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Employee Motivation - Always Get Your Basics Right First

Written by: Martin Haworth

Article Overview: Creating a motivated workforce is the aim of every manager. It creates extraordinary results from those in their teams. Before you start the raft-building, there's more basic work to do first...

Employee Motivation - Always Get Your Basics Right First

Motivation is a huge value to create in the employees who work with you and when it's in place, a momentum develops where almost anything is possible. The focus for creating motivated employees needs to start from a humble place. It's not possible to build motivation when there are gaps in the core expectations of your people.

While many managers do a great job to set employee standards, there are pitfalls in assuming that what your people expect as basic requirements. Indeed many managers think they are delivering what their people want, simply because nothing is said that would make them think differently.

This raises a challenging issue for managers. How do they really know that their people are happy enough with the basics that their employment provides?

There's an easy solution which most managers fail to appreciate - let alone implement - with the people in their team. Asking them about their satisfaction levels, on a one-to-one basis, is a simple tool which managers so often feel is beneath them, so they don't bother.

So often in the corporate world, the fall-back mechanic is the annual 'Employee Satisfaction Survey', a usually sterile document which line managers are mandated to have completed (often targeted by % completion too!).

Once done, the organization carefully massages the numbers to make their workplace a slightly better place each year, without addressing - or even asking about - those minor issues which are the ones that cause so much irritation at the sharp end.

When core needs aren't met, motivating a team will be all the more difficult, so what exactly are 'core needs'?

Well, this list might have most managers crying out that they already do all of this. An easy mistake to make. For what happens is that a manager puts into place processes that are supposed to deliver - and often fail to do so.

This disregard for the truth makes managing much more challenging, yet many managers simply do not have the common sense to pay it their best attention, often in an arrogant and dismissive manner.

Managers also fall into the trap of assuming that the employees who support their team are effectively delivering these basics too - so often employee relationships are not regarded anything like so highly by minor administrative employees.

Here are fifteen items (there are probably a few more too!), that good managers check and recheck, on a personal basis, to ensure the core is present, even before they start thinking of other ways to motivate their team to the next level.

1. I am paid accurately and on time

2. I have the right temperature to work at

3. I get all my breaks

4. I get all my vacation time

5. I get to leave work when I expect to

6. I always have all the resources I need

7. My manager speaks to me at least once every day

8. My good work is recognized, even in a small way

9. I have development opportunities if I want them

10. I am treated with respect and my voice is heard

11. My manager recognizes specific challenge there are to do my job well

12. My manager listens to me, making me the priority

13. My manager knows my name (and gets it right)

14. I can express frustrations to my manager

15. If I need corporate workwear, it is always available for me

Where managers get these employee basics right - all the time - they will be well ahead of the curve in whatever industry they are in.

Then - and only then - can they call in the way they treat their people well, to move upwards to the level where motivational activities will drive super success in their business too.

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Article Tags: charisma, employee development, employee motivation, management development, motivation, team building



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