Why is motivation important in the workplace?
Answers
Motivation is the bunch of “internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested in and committed to a job, role, or subject and to exert persistent effort in attaining a goal”. Being motivated intrinsically means that you take pleasure from what you are doing, and are less concerned with the external rewards.
We have seen employees doing as little as they can, mostly miss deadlines and whatever they do, needs supervision and corrections, while on the other side, there are some who are trying to do their best, putting into their work 100% of effort, do not complain about difficulties, and take them as challenge. Those people are not aliens at all, they are motivated employees.
There are many theories or approaches to motivation: some claim that the role of social processes in the organization is vital, as long as the need of belongingness is more important than money, others consider organizational rewards system as a possibility to motivate employees. There is not one correct approach to motivation, every individual has its own “needs theory”, that is why knowing how to motivate your employees is very important managerial skill.
From the title of this article, you see that this is not about discussion whether motivation is essential or not, but about the positive outcome that is lead by the motivated employees. For me as an employee it has always been interesting, why most of the managers are less concerned whether their workers are trying to do their best or they are just following the stream of the river. In this article I want to go through this issue and discuss different situations and points of view.
In the countries where the business competition is low and the level of unemployment is high, motivation is mainly considered to be a luxurious tool. The managers of the companies have the approach that employers are obligated to work and motivation for them should be the money they are paid for their job. Whenever the unmotivated worker decides to quit the job, it turns out to be a surprise for the management, but they do not take it as an alarm, that something needs to be changed. Fact that there are many people looking for the job, gives them the right not to pay attention even to the high index of employee turnover.
“Figures prove that usually it is the talented employees that are difficult to retain”. If an appreciated worker decides to quit, you do not only loose knowledge but you need to recruit new personnel and you have to train them as well. In short, it costs you time and money, sometimes over several months pay for that one employee.
The significance of motivation in the workplace is high because of the following benefits it provides. Firstly, motivation puts human resources into action and improves level of efficiency of employees. Every concern requires financial and human resources to accomplish the goals. Having the employees only physically, does not mean that you manage to make full use of it. You need their desire and wish to be there where actually are.