Term paper on Employees’ motivation

Recommendations

Having studied the results of different tests and programs, we should come up with a number of recommendations for an employer to deal with lack of motivation and thus with incompetence at the workplace. First of all, the individual differences of employees should be recognized and considered. The employees should be provided the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes referring different corporate issues. Then, the rewards should be linked to performance and the nominators should be really rewarded. What is more, the recognition and rewarding processes should be transparent and visible. The lack of justice in recognition is a serious demotivator. If a person sees that his incompetent colleague receives the same recognition as he does, he won’t be satisfied with his position and thus will not be eager to demonstrate and develop his competence.

Approval, trust, praise and respect, recognition, high expectations and loyalty, given that it may be received can probably become the key tools in the manager’s kitbag. Furthermore, successful individual and group performance cannot be achieved without the opportunities of job enrichment, financial incentives and, after all, good communications. The latter means that a person should be provided with everything necessary for comfort to concentrate fully on the job. This is also very close to the issues of ergonomics. The design of office, the condition of business machine, hardware and software, levels of noise and other environmental factors seriously influence the person’s attitude to the work he does and to the workplace on the whole. If he is satisfied with all those conditions, he will be motivated.

One more recommendation is to be a sensitive psychologist. It means that each employee (or even each candidate) needs individual approach. To choose one to fit the position, the person should be studied carefully. Depending on the personality, persuasion (the most powerful tool in the manager’s toolkit, as we have found out) can be reached through suggest, appeal to logic or to person’s sentiments. Sometimes subliminal persuasion is also effective, but not always fair and thus putting the manipulator at risk. Furthermore, Steinmetz (1983, 33) presents three most widely spread types of subordinates: ascendant, indifferent, and ambivalent. Each type, naturally, falls under different motivators. Another classification deals with the concept of orientation to work and distinguishing between “three main orientations: instrumental (where work is a means to an end), bureaucratic (where work is a source of status, security and immediate reward) and solidaristic (which prioritises group loyalty)” (Steinmetz 1983, 39). Still, the same person can be influenced by different factors at different times.

It has been revealed that freedom to make decisions is also a serious motivator to take more effort, that’s why creating informal groups is sometimes a good decision. One should be provided with the opportunity to see future growth and enjoy diversity in the task he is responsible for. So, there are seven general strategies for a manager to follow in order to escape problems with demotivation and incompetence in his organization. The first is positive (not negative!) reinforcement combined with high expectations of an employee. The second is effective discipline and punishment for poor performance, but here one should be careful not to alienate the employee at all. The third is obligatory: treating people fairly, according to their deserts and merits. The next is to satisfy the needs of the staff. The fifth is to set work related goals. The sixth, one of the latest proposed and studied, is restructuring jobs. And finally the last (but not the latest) is to base rewards on the job performance of each individual. Eventually, although cash has been recognized as not the leading motivating factor, it does not mean in any case that the employees should not be rewarded at all or to reward them unfairly and poorly. Each labor, especially competent labor requires fair compensation, and no one should forget about that.