Motivating Your Employees Can Be A Real Challenge

Employee motivation is, or at least must be, one of the key issues for directors, managers and personnel managers. The leader must be able to find the sensitive strings of his subordinates, which can be motivated by influencing them to achieve high performance. The correct use of motivation encourages staff to make more efficient use of their knowledge, skills, and talents. In today's turbulent, often chaotic environment, commercial success depends on the employee's talent and effort. Despite the many existing theories and practices, some of the motivation of leaders today remains a mystical term. This is partly due to the fact that people are motivated by different things and techniques.

According to researcher Lindner (1998), motivated employees are needed in our rapidly changing workplaces to aid in the survival of organizations. Not only is it important to meet the needs of the consumer, it is equally important that to make sure that associates are taken care of and remain motivated. For this reason, Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly and Konopaske (2012) “states much of management’s time is spent addressing the motivation of their employees” (p. 125). According to the Encyclopedia of Small Business (2007), employee motivation is the level of energy, commitment, and creativity employees bring to their jobs; the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals (Lindner, 1988). Despite its obvious importance, employee motivation can be an elusive quest for managers due to the multiplicity of incentives that can influence employees to do their best work. The reality is that every employee has different ways to become motivated and the knowledge of how to motivate them is key to organizational success. It is imperative that employers get to know the personal needs and wants of their employees in order to establish tactics in which to motivate each of them. Once achieved, “managers are in a better position to encourage and reward employees to behave in effective ways” (Gibson et al, 2012, p.

Why do we need to motivate employees? The answer is survival. Motivated employees are needed in our rapidly changing workplaces. Motivated employees help organizations survive. Motivated employees are more productive. To be effective, managers need to understand what motivates employees within the context of the roles they perform. Of all the functions a manager performs, motivating employees is arguably the most complex. This is due, in part, to the fact that what motivates employees changes constantly. For example, research suggests that as employees' income increases, money becomes less of a motivator (Kovach, 1987). Also, as employees get older, interesting work becomes more of a motivator.

There are as many different methods of motivating employees today as there are companies operating in the global business environment. Still, some strategies are prevalent across all organizations striving to improve employee motivation. The best employee motivation efforts will focus on what the employees deem to be important. It may be that employees within the same department of the same organization will have different motivators. Many organizations today find that flexibility in job design and reward systems has resulted in employees ' increased longevity with the company, improved productivity, and better morale.

Over the last several years, the issue of employee motivation inside the workplace has been increasingly brought to the forefront. The reason why is because, globalization has been having an effect on the ability of firms to compete (which is placing more pressure on them). To deal with these challenges, most organizations are relying on their employees. The results are that those employers who are able to use this resource will be able to make adjustments quickly. This is when the firm will be able to maintain their dominance in the marketplace.

The key to an organization's success is motivation. Motivation of employees is one of the most important issues facing education today. The need to instill our employees with motivation is becoming more important especially with the shift towards a more socially and culturally responsive workforce. Knowing what motivates employees, how to provide a motivational plan that includes incentives both traditional (money) and nontraditional elements, keeping our focused on the plan and giving them the tools they need to make the plan successful, and what effect will the motivational plan have on the working atmosphere of our organization are all vital topics to tae into

As the economy continues to struggle, it becomes more and more difficult to find ways to continue to motivate employees. To motivate your staff, you must be a role model to the staff and pave the way for motivation. The result of productivity within the business is measured by the effort that a manager puts into the employees to improve their occupational performances. It it thought that motivation comes from within ourselves, although, motivation from an outside source can boost the work rate as well. In today’s workforce, a manager endures various challenges with motivating their employees that did not exist in the workforce fifty years ago. Each challenge that a manager experiences ties hand in hand with one another and are all equally important. The three challenges that I will be discussing in this paper include: lack of communication, diversity and personal issues.

Motivation in the workplace is one of the major concerns that managers face when trying to encourage their employees to work harder and do what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. According to Organizational Behavior by John R. Schermerhorn, James G. Hunt and Richard N. Osborn the definition of motivation is "the individual forces that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person's effort expended at work." They go on to say that "motivation is a key concern in firms across the globe." Through the years there have been several theories as to what motivates employees to do their best at work. In order to better understand these theories we will apply them to a fictitious organization that has the following

One of the challenges that have interested me for a long time is how to motivate the people who work for me. Prior to doing my first paper on motivation, I believed that money is what motivates employees and it was the responsibility of the employee to engage themselves in the company, I was incorrect. I learned that there are several theories on what motivates people and all of these theories suggest that money isn’t a prime motivator that creates a happy effective workforce. All of the motivation theories suggest that employee satisfaction is the key to maintaining an effective workforce. There are warning signs an employee’s needs are not being met, they may begin to regress rather than advance in their assigned duties or career advancement which, is a sign they have issues with their position and intervention may be needed. In my readings on motivation when preparing to write the first paper, I read a quote from Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, who explained that it is the company is responsible to engage the minds of every single employee, the employee is treated as an investment

The purpose of this article is to bridge the gap between knowledge and speculation about what motivates employees and what should be done for the development of the organisation. Many difficulties exist with moving employees to action. The quickest way to get an employee to do something is to ask, but if the person declines, the next solution is to give them a kick in the pants (KITA). However, there are problems with KITA and motivation. The employee, of course, does move when the KITA is applied, whether it is physical or psychological, but KITA does not lead to motivation, it only leads to movement. If an employee needs no outside stimulation, then he or she wants to do it.

This topic was chosen as my research because I believe a company is nothing without its’ employees. In choosing this topic, it better helps me to understand motivation and how it is used to push employees, helping in the success in the business.

Believing this is costing you valuable time, revenue, employees...and even threatening your own job. Cash will always be a major factor in motivating people and a solid compensation plan is critical to attracting and keeping key personnel. But the key is that additional cash is not always the only answer and in many cases not even the best answer.

This essay identified motivation theories and showed that there are more than financial ways to motivate employees and that effective leadership is also a great motivation for the workers. Unfortunately, the

Motivating individuals and groups at work often times can be a challenging task. Individuals must have the desire to want to be motivated. This challenge is difficult as individuals have different types of goals that motivate them. Motivation is typically driven by some sort of recognition. In today’s economic hardship businesses are having to do more with less. Businesses are downsizing, which causes them not to re-hire for open positions or eliminate unnecessary positions completely.

Currently due to the internet, access in a wide range of information we live in a time where advancements about the knowledge of humans, communication amongst each other, transportation and overall quality of life has been its best it has ever been. Because of the availability of this information innovation has taken place in all most all facets of life to make society better. Contrary to above there are still that refuse to innovate, the biggest problem for many companies is motivating employees to be as productive as possible. I chose the topic of motivation because in almost every job I have had I’ve noticed the lack of motivation in the work place. The role of fostering motivation is pivotal,