Employee motivation

Employee motivation

Motivation plays a crucial role when it comes to employee performance in the workplace. Maybe you know it yourself,  the more motivated you are, the more you give. This applies not only a person’s private life, but also in their working career.

So how can you be successful in motivating not only yourself, but also your employees? We will give you the answer to that in this article!

In this post, we will give you 4 tangible tips on how you can motivate your employees. At the end of the article, we will briefly review the frequently mentioned motivation concepts, namely intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors.

1. Create an opinion and set goals

The first piece of advice, and perhaps one of the most decisive factors in relation to motivation in the workplace. It is about giving the work a meaning.

First of all, it is important that you yourself are motivated and experience job satisfaction, as your motivation rubs off on your employees. Next, you can help your employees understand how their work tasks contribute to the big picture. In addition, you can also ask your employees to reflect on why they chose your workplace, apart from the salary.

Indicative studies also point out that many employees experience great motivation if they have concrete objectives. Other employees, on the other hand, find it motivating to compete to achieve certain goals before the other employees. However, not everyone believes that competition has a positive influence on their motivation.

Therefore, you can advantageously set objectives that clarify what the employees must achieve. If your workplace has a culture that embraces competition, you can for example consider offering prizes to employees who first achieve a specific milestone. Furthermore, it can promote motivation if the employee has an influence on the objectives and tasks, as it can increase their sense of ownership.

2. Hire the right employees

You may face major challenges if you try to motivate an employee who does not fit into your culture or does not like the work. Thus, the hiring process has a central role when it comes to employee motivation. If you would like to learn more about how you can hire the right employees for your workplace, you can click here.

3. Understand your employees' value sets

It can be a difficult task to motivate your employees if you do not know their values. In this regard, values ​​are the fundamental elements that your employees believe to be either right or wrong. Most employees are more motivated if they perform work tasks that are consistent with their value set. If, on the other hand, your employees have to compromise their values, they may become demotivated.

An example of this could be working hours. Some employees are happy with long working days, whereas other employees value time with family or friends.

4. Establish a healthy working community and working environment

Indicative analysis shows that employees can feel more motivated if they are part of a community at work. It is therefore important that you help your employees to build a network and encourage them to create friendships as a natural part of the job. You can, for example, give your new employees a "mentor". The mentor must, among other things, ensure that the new employees are well integrated into the workplace during the onboarding process.

In addition, the working environment is also of great importance in terms of motivation. Here it is, among other things, central that your workplace has a healthy indoor climate and a low noise level. In addition to the physical working environment, a well functioning mental working environment is also essential. We have prepared an article that goes in depth with the psychological working environment, which you can read here.

Internal and external motivation factors

The internal and external motivation factors are often mentioned in connection with employee motivation. These concepts originate from Herzberg's two-factor theory,  also called Herzberg's motivation theory.

Herzberg lists intrinsic (internal/natural motivation) and extrinsic motivation factors (hygiene factors), which you can see below:

Internal motivation factors:

• Responsibility
• Autonomy
• Recognition
• Results
• Internal aspects of the job

Hygiene factors:

• Job security
• Pay
• Company policy
• Status
• Work environment

According to Herzberg, the hygiene factors can demotivate or cause dissatisfaction if they are not present, but rarely give satisfaction when they exist in the company. The internal motivation factors, on the other hand, can create satisfaction. The theory can act as a source of inspiration if you want to understand or increase employee engagement.

But in order to be able to motivate the employees, it requires that, for example, the following does not prevail: