Motivating Employees in Organizations

A number of motivation theories have been discussed above. Based on these theories, the following suggestions summarize the essence about motivating employees in organizations.

Ø  Recognize individual differences – Employees have different needs. Therefore, managers need to understand what is important to each employee. This will allow individualizing goals, level of involvement, and rewards to align with individual needs.

Ø  Use goals and feedback – Employees should have tangible and specific goals. Feedback should also be provided regularly to inform the employees about their performance in pursuit of those goals.

Ø  Include employees in decision-making – Employees should be included in making decisions that affect them, for example, choosing their own benefits packages and solving productivity and quality problems.

Ø  Link rewards to performance – Rewards should be contingent on performance and employees must perceive a clear linkage.

Ø  Maintain equity – Rewards should be perceived by employees as equating with the inputs they bring to the job, i.e; experience, skills, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs should explain differences in performance and, hence, pay, job assignments, and other obvious rewards.