Employee motivation can be understood
as an effective process that initiates and maintains aim-oriented behaviors in
the employees. Basically, motivation is an efficient driving force which
creates the desire to achieve a goal by combining energy and commitment to work
towards the goal. It incorporates different social, biological and emotional
actions and it also comprises the cognitive forces which activate our behaviors
in a constructive manner.
For any organization, How to Motivate Employees is one of the
most important questions as motivated employees are almost inevitable for the
productive growth of different businesses. Two different ways of employee
motivation which can be effectively adopted by the companies are extrinsic
motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation can be defined as
when an employee is motivated by an outside or third party source. Mostly it
includes rewards such as social recognition or praise, trophies and money.
While intrinsic motivation can be defined as the motivation arising from inside
the individual such as someone doing a complicated cross-word puzzle purely for
the personal gratification of solving a problem.
Different tips for employee
motivation:
1. Use of different simple
gestures of appreciating the attendance of employees, not only makes the
employees feel appreciated but it also makes them enthusiastic to their work. Rewarding
employees when excellence has been met is also quite beneficial. By thanking
and praising employees at the end of the day, managers can accomplish many
positive things. The psychological effects of these simple gestures for the
employees are quite overwhelming.
2. Employers should never use
negative motivation, as it can be extremely destructive. Basically, this tip is
actually a "what-not-to-do." Different types of negative motivation are
like imposing threats when some subordinates are not able to finish work on time.
Mostly bosses do this because they think, this would give them the
"presence" needed to be able to motivate efficiently but this will
create a destructive impact on the employees and hence employee will be
negatively motivated. Employee will do his work forcefully, not with the natural
enthusiasm and in the long run, that will negatively impact his productivity.
3. Most leading companies provide
different types of privileges to their employees. This is also an efficient way
for motivating employees and some large and successful companies reward their
employees on a monthly basis through points as they exchange these points for
cash or special items. For collecting these prizes for free, employees work
quite enthusiastically in the most motivated manner.