Your Employees Need Motivation in These 6 Ways That Don’t Include Money.

Your Employees Need Motivation in These 6 Ways That Don’t Include Money

When you think of “The American Dream,” what image pops up in your head?

A big house, fancy car, lots of vacations…all material things.

There’s no doubt about it – money motivates.

But after a while, and for just about every person, the motivation money?offers dies out. Money’s important – your employees must feel well-compensated to stay and perform their best.

However, they may need these six other motivators to keep their drive and passion:

1. Being Emotionally Engaged Results in More Motivation than Monetary Rewards

Edward Deci did a famous experiment on monetary rewards and their relationship to motivation. He separated subjects into 2 groups: A and B.

Group A was offered a cash reward for solving a puzzle. Group B was not. Group A spent twice as much time trying to solve the puzzle, but eventually lost interest. Group B, despite not being able to solve the puzzle, worked longer and kept more interest than Group A.

So, this study showed intrinsic motivation increases when people feel autonomous, competent, and related to others.

2. Your Work Procedures Must Allow Room for Creativity

When you think of how things shouldn’t be done, think of doing your taxes at the end of the year. No one looks forward to all the complex rules, or?trying to understand the accountant.

Few workplaces are so unstructured they allow no room for creativity. So there’s a balance. Your employees are happiest when they have some control over how they do their work.

3. Middle Management Must Understand What Motivates

An article at Bloomberg Business?says ?middle managers are responsible for motivating employees. That’s because they’re in the trenches every day.

Some businesses think that’s the CEO’s job. But, it turns out the CEO is too far away from day-to-day activities that they can’t understand how to motivate. It’s their job to keep the overall business going forward.

4. Show Your Employees the Impact They Make on the Bottom Line

At some jobs, you do the same thing, or nearly so, every day. And to what end?

Well, it’s up to you to show them. Show your department the valuable business objectives they help achieve. Break it down by employee so they know their exact contribution to your company.

5. Give Verbal Public Recognition

Some employees can’t wait to hear how well they’ve done. Be generous with personal and public praise. If you have a bigger company, you could also do this on your company intranet, or publicly on Facebook or Twitter.

6. Listen to Your Employee’s Ideas

Think about it – who doesn’t want to be heard? Have you ever been a part of a business or group of any kind where one person made all the decisions, never listening to anyone else?

You shouldn’t listen to your employees only for motivational purposes. Often, they have the best ideas for serving your customers better because they’re the ones who do it every day.

Learn What Motivates Your Employees

At the end of the day, it isn’t on you to dream up how to motivate your employees. You have to talk with them because each one has different motivations.

And you don’t want to appeal to just a single motivation.?They’ll have a primary motivation, but some others too.

By: Travis Pipeho