Motivating Empolyees - A motive is something that causes a person to act. Motivation is defined as the individual, internal process that energizes, directs and sustains behavior.

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Introduction

A motive is something that causes a person to act. Motivation is defined as the individual, internal process that energizes, directs and sustains behavior. It is the personal "force" that causes you or me to act in a particular way. For example, job rotation may increase your enthusiasm about your work so that you devote more energy to it, but perhaps it would not have the same effect on me.

Motivating Employees

The employees who work for your company are naturally motivated. All you need to do is to utilize their natural ability, which you can do without spending a dime. That's right! No money. In fact, money can actually decrease an employee's motivation and performance. The first step in utilizing your employees' natural abilities is to eliminate your organization's negative practices that zap away their natural motivation. The second step your organization can take is to develop true motivators which can spark all your employees into being motivated. By decreasing negative zapping demotivators and by adding true motivators, you will tap into your employees' natural motivation. Your employees' natural motivation relies on the fact that all people have human desires for affiliation, achievement, and for control and power over their work. In addition, they have desires for ownership, competence, recognition, and meaning in their work.

The following is a list of ten motivation zapping organizational behaviors that will demotivate your employees.

  • Create an atmosphere full of company politics.
  • Develop unclear expectations regarding your employees' performance.
  • Create a lot of unnecessary rules for employees to follow.
  • Plan unproductive meetings for employees to attend.
  • Promote internal competition between employees.
  • Withhold information critical for employees to perform their work.
  • Provide criticism instead of constructive feedback.
  • Tolerate poor performance so your high performing employees feel taken advantage of.
  • Treat employees unfairly.
  • Underutilize the capability of your employees.

Tips for motivating remote employees:

  • Out-of-sight should not be out-of-mind. Yes, this tip is obvious; however, it is the one that most supervisors adopt when supervising remote employees. Supervisors should not forget that remote employees should be teleconferenced in during staff meetings, team meetings, and goal setting meetings. You may also want to consider placing pictures of your remote employees in your office or cube so you and other employees will remember them.

  • Remote employees should not be declassified as UNIMPORTANT PEOPLE because they do not come into the office. A supervisor of a remote employee should frequently ask for his or her opinions, and they should champion his or her opinions with their coworkers.

  • Allow remote employees to built friendships with the office workers and other remote workers by using the telephone, e-mail, or by using a company based Internet chat-room. Remember, if you want "sticky" remote employees; allow them to build friendships with the other employees in the company.
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  • Short-term goals work best for your remote employees, and long-terms goals work best for your office employees. It is okay for office employees to have long-term goals because they frequently receive informal short-term feedback while accomplishing their long-term goals. However, remote employees frequently do not receive the same informal feedback; therefore, by setting up short-term goals it will force you to provide them with the positive feedback to keep them motivated.

  • Communicate value to your remote employees by helping them understand how their work adds to the overall success of the company. Office employees require less "value" communication ...

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