The employees who work for your company are naturally motivated. All you need to do is to utilize their natural ability, which you can do without spending a dime. That's right! No money.
In fact, money can actually decrease an employee's motivation and performance.
The first step in utilizing your employees' natural abilities is to eliminate your organization's negative practices that zap away their natural motivation.
The second step your organization can take is to develop true motivators, which can spark all your employees into being motivated. By decreasing negative zapping demotivators and by adding true motivators, you will tap into your employees' natural motivation.
Your employees' natural motivation relies on the fact that all people have human desires for affiliation, achievement, and for control and power over their work. In addition, they have desires for ownership, competence, recognition, and meaning in their work.
The following is a list of ten motivation zapping organizational behaviors that will DEMOTIVATE your employees.
Create an atmosphere full of company politics.
Develop unclear expectations regarding your employees' performance.
Create a lot of unnecessary rules for employees to follow.
Plan unproductive meetings for employees to attend.
Promote internal competition between employees.
Withhold information critical for employees to perform their work.
Provide criticism instead of constructive feedback.
Tolerate poor performance so your high performing employees feel taken advantage of.
Treat employees unfairly.
Underutilize the capability of your employees.
The following are examples of true motivators that will help your employees tap into their natural ability to be motivated. Remember; implement these true motivators without spending money. Instead of focusing on money, focus on how you can make some changes within your organization.
If your employees do routine work add some fun and variety to their routine.
Provide employees with input and choice in how they do their work.
Encourage responsibility and leadership opportunities within your company.
Promote social interaction and teamwork between employees.
Tolerate learning errors by avoiding harsh criticism.
Promote job ownership.
Develop goals and challenges for all employees.
Provide lots of encouragement.
Make appreciation part of your repertoire.
Develop measurement that shows performance increase.
By eliminating demotivators and adding in no cost motivators you are tapping into your employees' natural human desires to perform at their maximum level of motivation and productivity. The following are the human desires that you are tapping into.
Desire for activity
Desire for ownership
Desire for power
Desire for affiliation
Desire for competence
Desire for achievement
Desire for recognition
Desire for meaning
That's it! Remember, don't work to change one individual at a time. Work to change your entire organization to decrease the demotivators and thereby increase your employees' natural ability to motivate themselves.