MOTIVATING OFFICE EMPLOYEES

Introduction
With the right employee motivation techniques, you
can unlock the potential in your people. You can
increase tenure, improve performance, and reinforce
success-building behaviors across your entire
organization. And it all begins with learning effective
ways to motivate employees by creating
opportunities for employees to succeed and earn
awards that are personally meaningful and
professionally motivating

THEORIES ABOUT MOTIVATION

1. Acquired Needs Theory
We seek power. Achievement or affiliation.
Need are shaped over time by our experiences
over time. Most of these fall into three general
categories of needs

Achievement (nAch)
Affiliation (nAff)
Power (nPow)

Achievers
Seek to excel and appreciate frequent
recognition of how well they are doing.
They will avoid low risk activities that
have no chance of gain. They also will
avoid high risk where there is a
significant
chance
of
failure.
Affiliation Seekers
Look for harmonious relationships with
other people. They will thus tend to
conform and shy away from standing
out. The seek approval rather than
recognition.

Power Seekers
Want power either to control other
people (for their own goals) or to
achieve higher goals (for the greater
good) They seek neither recognition nor
approval from others only agreement
and compliance

2. Activation Theory

We have a need for arousal. Also known as

Arousal Theory activation theory describes
how mental arousal is necessary for effective
functioning in that we need a certain level of
activation in order to be sufficiently motivated
to achieve goals, do good work and so on.

The Yerkes-Dodson law points out how people

need a certain amount of activation to be
motivated but not have too much
stimulation. We have an upper limit to
activation beyond which we become overly
stressed and fall into satisfying.
People will seek activation through differently
types of stimulation, including novelty,
complexity, variation and uncertainty. At a low
level of activation, performance is decreased
due to three factors:
A lack of alertness
Dulling of senses
Limited muscular coordination

3. Attitude Behavior Consistency

Our attitude and behavior are both
constrained to very specific circumstances.
There have been many opportunities to
express attitude through behavior
We have a History of attitude-behavior
consistency
The attitude are based on personal
experience, rather than being copied from
others.
The attitude are proven by past experience
There is no social desirability bias, where the
presence of others will lead us into
uncharacteristic behavior

4. Cognitive Evaluation Theory

When looking at task, we evaluate it in terms of
how well it meets our needs to feel competent
and in control. If we think we will be able to
complete the task, we will be intrinsically
motivate to complete the task, requiring no
further external motivation
Example.
If you tell me that I have to run for President. I
will not exactly throw my heart into the job. If,
however, you tell me how the local council is
looking for someone like me, who wants to
help in local schools, then Ill be there before
you have finished the sentence!

THE THREE KEY GOAS OF PEOPLE AT WORK

THAT MANAGEMENT SHOULD UNDERSTAND
AND PRACTICE

Equity: To be respected and to be

treated fairly in areas such as pay,
benefits, and job security.
Achievement: To be proud of ones job,
accomplishments, and employer
Camaraderie: To have good,
productive relationship with fellow
employee

ACHIEVEMENT RELATED
1.Instill an Inspiring Purpose A critical condition
for employee enthusiasm is a clear, credible, and
inspiring organizational purpose: in effect Reason
for Being that translates for workers into a Reason
for being there that goes above and beyond money.
2.Provide Recognition- Managers should be certain
that all employee contributions, both large and small,
are recognized. The motto of many managers seems
to be Why would I need to thank someone for doing
something hes paid to do? Workers repeatedly tell
us and with great feeling, how much they appreciate
a compliment. They also report how distressed they
are when managers dont take the time to thank

3. Be an Expediter to your EmployeesIncorporating a command and control style is a surefire path to demotivation. Instead, redefine your
primary role as serving as your employees expediter.
It is your job to facilitate getting their jobs
done. Your reports are, in this sense, your
costumers Your role as an expediter involves range
of activities, including serving as a linchpin to other
business units and managerial levels to represent
their best interests and ensure your people get what
4.
Coach
Employees for Improvement A
they
needyour
to succeed
Major reason so many managers do not assist
subordinates in improving their performance is,
simply, that they dont know how to do this without
irritating or discouraging them. A few basic principles
will improve this substantially

 Performance feedback is not the same as an

annual appraisal. Give actual performance
feedback as close in time to the occurrence as
possible. Use the formal annual appraisal to
summarize the year. Not surprise the worker with
past wrongs.
Recognize that workers want to know when
they have done poorly. Dont succumb to the
fear of giving appropriate criticism; your workers
need to know when they are not performing well. At
the same time, dont forget to give positive
feedback. It is. After all, your goal to create a team
that warrants praise.
Comments concerning desired improvements
should be specific, factual, unemotional, and

 Remember the reason youre giving

feedback- you want to improve
performance, not prove your superiority.
So keep it real, and focus on what is
actually doable without demanding the
impossible.
Follow up and reinforce. Praise
improvement or engage in course
correction- while praising the effort- as
quickly as possible
Dont offer feedback about

EQUITY RELATED
5. Communicate Fully One of the most
counterproductive rules in business is to distribute
information on the basis of Need to Know It is
usually a way of severely, unnecessarily, and
destructively restricting the flow of information in an
organization.
A command-and-control style is a sure-fire path to
demotivation.
Workers frustration with an absence of adequate
communication is one of the most negative findings
we see expressed on employee attitude surveys.
Good communication requires managers to be

6. Face Up to Poor Performance. Identify and deal

decisively with the 5 percent of your employees who
dont want to work. Most people want to work and be
proud of what they do (the achievement need). But
there are employees who are in effect allergic to
work- theyll do just about anything to avoid it. They
are unmotivated , and a disciplinary approachincluding dismissal- is about the only way they can be
managed. It will raise the morale and performance of
other
team members
to see an obstacle to their
Camaraderie
Related
performance removed.

7. Promote Teamwork. Most work requires a

team effort in order to be done effectively.
Research shows repeatedly that the quality of a
groups efforts in areas such a s problem
solving is usually superior to that of individuals

RELATED TO ALL THREE FACTORS

8. Listen and Involve. Employees are a
rich source of information about how to
do the job and how to do it better. This
principle has been demonstrated time
and again with all kinds of employeesfrom hourly workers doing the most
routine task to high-ranking
professionals. Managers who operate
with a participative style reap enormous
rewards in efficiency and work quality