings about how to motivate employees. They need to guard against doing this because this can lead them down the wrong path and they will not reach their goals. Here are some of common misunderstandings about how to motivate employees to be mindful of:

Top 10 Worse Ways To Motivate Your Employees.

1.  Employees come one of two ways: either motivated or not motivated. (It is not “all or nothing”. Employees, for the most part, can be molded into more motivated workers than when they first started working at their current position.

2. It is the manager’s fault if employees are not motivated. (The manager shares the responsibility of employee motivation. The manager does play a vital part but not the only part.)

3. Employees are to blame if they are not motivated. (The employee shares responsibility for his motivation but there are other influences that can affect his motivation. Some of these influences can de-motivate employees.

4. Every employee can be motivated. (Most employees can be motivated to do better.)

5. Every manager naturally knows how to motivate every employee. (Managers and employees are complex individuals. Managers do not naturally know how to motivate each and every employee.)

6. It is a “one size fits all” in employee motivation. All employees can be motivated the same way. (This is simply not true. Different employees respond best to different employee motivators.)

7. Money (cash awards, promotions, raises, etc.) is needed to support employee motivation and maintain it. (Money is not the “perpetual motivation” machine. There are other ways to motivate employees that are more effective than using money alone. Money can be used but should not be the only way to motivate employees.)

8. Bosses who use fear to motivate employees will have the best results. (Overall, fear is a poor employee motivator to use in the workplace and should not be employed. It may work short term and in unique circumstances.

9. The biggest influence in motivating employees is the desire to see their company be successful. (This is important to employees to have the company they work for be successful but it is not the primary influence driving their motivation to work harder and better.

10. Feeling “valued” has nothing to do with an employee’s motivation to work harder or better. (Feeling “valued” can be a significant factor in motivating employees.)

11. Increases in employee motivation will only last for short periods under the best of circumstances. (This is not true. There are proven ways to increase employee motivation on a deeper level that will be long lasting.) Looking to more information on employee motivation, then sign up for the free e-course on How to Engage and Motivate Employees.

Find out how to motivate your employees the correct way and see if your bottom line doesn’t increase dramatically.

How To Keep Your Employees Motivated When Business Is Slow

Effective Employee Motivation Strategies

Any commercial organization should have an effective incentive program in place regarding employee motivation in order to hold a sustained growth pattern and high rate of profitability. An employee has to spend about ten hours almost six days in a week in a demanding and sometimes competitive work environment. These conditions can have a negative effect and cause the workforce to lose its momentum, therefore it is very important to implement effective motivational strategies that keep up the morale of the employees and encourage a boost to their productivity.

An organization can easily come up together with a really attractive reward strategy, yet it can not work if your working environment is definitely bad. One of the most crucial first step toward any motivational method is definitely to create with regards to a positive change in their job environment. Personnel must be given enough freedom to socialize among themselves not to mention there really should be informal interaction amongst the advanced staff. This course works to generate a strong bonding between personnel not to mention helps with teamwork.

How do you keep your employees motivated when business is plumenting?

Contributing to this course is definitely establishing excellent communication between staff not to mention employers or possibly the managerial cadre.

Plenty of problems not to mention misunderstandings can easily be solved immediately if there is definitely a plan of giving an ear to every one of the grievances with the personnel. If your employers distance themselves from the all of the employees, a rift is definitely immediately produced by this type of an attitude not to mention this doesn’t bear any positive aspects. If the personnel understand that the employer is definitely always ready to listen to their point of view, there is definitely an optimistic change in the working environment not to mention can result in excellent productivity.

The next most important strategy in any working environment is praise for a job well done. Even when there is no monetary reward involved a few words of praise for the deserving employee goes a long way in boosting the morale. Each individual is unique and hence the abilities and capacity of each employee will be different. It is crucial for a manager to know this about each of the staff working under him. Only then can he effectively judge when that employee has put in that extra effort or outdid himself in generating a particular result.

Just dishing out words of praise is actually not likely to fulfill the workers in the long run so it is actually additionally required to have a proper rewards system in place. Aside from a payment method determined by performance, a much more substantial reward for example a well deserved vacation may display to your own workers the significance of their performance. Vacation incentive programs reward your own workers for any job well done by the end of a long in addition to prosperous year.

Effective employee motivation is actually based on a fine balance between due recognition in addition to much more monetary based rewards. These 2 elements work together in addition to counting on only one may net only short term results. Whenever you employ both the tactics effectively there is actually a sustained positive working environment in the organization that is actually great for the company as a whole.

Using employee motivation programs to motivate and retain your employees is cost effective. You’ll boost sales and then start to enjoy an increase in your company’s profit margin. Find the best advise on all your corporate reward programs needs.

The Psychology of Employee Motivation

The Psychology of Employee Motivation

Managers in all industries, now more than ever, are looking for effective ways to motivate employees in order to build a sustainable and resilient company foundation. In order to create employees that are motivated enough to grow and engage customers, companies must understand motivation as a human need and how it applies to a work setting.

Employee motivation is an essential ingredient to achieving success within your organization; motivated employees directly correlate to performance, job satisfaction, and employee retention. As a result, the ability to motivate and engage employees is a vital and necessary skill for managers in any industry.

