Employee motivation should take place in every workplace that has 2 or more employees. There are many different ways in which you can motivate your employees. In Chapter fourteen it discusses how to motivate your employees using different approaches. This chapter also talks about how managers can use goals and rewards to help keep their workers satisfied. One way that a manager can keep their employees motivated is by job design. Job Design is way where managers can sometimes design the jobs for their workers, but not always.
However the designing of these jobs are determined by factors that can not be easily changed. The Job Characteristics theory states: That worker are more satisfied and motivated when their jobs are meaningful, when jobs create feeling of responsibility, and when jobs are designed to ensure that some feedback is available. This approach has made a huge impact on the BMW Company. Three other ways mentioned are the Managerial, Organizational, and Individual Differences approach.
All four of these approaches explain employees motivation, satisfaction, the consequences it can lead to, and the ending result of achieving success. Any manager or supervisor who is interested in growing their customer base, retaining their employees and keeping a high level of morale should care about motivating and energizing employees on an ongoing basis. When the German automaker Bayerische Motoren Werke decided to make changes to his company workers were amazed. The changes made at the plant were a new building due to the fact that the old one was crumbling, new technologies, and expanded the parking lots. They also had to improve their productivity, the manufacturing process, product conception, and customer feedback.
Although some changes needed to be made, they were costly and a new pay arrangement also had to be worked out. To motivate their workers BMW offered all employees an annual bonus of four hundred dollars for new ideas. But the only way they would be able to get the full bonus was if they came up with three ideas and it saved 800. BMW also put a new twist on the old pay scheme. Before when the plant was closed workers still got paid, but now when the plant is closed workers made an agreement to make up the time and in exchange for their time they will build up extras days off.
However some people were not happy with this new pay arrangement, but to ensure that this new way of getting paid was working, managers were expected to keep communication with members open providing guidance and feedback. Some people were not happy with the new pay arrangements due to the hierarchy of needs. People who were moving down in the hierarchy were more likely to get upset than those who were moving up. The Frustration- Regression hypothesis explained the reason for some employees being frustrated about their pay. This hypothesis can also suggest that managers should try to determine the cause of an employees frustration. But even though BMW had some struggles while making the changes that were critical for their companys success, it worked out in the end.
Today BMWs plant is more productive, and their employees have offered more then one hundred thousand ideas for new improvement and saved more then six million. BMW also plans to invest more money to expand their mini plant and create two hundred new jobs, and try to increase their mini plant output from one hundred eighty nine thousand units annually to two hundred thousand plus. But just as you have read there are some advantages and disadvantages to motivating your employees. Some of the disadvantages to motivating your employees can be very simple little things.
For example everyone is not motivated by the same thing, so what might motivate one employee may de-motivate another. Managers should keep in mind that their workers are all individuals and want to be treated like one. Because one style of approaching an employee does not work with all, every employees way of getting motivated is different. Some employees may be externally motivated meanwhile others can be internally motivated. On the other hand low employee morale is not good, and can easily and rapidly spread to all areas of the business including the precious customer who can always sense when an employee is not happy. And if a customer believes this, then they will eventually go to your competition, where they may very well have more motivated employees.
In addition, low morale certainly leads to high employee turnover, which leads to increased costs for recruiting and training new employees. Some advantages of motivating your employees are that it reduces or eliminates turnover and absenteeism. It also increases sales, productivity, morale, and job satisfaction. When people are happy with what they are doing it keeps them wanting to come back. By workers also being happy to do their job it pushes the limit on production, keeping consumers happy because they are getting an abundance of what they need. Another advantage is that if workers feel that the work place is like a community, with open communication.
Stress, strain, and tension are greatly diminished. Conflict and miscommunication are greatly reduced as well. Creative incentives, when rolled out, maintained and followed up on effectively, make employees look forward to coming to work every day, and could mean the difference between success and failure over the long haul for many people in your workforce. There are many pitfalls on the way to a great program, and all of them must be avoided to ensure total success and maintain ones sincerity for the sake of future programs.
Among them are things like unrealistic goals and time frames, in-fighting and other competitive tactics among participants, frequent winners, unclear instructions, and gratification that is not immediate. There are several others that can derail an incentive program as well, and a good manager needs to be mindful of all of them ahead of time. There are many ways to motivate your employees, but there needs to be a sense of consistent trust between employer and employee at all times. Trust is the foundation of all employee motivation efforts. Among the challenges of running a small business finding good employees and then keeping them motivated so that they thrive. Is what your business needs to successfully thrive as well.
Having familiarity with your team can help everyone to succeed.
