Employee Motivation and Productivity Creating

Employee Motivation and Productivity

Creating and Sustaining Strategies for Increasing Employee Motivation and Productivity

Increasing the level of motivation in employees regardless of the main business of any organization requires a well-defined and consistently executed series of strategies to continually earn their trust and therefore gain results. The foundation of any successful change management program to increase motivation must be based on trust (Hurley, 2006). The many challenges of creating trust with employees while defining, clarifying and consistently keeping opportunities for achievement open to them is critical for long-term motivation to work (Herzberg, 2003). Relying purely on the rewards of time off or more pay is seldom strong enough of a motivator to keep employees continually focused on improvement (Douglas, Zivnuska, 2008). Instead what is needed is a change management program based on trust (Burke, Sims, Lazzara, Salas, 2007) that also provides the flexibility of giving employees an opportunity to gain a sense of accomplishment from their tasks (Herzberg, 2003).

Employee Motivation Strategies for Public Sector Employees

Take for example a social worker that is employed by a nursing home and the many challenges of working with management which is often predisposed to keep the status quo in place, not attempt any significant new approaches to management to ensure the risk levels stay very low. Yet when risk is low so is motivation of employees as there is a lack of opportunities for accomplishment and achievement. Instead of relying on coercive and authoritarian-based approaches to managing subordinates to get their jobs done, Herzberg (2003) argues that it is far more effective to concentrate on the most important aspects of accomplishment for the employees and build specific programs to allow them to set and achieve goals that matter to them. This has to be done in the context of the organizations' needs. When this type of strategy is undertaken and consistently applied, employees eventually gain a sense of job ownership (Burke, Sims, Lazzara, Salas, 2007) and eventually internalize the objectives of their job, they assisted in setting. The need for achievement is strong than the willingness to comply and be coerced into any type of activity (Douglas, Zivnuska, 2008).

In the case of a social worker in a nursing home, there is the added challenge of also changing how management perceives the need for change. Often in social services organizations there is the tendency to seek out the status quo with a management style that seeks to alleviate distraction and standardize on processes and ways of doing things that may be in need of change. A large part of motivating employees is their perception of how committed their managers are to the task of bringing continual change and value to their organizations. All of these perceptions must be anchored in trust. It is such a critical area of any transformational and motivation plan for any organization that Hurley (2006) sees it as the currency that makes change possible. Without trust, there is not change to the status quo, and with no change to the status quo, there is no motivation. It all begins with trust in the leader who attempting to bring greater levels of change within any organization (Burke, Sims, Lazzara, Salas, 2007). Any leader looking to create more motivation in their organizations, from for-profit to social services, the need is clear for management teams to be trustworthy, transparent, (Douglas, Zivnuska, 2008) and most important, willing to create opportunities for employees including social workers to have the opportunity to achieve more. The need for achievement, recognition and earn an identity of having mastery over their jobs is more critical to the majority of workers than increased time off or more money. Herzberg (2003) has defined in his theories the use of more accountability and less control from managers on how a given job goal or objective is attained. Allowing employees to in effect define their own approaches to solving the complex problems also provides them with a strong sense of mastery of their job as well. From these accumulated factors, the majority of employees over time develop a strong sense of ownership specifically for their jobs and its responsibilities (Herzberg, 2003).