Are You De-Motivating Your Employees?

Companies invest lots of money to find ways to motivate their employees for higher productivity. They gravitate towards creating rich reward programs to stimulate their employee’s motivation and guide them towards stronger performance.

I believe that it’s difficult to motivate an employee –
rather, motivation is something that comes from the individual.

It’s easy to de-motivate an employee.

Look at the new employee, most of them are highly motivated when they first step through the door, so what happens to them after 6 months on the job. If an employee loses a percentage of their motivation after 6 months, image the loss to the company as the employee increases their longevity.

I’ve worked in one small company that was incredible in hiring highly motivated and bright individuals who were focused on creating success for themselves and for the company. I watched all of them fight off a micro-managing negative manager to the point that they became disgruntle and their performance levels decreased. No type of rewards program would increase their motivation. All of them eventually left and moved onto more productive work relationships with new managers.

I’m not indicating that reward programs are a waste, rather they aren’t the first place to venture to correct an unmotivated workforce. An employee performs when they feel their manager respects them, they can contribute to the success of the company, and there is a community within their department or company.

Are you dealing with a motivation issue?

Studies show that supervisors or managers have the greatest impact on the employee. With that fact, a good place for you to start increasing your employee’s performance is to first review how you may be demotivating your team members.

Ways to de-motivate employees

De-motivation occurs when an employee feels the manager doesn’t appreciate them
Too much work for any one person to do
Not enough direction from the manager and this lack of clarity decreases their ability to perform
Unfair practices – a manager that favors one employee over others
Disrespectful comments to employees, especially when spoken with others around
Constant micromanaging which indicates that the manager doesn’t trust the employee
Not communicating important work related information to the employees
Underpaying your employees
….and the list goes on.

Final Thoughts

The manager isn’t the only part of the equation of a happy employee, but they are significant in the employee’s productivity levels. If an employee feels respected by their manager, they tend to form positive relationships with co-workers.

Take the time to review your beliefs and behavior towards your employees. Managing employees takes time and effort and if you are willing to observe yourself and change your de-motivating behaviors, you will see a noticeable change in the productivity of your team members.

Pat

Check this article out:

In Harvard Working Knowledge read an article written by David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, and Michael Irwin Meltzer “Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation.”