Before managers can effectively implement an employee motivation program, they must understand, one, the nature of motivation and its implications, and two, what being motivated looks and feels like with regard to their employees.

To understand motivation and its implications, managers need to be aware of people and how they think. For this, we pose the question: “What does psychology, the study of human mind and behavior, tell us about motivation?”

In psychology, the term “motivation” can be defined simply as the reason for engaging in a particular behavior; basically, motivation is the “why” behind any given action. A vast amount of research concerning motivation theory has been conducted over the course of decades, with many diverging theories. Despite this, however, there are three generally accepted schools of thought in regard to motivational psychology. The first, attributed to Sigmund Freud, is known as “Theory X.” This theory assumes the worst motives in people, adopting the pessimistic perspective that people are lazy and lack ambition; they are self-seeking, avoid work at all costs, and do the bare minimum. The implications drawn from Freud’s viewpoint necessitate motivating employees through external factors such as reward, manipulation, or punishment.

Douglas McGregor developed a second theory which is known as “Theory Y.” McGregor assumed the best motives in people, and optimistically believed people to be genuinely interested in work, learning, and overall self-improvement. His theory implicates that people are internally motivated and work for themselves, not out of fear or reward; thus negating any need for externally motivating factors.

Finally, a third major motivation theory is Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.” The basic principle behind this theory is that human beings are motivated by meeting their most pressing needs first. Maslow’s hierarchy contains five levels, and, theoretically, each successive level can only be attained by meeting those beneath it. They are (in order from lowest to highest): physiological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization. According to Maslow, employees’ lower level needs would have to be met in order for them to achieve a higher functioning level of motivation.

The theory, or combination of theories, managers ascribe to will directly affect how they motivate their employees. So, the imperative question now becomes: “How will these motivational approaches make employees feel, and consequently, perform?”

As observed by Freud and McGregor, generally speaking, motivation can feel one of two ways — positive or negative – as employees are motivated both by negative and positive factors. For example, a negative motivating factor is fear – fear of failure, fear of losing favor, fear of losing a job. If an employee is being consistently motivated by fear, he feels unsatisfied, under-appreciated, and ineffective. Conversely, if an employee is motivated by positive factors like a desire to gain appreciation, or even better, to share in the success of the company or team, he will experience satisfaction, worth, and increased productivity.

If an organization adopted Maslow’s approach to motivation, it would seek to meet the most basic needs of their employees in order to equip them for higher levels of performance. While providing resources to meet one’s physiological needs such as food, shelter, and clothing is as simple as writing a paycheck, helping employees achieve higher levels like social and self-esteem needs are more complicated. Still, these needs can be remedied through various vehicles like employee interaction and genuine praise, appreciation, and recognition from supervisors. If an organization can free their employees from the pressures of fulfilling lower level needs, their employees will feel comfortable and capable to operate at their greatest potential.

In conclusion, managers must act as motivators. The question is: How can you be an effective one? Research often finds that internal motivating factors prove more effective than any externally motivating force. The goal, then, is for organizations and managers to create environments where

To learn how to motivate and retain your key employees, click here

Motivate Your Employees Without A Lot Of Cash Out Of Your Pocket

“Motivate Your Employees Without A Lot Of Cash Out Of Your Pocket”

Let’s face facts. It is hard to run a business in this day and age. Not only is money tight everywhere you look but it is getting harder to find quality employees who are willing to make the grade when it comes to sales. You need to have employees who are doing all they should be plus a little more to make your business successful in every way. The real question is, how does one make that happen?

Well in most cases business owners try to provide more money as far as salary and bonuses are concerned. However, one must wonder if this really does the trick. After all, if the employee gets more money for simply going through the motions, why should they do any more then that? That is the real downfall to raising salaries without having something in return.

What you are really looking to do is motivate your employees to make sure they are getting the job done and going above and beyond the call of duty. Now you could spend thousands of dollars and send them all to a seminar hosted by some over priced, capped teeth, infomercial reject and hope that does the trick. In most cases this will do nothing more then make the employees resent you for taking away their free time to go to the seminar.

There is a solution that will work. What about offering an incentive program for those that reach a certain goal? Sure, you say, and I am made of money. Well you do not have to be made of money to create a winning motivational reward program that will have the employees jumping at every chance to win.

The solution is all about travel and vacations. Who does not love the chance to get away? We all do. Seeking out some peace and quiet, away from the rigors of the daily grind. Your employees are no different. They would love the chance to get away and you can now give that to them without spending a load of cash.

The secret to this system is in the packages or vouchers. Instead of paying for a vacation out of pocket you simply buy a package deal by way of a travel voucher and award the winning employee with that. Sound simple? Too good to be true? Well it is simple, and it is true.

Using a company like that deals in travel vouchers only, you can easily create a high quality vacation employee motivational program and save a lot of money doing it.

You want to make sure that you are purchasing in bulk only. Buying these kind of deals by the piece will cost you more money then you could have ever imagined. The more vouchers you purchase the better the deal becomes. In many cases the companies offer volume discounts when you make a larger purchase. So instead of purchasing enough for one round of incentive programs you should go with two or more. With that you will get the best deal and save a good amount of money in the process.