Motivating Today's Employees. Lin Grensing-Pophal

“Training will only make employees more marketable.” In the long run, providing employees with the latest in learning opportunities may indeed raise their market value. However, it also helps to motivate them and enhance their performance in their current positions. Offering training and development opportunities is a very worthwhile retention strategy.

      4) “We can’t hold on to good people.” The notion of holding on, which companies often use in a figurative sense, may mask a more literal problem, dbm says. The traditional view of retention, to which many companies still adhere, is the ability to hold on to or keep employees. Today’s reality is that companies need to adopt a more flexible and understanding approach to meeting individual needs by creating an environment in which employees want to stay and grow. Employees need to be viewed as free agents, not fixed assets.

      5) “Once they leave, who cares?” The traditional approach was to send departing employees on their way and not look back. However, valuable lessons may be learned from those who leave, most often during exit interviews, which can help bolster future retention rates.

      Recruiting, retaining, and motivating employees is a complex process rife with misconceptions. Before going any further, let’s take a closer look at some of most common myths surrounding the issue of motivation.

      Fallacy #1: Motivation is the Goal

      As a manager, what do you want from your employees? Many managers might say, “I want them to be reliable, to come to work every day on time. I want them to be dependable; to produce consistent results. I want them to perform.”

      Is it enough to have “motivated” employees? No. Motivation should not be the end goal of your human resource activities. Motivation is not enough. Motivation must lead to something — and that something is the realization of your business goals and objectives.

      It’s not enough to have happy or satisfied employees. A team of happy employees may be highly motivated, but if their efforts are not being directed toward the accomplishment of specific business goals and objectives, what’s the point?

      The desire to motivate employees is driven by the need to operate a successful business. That may seem somewhat callous, but it is the reality of doing business. Even in a not-for-profit environment, there are certain goals and objectives that must be met — raising a certain amount of money to support the organization’s mission, for example.

      Suppose you have an administrative assistant who is extremely enthusiastic about her job. She comes to work every day, on time, ready to perform. But her dream is to be a graphic designer. The part of her job she loves the most is being creative with the documents she produces — she loves to find clipart on the Internet, and add it to memos and letters. She eagerly volunteers to create flyers for employee events and has developed a department newsletter on which she spends a great deal of time each week. Because she so enjoys these creative activities, she rushes through her other tasks. There is no doubt that your administrative assistant is a very motivated employee. But is she motivated to do the right things?

      Yes, you should be concerned about motivating your employees. But you must recognize that motivation, in itself, is not the goal. The goal is the accomplishment of your business objectives — motivated employees are one of the tools that will allow your company to reach those objectives.

      Fallacy #2: Money Motivates

      The idea that money is an effective motivator is perhaps the most common motivational myth. As Herzberg pointed out many years ago, money is a maintainer — not a motivator. Certainly pay is important and you need to ensure that employees are fairly paid in the context of both their coworkers and of the market in which you operate. But given a fair rate of pay, more money will not provide more motivation.

      Good managers intuitively know that different things motivate different employees, says a Purdue University human resource expert, but putting a tailored plan into action is not as easy as it sounds. David Schoorman, who teaches human resource management at Purdue’s Krannert School of Management, also consults extensively with industry. Schoorman says the structured “one-size-fits-all” corporate compensation plan can trip up even the most responsive, creative manager.

      “A real challenge for supervisors and managers today is to figure out how to be that bridge between the standard benefit list of ‘what you get’ and what really motivates you as an employee,” Schoorman says. “People putting together compensation and benefit plans often underestimate the value of growth opportunities, both professional and personal, as motivational tools.”

      Here’s a very common example. An employee who has been doing an exceptional job, is paid well, and has been with your company for a number of years applies for a promotion to an open position. The position has also been advertised outside the company; in fact, a national search is under way to find the best applicant for the job. The internal applicant believes that he or she is that best applicant. Yet you find that external applicants offer broader experience, more varied backgrounds, and the fresh approaches you’re hoping to inject into your company. You regretfully decide not to interview the internal applicant.

      Over the next few months, this formerly motivated, highly energetic, and satisfied employee begins to exhibit signs of unrest. The employee is becoming withdrawn and uninvolved. The manager reports that the employee is taking more time off, refraining from putting in any extra effort, and is openly looking for work elsewhere.

      Is it the employee’s rate of pay that is causing the problem? No.

      After considering the above example, you’ll probably concede that, at best, money is a good sweetener. While it’s a necessary aspect of any job, it’s not enough to keep performance at a high level in the absence of other things — things like opportunities for advancement, recognition, involvement, and good communication. While a cake has to have sugar to make it taste good, it won’t be a cake unless all the other ingredients are there. In the same way, in any job, money may make a position seem very attractive, but in the absence of other non-monetary aspects of a job, it won’t be enough to keep an employee happy.

      “In today’s tight labor market, competitive pay is the price of admission for employers — it is not a key differentiator,” says Rick Beal, a senior compensation consultant at Watson Wyatt and co-author of the firm’s study Strategic Rewards®: The New Employment Deals. The study involved a survey of 551 large employers and over 500 employees. Only 15 percent of those surveyed said that expectation of financial reward had a very significant influence on performance. “Our research consistently shows that intangible factors such as personal satisfaction and recognition of contributions are more effective in driving high performance,” says Beal.

      Yes, you need to pay your employees, and pay them fairly, if you want a good job done. After a certain point, though — and this point will vary with each employee — money will no longer serve as an effective motivator. It is at this point that you’ll need to turn to non-monetary incentives.

      Fallacy #3: The Golden Rule Applies

      “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s the golden rule and it’s a rule that many of us have operated under for many years. The problem is, when it comes to motivating employees, it doesn’t work.

      Why not? Because the things that motivate you, as a manager, are very different from the things that motivate your employees. Managers are different from employees. They have different needs and drives. So while you may be extremely motivated when asked to lead a new project team, your employees may feel taken advantage of when given the same opportunity.

      One manager tells of the insights she obtained after a department meeting in which she encouraged employees to share with her examples of what made them feel motivated. While her staff was motivated by recognition, hand-written notes, feedback on doing a good job, she was motivated by the opportunity to take on a new project or being assigned a new challenge. Guess how she was attempting to motivate her staff. Guess how well that was working!

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