Employee Motivation
Employee happiness defined
At the root of behavior lie the internal drivers that create satisfaction – fundamental mechanisms towards optimal behavior at the workplace, at home, or at play. Inherently, all people, from babies to the elderly, want the same things in order to be motivated, and thus led to happiness in their lives. The mechanisms are:
1. To be in control of their decisions
2. To be appreciated, manifested by being listened to
3. To feel they are contributing to something worthwhile
4. To achieve success in what they are doing
5. Upon achieving success, to move to the next level of task, of increasing complexity - i.e. to learn
6. To grow from that learning
7. To be allowed to make mistakes, which create the deepest learning imprint
How many of the above seven are true for you, personally? If they apply to you, would they not apply to others, including those who report to you?
Employee satisfaction
The manifestation of the above, taken from employee motivation surveys, employee opinion surveys and employee satisfaction surveys, lead to job satisfaction requirements as follows:
Having influence at work
Getting respect from the boss
Having an honest and open leader
Feeling proud working for employer
Getting employee recognition at work
Having some input into work schedules
Having power over how a job gets done
Being given fair treatment by supervisors
Having a say in decisions affecting one's work
Having information needed to get the job done
Having training of skills necessary for doing the job
Experiencing trust between co-workers and employers
Ensuring commitment between workers and employers
Gathering regular feedback about work from supervisors
Recognizing that workers have family and out-of-job responsibilities
Having clear communication, especially about the worker's expected role
You can continue on this page to learn more about Employee Motivation, or if you find that these make sense, you can decide to apply them by jumping to Performance Monitoring, which addresses all of the above issues.
Employee relations
While employee relations can be directed as a unique responsibility to an individual such as the HR Manager, we want to show you the concept that employee relations are every manager's and every employee's responsibility. Such a concept creates a new management imperative that focuses on employees as the atoms that build the molecules that grow to become the final, elegant, crystal – the corporation itself. You can decide to build an employee motivation program by clicking on Employee Motivation Components below, with the lead item of Employee Relations. For an overall better understanding of motivation, a series of articles that explain some of these employee motivational theories and concepts are available by going to Resources.
Keeping employees
You must focus on properly treating the employees you already have. See Employee Relations.
Attracting new employees
Not only do you want to keep the employees you have, you also need to attract the right people to your organization and filter out those not suited to your company. Click here to see details on Attracting New Employees.
The results
If employees are happy with what they do and how they are treated, the result is, #1: improved employee morale.
Why would contented staff members consider another company or another job? Money as a motivator ranks 4 or 5th (although it is higher as a convenient excuse to depart). Result #2 – increased employee retention rates.
Learning to work with one another in an atmosphere of mutual benefit creates result #3 – an employee team-building environment.
For more details on all of the above, go to Employee Motivation components below.
Employee Motivation components
It is our belief you should consider the following three Employee Motivation components for your process:
Click any one of the above components to see the details and the reason for its inclusion.