Employee High Motivation

Ensuring High Motivation

There are several helpful suggestions to ensure that motivation is high in your department.  You can develop an environment that makes internal motivation a reality in your employees’ lives.

1. Set High Expectations with Clearly-defined Objectives

When you ask people the question, “What accomplishment are you most proud of ?” most will 
describe an accomplishment requiring significant effort to complete.  Many managers think that pushing mediocre employees to higher accomplishments requires too much effort.  There is no doubt, it does require tremendous effort.  But, the problem with allowing mediocre or poor employees to continue at their present levels is that the cycle of low motivation also continues.  There is nothing motivating about mediocre performance.  It takes guts to set higher standards and then hold your employees to them.  As employees rise to meet the new standards, increased feelings of motivation are
fostered in the workforce. 

2. Reward People for Meeting High Expectations

If you set high standards for your employees, then you need to celebrate and recognize success when achievement occurs.  One of the biggest complaints from employees is that they work incredibly hard to meet deadlines, and then no one recognizes them for their extraordinary effort.  As you recognize and reward people for accomplishment, you must be sure the rewards you are bestowing are important to the recipients.

3. Praise and Recognize Your Employees often

This statement sounds so easy, and yet, it is incredibly difficult to practice on a steady basis.  It is easy to find things that seem more important to do, like manage the cash flow, solve a customer’s problem, answer an employee’s question, or complete a report.  However, if time is not taken to praise and recognize your employees, motivation and morale will wane.  Then, you will have a lot more things to do! 

4. Explain the “big picture.” 

People are motivated when they feel they are making a significant contribution to the organization.  Many times, employees do not understand how significant their contribution really is.  One way to demonstrate an employee’s contribution is to ask the question.  “What happens when the employee does not do his or her job ?” Often, when the employee does not do his or her job properly, it adversely affects someone else.  That someone is usually another employee, department, or customer.  You need to demonstrate how each employee’s purpose of the organization.

5. Find out the Needs and Goals of your Employees.

Different things motivate different people.  If you are going to motivate your employees successfully, you need to find out what is motivating to each employee.  Employees may be motivated by challenge, recognition, promotions, responsibility or learning something new.  Once you identify what motivates your employees, you need to merge that individuals needs and goals into your needs and goals, and then into the needs and goals of the organization.

6. Develop your Self-Esteem and the Esteem of Others.

People with high self-esteem are more motivated and productive.  We feel best about ourselves when we have been challenged and have accomplished something.  This means that you constantly have to set goals for yourself.  Keep your employees involved in the goal-setting process.  It is important for supervisors to remember, by position alone, your behavior and actions have a tremendous impact on the
way employees feel.  Take the responsibility to help others feel heightened self-esteem.

7. Get Others Involved in the Goal-Setting Process.

If people are not involved in setting goals that affect job performance, there is a strong chance that they may not be committed to the goals.  Employees resent it when management sets goals that affect them without soliciting their input and then hold them responsible for achieving those goals.  The problem with a goal not being “our goal” is that we do not see the importance of achieving the goal.  Therefore, it is hard to find the motivation to act on the task.  We tend to spend our energies on other tasks we perceive as more important.  We tend to spend our energies on our own goals.

8. Develop a Positive Mental Attitude.

Being around a negative person is not motivating.  Negative people tend to take energy away, not instill motivation.  If your attitude is negative, it is probably a reflection of your vision.  If things are getting worse, what is exciting and motivating about a negative future ? Be positive – people will gravitate toward you, rather than push away from you. 

9. Develop a “that’s no problem” attitude.

It does not take much of a person to handle life – or a job – when everything is going right.  It does take a special king of person to handle an environment successfully when things go wrong.  The most valuable employees are the ones who can look at problems and come up with solutions.  They say “We have a problem, but that’s no problem.”  Leo Buscalia, a professor at the University of Southern California, states it best when he says,  “The most successful people in life are the ones with the greatest number of viable alternatives”.

10. Be a Positive Role Model

If you want to be a motivator, you need to be motivated.  You cannot demand top performance from your employees  if you are unwilling to give your very best effort.  When employees witness your willingness to contribute extraordinary effort, they are much more willing to go the extra mile.