One More Time How Do You Motivate Your Employees

The purpose of this article is to bridge the gap between knowledge and speculation about what motivates employees and what should be done for the development of the organisation. Many difficulties exist with moving employees to action. The quickest way to get an employee to do something is to ask, but if the person declines, the next solution is to give them a kick in the pants (KITA). However, there are problems with KITA and motivation. The employee, of course, does move when the KITA is applied, whether it is physical or psychological, but KITA does not lead to motivation, it only leads to movement. If an employee needs no outside stimulation, then he or she wants to do it.
The author Herzberg elaborates nine of the KITA practices that were developed to infuse motivation. The first of them is reducing time spent at work .The idea here is to motivate people to work by getting them off the job. The truth is that motivated people seek more hours, not less. The second is Spiraling Wages. Spiraling wages motivate people to seek the next wage increase. If rising wages won’t motivate, reducing them might. The third is Fringe Benefits. These benefits have gone from rewards to rights. The cost of fringe benefits is approximately 25% of the wage dollar. People are spending less time working expecting more security and money. Ultimately it has been found out by the author that Fringe benefits do not motivate.
Coming to the fourth of the KITA practice i.e. Human Relations Training, the author says although he has more than thirty years of teaching and training and the question is still the same for him- How do you motivate the employees. The Sensitivity Training, fifth of the KITA practice was developed because of the failure of Human Relations Training. Many employees were forced to get to know themselves better and no motivation acquired. Communications was the next management training program to instill motivation. The idea was to let employees understand what