The
challenge: What to avoid, what to
do to motivate your employees
What motivates
your employees to come to work? To apply their talents
to their jobs? To do better? To achieve more?
I can
easily tell you what doesn't motivate. The latest workplace
jargon. The popular psycho-babble buzzwords. Last year
I wrote about "spirituality"
at work. Spirituality. That word is fluffy enough. But
just yesterday I received a flyer inviting me to a conference
on business and consciousness. What? Consciousness? The
flyer reads, "We believe consciousness is needed in
the workplace." I should hope so. It helps if our
employees are conscious. Especially to avoid workers comp
claims.
How fed
up are your employees with guru-inspired changes and
paradigm shifts? Plenty. Why do we need, let alone use,
words like paradigm? How fed up are your employees? Check
out the game Buzzword Bingo on the web at www.buzzword
bingo.com and similar sites. You can download or design
your own Buzzword Bingo cards, with words and phrases
in place of numbers. Words and phrases like time frame,
skill set, leverage, paradigm shift, core competency,
guesstimate, feedback. I'd add, at-this-point-in-time.
Object of the game: As in bingo, the player checks off
words and phrases as they are used by the boss and co-workers.
So, the
first way to motivate employees is to keep consciousness,
paradigm shifts and other jargon out of your workplace.
Speak and write memos to your employees in plain, straight-forward
English (or other language when you need to).
What
else to do? Define exactly what it is you want to motivate
your employees to do. Or what behavior you want to stop.
Last week
an employer in New York City called and wanted some guidance
on how to cut down on absenteeism. Very bad absenteeism,
and poor performance when the employees do show up for
work. As I was giving him some suggestions, he stopped
me and said my ideas wouldn't work because these were
contract employees. Employees coming from contracting
agencies. So I said, "You're starting at the wrong
end. You don't try to motivate the slough-off employees.
You need to motivate the contracting agencies to send
you motivated employees and to agree to imposing negative
consequences on employees who screw up.
Next,
consider carefully what you can use or do to motivate.
There
are internal and external motivators or rewards.
An internal motivator is something inside the
employee that causes them to want to do better or causes
them to want to continue working. An external motivator
comes from outside the employee.
Examples:
Work that matches what an employee most wants to do (a
woman wanting to spend time with animals working as a
veterinarian) is an internal motivator. Work that helps
an employee achieve a career goal is an internal motivator.
Giving an employee a bonus or a plaque is an external
motivator.
External
motivators are weaker, less effective, than internal
motivators.
Money
in the form of raises and bonuses is usually not a very
good motivator. The more money a person is making (generally)
the less will raises and bonuses motivate. Obviously
there are exceptions. Money motivates low-paid workers
more than it does highly paid workers. And money often
is a motivator for outside sales people. Money, basically,
is the way we keep score in the work or career game.
People want money to satisfy their basic needs...and
then they want more of it as a way of keeping score.
As a way of measuring how much they are being appreciated...compared
to others in the workplace or compared to friends. So
it is a weak, and not a lasting, motivator.
What you
want to do is create a work environment and culture that
increases opportunities for internal motivation. Plus
a work environment and culture that includes sufficient
external motivators to satisfy employees' basic needs
and their need to keep score.
So, what
kind of work environment and culture?
Employees
want to believe that their views and opinions count,
that management listens to them. They want opportunities
for personal and career growth. They want opportunities
to do what they do best. They want work that matches
their behavior style. (Example: a talkative extrovert
wants outside sales work or public relations work, not
production line work). They want appreciation from management
when they do well.
What can
you do to have this kind of work environment and culture?
Some examples. You could have one of, or a combination
of, the following: Open book management, Kaizen (continuous
improvement), activity-based management (ABM) and
activity-based costing (ABC), and a pay and reward
system based on the gains you want (gainsharing). [I'm
right on the edge of jargon here. If you've got less-buzzy-sounding
words to use in place of continuous improvement and gainsharing,
let me know.]
How might
all this work together to create a workplace where employees
(1) feel challenged to do their very best (the internal
reward) and (2) know they will get rewarded with some
kind of share of the gain (the external reward) for meeting
the challenge?
You could
use open book management, Kaizen, ABM (one or a combination)
to set your gainsharing goals. One or more of these approaches
would set the short-term and long-term goals that employees,
teams, and the business or organization will gain. Then
you tie pay and rewards to the gains made.
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