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TEN MOST POWERFUL MOTIVATORS 1. INPUT: Solicit employees’ ideas, and use them. Involve employees in planning, decision making, and problem-solving. Not only will this motivate them, but you will be amazed how many great ideas workers will come up with. 2. CHOICE: Let employees make choices about their work. Obviously there are “mandatory” tasks that have to be performed, but letting employees fill out their job descriptions with “discretionary” tasks of their own choosing will give them a far greater sense of ownership in their work. 3. RESPONSIBILITY: Expand employees’ responsibilities. Employees today want more responsibility, not less – as long as it is real responsibility (not just dumping more work on them) and it comes with commensurate authority. 4. TEAMWORK: Use the power of teamwork. You can mobilize enormous energy by forming teams to improve every aspect of an organization. But, make sure each team has clear goals and guidelines up-front. 5. LEARNING: Increase learning opportunities. You don’t need to spend a fortune on formal training classes; just include learning goals in each employee’s job description. 6. FUN: Add a little fun to work. No matter how tedious and routine work tasks might be, any work can be made more motivating by interspersing occasional fun activities, such as humor, contests, surprise treats, and “productive” social interaction. 7. MEASUREMENT: Encourage continuous “scorekeeping.” The key to motivation measurement lies in the feedback it provides. Identify key measures for each job and keep a running “scorecard” for each employee and each work group. This way employees will always know exactly how they are doing and will be better able to improve their own performance. 8. GOALS: Set challenging goals. Don’t be afraid to set goals high. Ambitious goals are highly motivating, as long as employees understand why the goals are important and are confident that they won’t be penalized should they fall a little short. 9. APPRECIATION: Create a “climate of appreciation.” Nothing motivates like sincere appreciation. Unfortunately, few organizations show adequate recognition for employees’ contributions, especially for their extra efforts. When extra effort isn’t appreciated, employees stop trying so hard. 10. SIGNIFICANCE: Stress the significance of work. Some employees perceive their work as drudgery, while others view the same work as “a calling.” In other words, do employees recognize the value of their organization’s products or services and their contribution to improving customer’s lives? Incidentally, not one of these motivators costs a penny! TEN “MOST DEADLY” DEMOTIVATORS 1. POLITICS: Most employees are all too familiar with subjective decision-making which operates according to unwritten “rules of success,” having little to do with performance. Under such conditions, the lion’s share of rewards, promotions, and resources go to those who are the best at “playing politics.” 2. UNCLEAR EXPECTATIONS: Mixed messages and confused priorities often cause employees to work on the wrong tasks and accomplish the wrong results, only to find out – after the fact (usually at performance appraisal time) – that they were on the wrong track. 3. UNPRODUCTIVE MEETINGS: Meetings are important, but too many are unnecessary, disorganized, passive, lengthy, and boring – leaving employees, according to one observer, “feeling powerless as another meeting wanders into oblivion.” 4. CONSTANT CHANGE: Change is vital to organizational success, but today’s workplace is turbulent enough without unnecessary changes, which employees deride as “programs-of-the-month” and which are often adopted and discontinued without any follow-up whatsoever. 5. DISHONESTY: Whether it involves making a false claim, covering up a mistake, omitting a key fact, saying one thing but doing another, or an outright lie, nothing demotivates employees like being deceived by their organization. 6. WITHHOLDING INFORMATION: One of the most common employee complaints is “not being informed.” How many times have you heard, “I wish I had known that earlier” or “The Company doesn’t keep us informed about what’s happening”? Lack of information makes employees feel stupid and distrusted. 7. DISCOURAGING RESPONSES: Too many organizations and managers say they want employees’ ideas, but then ignore them. Most employees are familiar with discouraging phrases (such as “It can’t be done here”) and many suggestion systems are “black holes” into which suggestions seem to disappear, never to be seen again. Just consider how many millions of great ideas were killed by this demotivator alone, not to mention the devastating impact it has had on workers’ self-esteem. 8. UNFAIRNESS: Nothing offends employees like preferential treatment, special favors, and perks given to some but not to others. Most workers become particularly irate when they learn of astronomical management compensation packages, while excellent employees are paid only a few dollars more than those who do the minimum. 9. BEING TAKEN FOR GRANTED: Employees everywhere report that they receive little or no positive feedback or recognition, not even for their outstanding efforts. 10. BEING FORCED TO DO POOR-QUALITY WORK: Short-term time and cost constraints too often force quality compromises. Being robbed of the right to pride in workmanship is demoralizing and demeaning to employees. As one discouraged worker lamented: “We all knew the product was garbage, but it was shipped anyway. We left work each day feeling awful.”

Source: Dean R. Spitzer, Ph.D.

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