Motivation: Definition, Forms of Motivation of Employees
Different employees enter employment with different objectives. Some get employed to make money, others for leisure while others get employed to attain various goals. Employers must understand the various objectives of their employees to come up with motivation mechanisms. Motivation refers to giving reasons, interests, enthusiasm, or incentives that lead to employees being satisfied thus working hard within an organization. In the current competitive business environment, employers are coming up with different methods of employee motivation. Various methods of employee motivation range from monetary incentives to employee empowerment. Examples of forms of employee motivation include job enlargement. For business organizations where employees have limited work, they tend not to feel comfortable with the business. Most of them tend to feel that they are paid for services they have not delivered. Enlarging jobs lead to employees feeling comfortable (Herzberg, 1968, pp. 24-30).
Every employee would like to feel free when undertaking his or her duties within the business. Employee empowerment is another method used in employee motivation (Herzberg, 1968, pp. 31-37). This is where employees are given the freedom to make decisions regarding operations within their areas of specialization. As a result, employees feel to be part and parcel of the business thus being committed to business activities. Employee empowerment does not only help in employee motivation but also saves the business from incurring employee turnover rate. Implementation of job rotation helps on breaking monotony within the business. Different employees can share different jobs. Employees also gain experience in different fields.
One of the highest expenses incurred by business organizations is employee turnover. Now and then employees leave a business organization in search of others where they are paid well. Most business organizations lose their competent employees leading to them incurring the overheads of having to recruit or train their employees to occupy the positions of those who quit. To ensure that they have attracted and retained competent personnel, business organizations use various methods of employee retention. According to Heathfield (2010, para. 1), employee retention leads to customer satisfaction, effective succession planning, and increased sales. One of the strategies used in employee retention is offering a competitive package to employees. In most cases, employees leave business organizations due to poor packages. Offering employees’ packages based on the amount of work they perform leads to organizations retaining their employees. Employers always ensure that they are aware of packages offered by their competitors. On identifying that their competitors have increased their packages, they also increase to ensure that they do not lose their best employees to competitors.
Acknowledging and rewarding employees based on their performance in the business is another method of employees retention. Top performers in business organizations commit themselves to the business if they realize that their input to the business is acknowledged by their employers. Some of the methods employers use to acknowledge and reward top performers include giving them offs and allowing them to have a flexible working schedule. Most of the experienced employees wish to work with superior organizations. In a bid to retain competent employees, employers strive to build the brand name of their businesses (Heathfield, 2010, para. 3-7). Organizations with strong brand names receive a lot of requests from qualified employees who wish to work with the business.
Deduction
Employee motivation acts as one of the tools of employee retention. Empowering employees leads to them feeling to be part of the business management team thus being committed to business activities. Allowing employees to make free decisions regarding operations in their areas of specialization leads to them being innovative thus making their operations easier. In the process, they become satisfied with their responsibilities thus remaining in the business.
Reference List
Heathfield, S. M. (2010). Top Ten Ways to Retain Your Great Employees. Web.
Herzberg, F. (1968). One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees? Harvard Business Review, 5(2), pp. 24-37.