How to Motivate Employees?

Motivation is considered as the core of management. Managers plays a big role in motivating its subordinates to  achieve the goals of the organization. Every person has a different motivating factor. Hence, it should be studied thoroughly on how to motivate the employees before they run away. Motivators do not include only financial compensation but all the factors, implicit and explicit, which affect an employee to care about.

Motivation is needed to awaken the employees’ enthusiasm, commitment and passion. A manager should empower them to perform above expectations.  A good leader will enable its subordinates to perform discretionary effort. Discretionary effort is the extra effort an employee is willing to give above the minimum effort to complete a job. When the discretionary effort is unlocked in an employee, it would be easy to achieve the goals of an organization or a business. One can find the employees doing their respective jobs joyfully and willingly.  With these, the output will be A+ performance.

But how to unlock the discretionary effort of an employee?  An article I have read talked about  a research done to discover what really makes a difference on job performances and it was found out that frequent , informal meaningful feedbacks has more impact than any other leadership techniques.

I agree with the results with my experience in my house helpers.  On my past helpers, I used to always look at their mistakes failing to praise for their jobs well done. As a result, they commit the same mistakes and which later resulted to poor performance.  Lately, with my current house helper  , I employ the word  “ appreciation.” For a job done, I would try to give positive feedbacks  before saying any comments for improvements. Frequently, I try give positive feedbacks on her good accomplishments.  With these practice, I found her more willing to do beyond what I expected. She is very willing to learn new skills and her performance is improving. She is willing to go an extra mile on her jobs like staying late at night to finish her household chores. Thus, frequent, informal meaningful feedbacks would really work well to motivate employees.  Praise…This is what every person needs and likes to have. It makes them feel that they matter and their contribution in an organization is valued. This will lead an employee to make an extra effort without resistance. Aside from positive organizational climate and strong employee satisfaction, this technique would yield a positive result and I believe it would unlock the discretionary effort of an employee.