by Olufemi Oyedele

Created on: March 22, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2009

Managers can motivate their employees through empathy, leading by example, management by objectives (MBO), fairness to all, rewards, awards and recognition of long-service and good work, opportunity for employees' training and development, periodical promotion and increase in take-home pay. Other factors to motivate employees include: welfare package like employees' children scholarship, free medical services for employees and their families, recognition of birthdays of employees, the creation of a sense of belonging among all employees, regular feedback from employees, effective communication in the project environment and assurance of employees' future within and without the organisation, providing a conducive and attractive working environment for the employees, and instituting conflict resolution management.

Nothing is as motivating as working in a cohesive team and being seen as part of a success story! Other motivating factors are secondary. Managers should be aware that their job is to plan, organise, control, supervise and direct a motivated employees to achieve objectives. Without employees' motivation, managers will not be able to achieve their set objectives using the employees.

To motivate is to provide someone with a motive to do something. It is to cause or provoke somebody to act either positively or negatively. To say that nobody can motivate employees at work is like saying there are no influential leaders; there are no effective managers; there are no motivational speakers; the psychologists in sports management teams are useless and that motivation is not achievable. Motivation has been used by effective managers to prompt ordinary people to achieve uncommon results in all fields of endeavours. If you doubt the existence of motivation, read "I have a dream", the public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he talked of his ambition for an America where blacks and whites, the poor and the rich, the educated and uneducated, the younths and the old and others would co-exist harmoniously and peacefully as equals on August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Most theorists decided it is not possible to motivate based on Maslow's Heirachy of Needs and Frederick Herzberg's theory of hygiene needs or "two-factor theory" because these theories averred that human needs are 'insatiable'. Other writers on motivation and satisfying human needs include, Henry Mintzberg's Ten Managerial Roles, Michael E. Porter etc. Abraham Maslow in his

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