Motivating employees is
a major problem for many managers. That is ‘How can I motivate my staff when
all they want to know is what it is need for them?’
The employee think,
“Only time my boss takes an interest is when things have
gone wrong”
“The management is care less about us. They never shown
any interest.”
“There’s no quality in the work. The only thing is leave
on time at the workplace”
So management need to
consider the below two parts.
- How to identify the motivational needs of employees.
- How to motivate by meeting this need.
Identifying Motivational needs.
Needs
Maslow has suggested
that people needs can be grouped 5 levels.
Basic needs
The need for food and
water to stay alive. Basic need for survival.
Security needs
The need for safe and
stable home and a job or employment. The need to have some permanent in life
and freedom from threats.
Belonging needs
The need to be a part
of a social unit. To have friends and colleagues and regular contact with them.
To be a part of a working team or family group.
Esteem needs.
The need to be a respected
what we are and what we stand for to help in esteem for quality of our work,
our position in life and the status of our job.
Self fulfillment
The need for
interesting, challenging and satisfying work to be able to achieve something
and fully used our skills and abilities to do fulfilling’s work.
The five levels are
like a five ladder as we meet our need of a one run, we go on to the next.
If we have a secure job
a feel confident in our ability to perform it (security), we then want to
satisfy needs for belongings to do this be concentrate on developing
relationship and team spirit. If we can satisfy these needs, we then become concern
about esteem being praise for our work perhaps quality or work quantity. But,
over run are threaten we have rapidly down the ladder.
If we are at the level
of self fulfillment (that is we are predominantly concerned with doing
interesting and challenging work) and suddenly there is possibility of our
needs quickly change. We stop caring about doing interesting work and become worried
about security, our behavior become change and concerned about protecting our
position rather than producing new ideas.
Individual need can be
identify by looking for evidence in individuals behavior.
General signs of need not
been met- that is motivational problem.
- Poor time keeping or punctuality
- High absenteeism
- High labour turned over
- Poor quality of work
- Complaining about nothing
- Bad industrial relations
- Low moral
- Meeting the motivational needs
Ex.
A manager has a new
project for a group task. He ‘sells’ it to them by emphasizing that it is a
completely new area which is very challenging and will provide opportunity to
expose to senior management (Self Fulfillment). His approach fails disastrously
because the group of task are worried about being plucked from their usual work
and concern their ability to do this new task (Security). His selling has grammatically
intensify their fears and droughts.
Motivate by emphasizing
at too or low level, a manager is concerned that is department should have good
moral that he should get on well with each individually need. He devote part of
his day to having a chat and a joke with each member (Belonging).
His attempt fails with
several individuals who recent is inclusion. They feel he is wasting time and
stopping them getting on their work with find more interesting and satisfying then
idle (Self Fulfillment).
Below are listed some
options available for motivating staff
Self-fulfillment
- Involve staff in decision making and consult them where possible.
- Allow staff the freedom where it is feasible to plan and conduct their work in their own way.
- Provide more stimulating and challenging work.
- Create solutions where the skills and capacities of staff and used to their fullest.
- Involve staff in new areas requiring creativity and original thinking.
Esteem
- Help staff to see how important and demanding their work is.
- Encourage the staff to think of themselves as the ‘experts’ or ‘best’ at their work.
Belonging
- Be personal and sociable with staff.
- Show an interest in staff as individuals.
- Encourage staff to function as a team and spend time together outside work.
- Develop a good working atmosphere.
Security
- Reassure staff
- Minimize criticism and support individuals.
- Only give tasks at which they can succeed.
