How to Gauge Employees’ Diverse Motivations
Diverse workplaces imply diverse ideas, values, personal goals, and characteristics. This is ideal for tasks requiring sharp and creative thinking, however, it becomes an issue when creating an employee motivational scheme. Not everyone’s drive to perform well consistently is stimulated by money, vacations, nor cars — although those are viable options. Some may want more paid leaves to have enough time with family. Others may be satisfied with simply seeing fair treatment among employees and equal opportunities for career growth.
A huge part of being a leader is finding a common thought that grounds employees and helps them work cohesively. Sure, it’s easier said than done, but we prepared ways that detail how you can get started.
Measure motivational attributes. Understanding the pain points is just as good as solving them. Employee motivation has been a common area of exploration for many organisational researchers. This explains the existence of various standardised instruments, such as the Job Diagnostic Survey and Motivation Assessment Questionnaire that measure motivation potential. You can use these to identify the areas that need the greatest attention.
Conduct focus group discussions or interviews. It’s not enough to rely on statistics. Motivation is a human experience; thus an equally human approach is necessary in to deeply relating to workers’ motivations. Interviews allow you to take a closer look into the “why’s” of employees, otherwise known as the reasons for their waking up in the morning. From these, you can find recurring themes in their answers and consider these as jumping off point for your interventions.
Perform trial and error on every strategy you employ. Nothing is quite set-in stone until you see good result firsthand. One route you can take during this stage is establishing a baseline on employees’ motivations, apply your motivational scheme, and wait a couple of months before weighing their thoughts and feelings to see if anything changed.
Cross-reference employees’ motivations with the reward system. You need to start asking yourself whether your reward system is aligned with the needs of your employees and whether these rewards are desirable to a broader population. This will be difficult to nail considering people’s varying preferences. However, with the right data, you’ll know what to tweak, change, retain, or remove.
Motivation is a complex area of thought in workplace mental health programs as it deals with human psychology. Specifically, determines job satisfaction, turnover rate, and productivity, benefitting both employees and the organisation. You would understand why most leaders consider it as a top-ranking indicator of effective leadership.
Although motivational quotes are often adapted by managers and supervisors as a tactic to keep employees engaged, words alone won’t cut it. You’ll need the help of science-backed research on motivation and basic skills on how to alter environmental conditions to accommodate powerful motivators.
At WHS & Training Compliance Solutions, we understand the need for an organised training on employee motivation. Because of this, we thoughtfully created a course that tackles motivation in the context of work. Here, you’ll get to identify different sources of motivation and use motivational models to address workers’ needs and boost performance. Courses are offered online and offline, so you can attend it despite a jampacked calendar.
Book a call with us at 07 5499 2406 to sign-up or visit Motivating Employees training to learn more about this course.
