By: Shawna Wright

Keeping employees motivated can be a daunting and frustrating task. One lackluster employee can bring down the entire office’s energy. According to a Gallup poll study, 60-80% of workers are not engaged at work. Even A-players fall short from time to time and without varying methods of positive motivation they feel little or no loyalty and passion on the job. Having a talented team behind you isn’t enough if they lose their focus. HR professionals need to find ways to keep staff members engaged or risk facing a fully staffed yet under-productive company.

Methods of Motivation

There are two basic types of motivation used to incite employee involvement and dedication. Intrinsic motivation is when an employee wants to do something. Extrinsic motivation is when somebody else is trying to convince or makes the employee do something.

Why extrinsic motivation won’t work-

1. It’s not sustainable

Most of the time extrinsic motivation is based on a reward/punishment system. Growing research indicates that if a reward (money, awards, etc) is considered the only reason to engage in an activity, then the job itself is simply a means to an end—the prize for completion. As soon as employers remove the reward, the motivation to work disappears.

2. The law of diminishing returns

If the reward/punishment levels stay the same, motivation tends to drop off. To get the same drive for the next project, employers would have to offer a greater incentive to their employees.

3. It hurts intrinsic motivation

Punishing or rewarding your employees for doing something removes their own desire to do the work. It sets up a pattern where you must punish/reward them every project in order to see results.

So what does work?

In their book, Freedom and Accountability at Work, Peter Block and Peter Koestenbaum state, “It is right and human for managers to care about the motivation and morale of their people, it is just that they are not the cause of it.”

Rather than being the sole source of motivation, the HR professional must help their employees find their own intrinsic motivation.

1. Challenge

People are often best motivated when they are working towards goals that require an optimal level of difficulty to achieve. The idea is to make success probable, but not guaranteed. Your employees should have to push themselves if they want to finish the job.

2. Control

People have a basic tendency to want to control what happens to them. Employees should understand the cause-and-effect relationship their work is having with the progress of the company. It’s imperative that they believe their work will have an effect.

3. Recognition

Perhaps one of the strongest motivators, recognition highlights an employee’s individual achievement within the company. The pride attached to successfully accomplishing and being recognized for something is a powerful motivator and encourages an employee to repeat, if not increase, future results.