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Motivation can be referred to as a means to induce or encourage employees to achieve organization goals and objectives. And it is essential for the survival and growth of every company/organization. This is because motivation and productivity are positively correlated i.e. productivity increases among the more motivated employees. The reverse holds for less motivated workers.

Recognizing the fact that a manager must work with his or her employees to get things done, the manager must ensure that employees are well motivated to increase productivity as well as work towards achieving the organization's goals.

As easy as it sounds, motivation is a difficult task to undertake. This is because it involves human beings, who tend to be complex. What motivates one person is not necessarily what motivates the other person. Therefore a mix of different motivational ideas and skills must interplay in this task. At the same time, motivational factors change with time.

There are however certain skills and ideas that can help motivate and keep employees happy. Some of them include the following:

1) Understand your employee's needs. These vary among employees. A manager must thus be able to learn what employees want from their job. Some are looking for satisfaction from what they do, others for good pay, advancement, etc. Therefore by learning what each one wants most, you will be able to keep them happy and well motivated. Do not stick to just one idea.

2) Motivate yourself first. If you are not motivated and passionate about what you are doing, there is no way you will be able to motivate others. Think about what you like out of your job most and apply the same to your employees, in varying degrees (remember motivational factors differ from person to person). If you love what you do, it becomes easy to help others love it and become happy about their job.

3) Treat employees as fellow human beings, just like yourself. Respect them as much as you can. Employees don't want to feel disrespected by their managers. This is a no no when it comes to job performance.

4) Set organizational goals and involve employees in the decision making process. Employees are more motivated if their input is allowed in the setting and achievement of organizational goals. And this creates a sense of satisfaction on their job and thus more productivity. Employees tend to be more happy and work harder towards goals that they personally were involved in than if they feel left out of the system.

5) Base rewards on job performance. Recognize those who work harder and this will encourage everyone else to work towards that recognition, while at the same time motivating those already rewarded to continue the great job.

6) The manager should be able to restructure jobs with time. Some employees may perform poor in certain parts of their job, yet they could do well on others, in the same organization. Therefore, learning what each employee likes to do better as well as where they could perform better, can help motivate them, instead of keeping them in the same routine over and over.

Understand that motivation is a process that goes on and on. As time goes by, changes occur that tend to require a different set of motivating factors. For instance, if someone was motivated by higher pay, they will eventually not be interested in that after some time and may be focusing on job satisfaction. By the same token, those who wanted just job satisfaction may eventually be motivated by more pay, etc.

A manager must continue their learning for ways of motivating his or her employees instead of sticking to the same old principles that worked before.

Learn more about this author, Amon Kara.
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