C:\HR Stuff\02 Staff Development Center\Leadership\Articles\How to motivate employees.doc
Employee motivation - How to motivate employees1
One of the major issues faced by human resources departments and specialists
is the issue of employee motivation. In the workplace, motivation is a primary
factor when it comes to getting work done. No matter how skilled the workers in
any specific department may happen to be, the goals of the supervisor will not
reach the desired levels of success and timeliness if the proper employee
motivation is not in place.
But how, exactly, is motivation supposed to be instilled in the work force? Is
employees’ eagerness to get the job done a natural quality that should be relied
upon, or must employee motivation be structurally “imposed” upon the
workforce? Those are good questions that deserve a solid understanding of how
to proceed in order to find the answer that best fits your human resource
management scenario.
In its capacity to answer these fundamental questions, the task of any human
resources specialist or team of consultants becomes a bit complex. That’s
because not every worker is the same. While some have a self-starting approach
to every job at hand, other employees may need an extra nudge in the right
direction before results can be expected.
Fortunately, however, employee motivation is proven to work in nearly every
case when the right stimuli are added into the mix. While the fast-acting
techniques that are known to motivate employees are most needed among those
who require higher levels of motivation in order to get work done, the practice of
well-administered and objective-producing incentive enhancement is actually well
advised for employees at all different levels of inherent motivation.
Even the natural go-getters respond well to motivation techniques. In fact, many
of these employees have, unfortunately, often been neglected as human
resources departments focused more on those with lower levels of motivation.
The outcome has been inc