Misguided Motivation Attempts – Put Down that Carrot and that Stick and that Hot Dog
By Michelle Malay Carter on October 10, 2007
Human beings are pre-programmed to be motivated to work.
We, as a society, agree that bullying is not the way to motivate employees, although some managers resort to it. So, no question, the stick is out. But is the carrot all it?s held up to be?
Instead of casual Fridays and employee picnics, why not focus on maintaining employees’ natural inclination toward giving their best through designing systems that enable productive work? Offering a hot dog is easier, but it is poor recompense for continuously and systematically thwarting employees? efforts to work.
Want employee engagement? Put down your copy of?301 Ways to Have Fun at Work and read along.
The Basics ? What Employees Want:
to use their gifts and talents to accomplish work that aligns with their interests.
The Basics – What Employees Need:
- Context, context, context ? surrounding their role relative to strategy, their role relative to their managers, their role relative to their peers, their role relative to others within the organization, and about the task?s they’ve been assigned.
- Clear accountabilities and authorities
- Proper task assignment
- Resources to get the job done ? time, money, training, their manager’s paving the way for access to others, the use of others, information from others
- Regular feedback on performance with the opportunity to account for their decisions
- Assessments based on overall effectiveness in light of prevailing conditions, rather than by the numbers only
- Fair pay
- Their?manager’s?willingness to address performance issues or inappropriate behavior
Stay tuned for my next post:? What must organizations do in order to provide what employees want and need.? Hint: It?s not tubed meat on a bun.
I”m OK. You’re OK. Let’s fix the system.
Filed Under Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Managerial Leadership, Requisite Organization, Talent Management
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2 Responses to “Misguided Motivation Attempts – Put Down that Carrot and that Stick and that Hot Dog”
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I like the idea of fair pay and training. Maybe the hotdog was only an incentive and not a proper motivation to increase worker’s productivity. I agree that the employees would like to use their talents to accomplish work, which coincides their interests.