How to motivate people to work? / Business Blog

How to motivate people to work?

Motivation / December 26, 2022

Every individual person has different motivations for working at a job. The reasons for working are as individual as the person. But, all people work because the workplace provides something that you need from work. The something that you obtain from your work impacts your morale, your motivation, and the quality of your life.

Here are thoughts about employee motivation, what people want from work, and how you can help employees attain what they need for their work motivation.

Work IS about the Money

Some people work for their love of the work; others work for personal and professional fulfillment. Other people like to accomplish goals and feel as if they are contributing to something larger than themselves, something important, an overarching vision for what they can create. Some people have personal missions they accomplish through meaningful work.

Others truly love what they do or the clients they serve. Some like the camaraderie and interaction with customers and coworkers. Other people like to fill their time with activity. Some workers like change, challenge, and diverse problems to solve. As you can see, employee motivation is individual and diverse.

Whatever your personal reasons for working, the bottom line, however, is that almost everyone works for money. Whatever you call it: compensation, salary, bonuses, benefits or remuneration, money pays the bills.

Money provides housing, gives children clothing and food, sends teens to college, and allows leisure activities, and eventually, retirement. Unless you are independently wealthy, you need to work to collect a paycheck.

To underplay the importance of money and benefits as motivation for people who work is a mistake.

It may not be their most significant motivator or even the motivational factor they'd first mention in a conversation but earning a living is a factor in any discussion about employee motivation.

Fair benefits and pay are the cornerstones of a successful company that recruits and retains committed workers. If you provide a living wage for your employees, you can then work on additional motivation issues. Without the fair, living wage, however, you risk losing your best people to a better-paying employer.

In fact, research from Watson Wyatt Worldwide in The Human Capital Edge: 21 People Management Practices Your Company Must Implement (or Avoid) to Maximize Shareholder Value, (Purchase) recommends, that to attract the best employees, you need to pay more than your average-paying counterparts in the marketplace. Money provides basic motivation.

Got Money? What's Next for Motivation?

Surveys and studies dating back to the early 1980s demonstrate that people want more from work than money. An early study of thousands of workers and managers by the American Psychological Association clearly demonstrated this.

Managers predicted that the most important motivational aspect of work for people they employed would be money.