A motivated workforce is a holy grail that every organization aspires to have, but only a few experience its advantages today. These advantages provided by a motivated workforce are pretty well tracked — organizations that have a high employee engagement rate are more resilient and able to weather uncertainty.

In order to increase the motivation of their employees, organizations end up overpromising — higher salaries, better perks, stock options and so on. However, with today’s rapidly evolving knowledge economy, motivation requires more than a stick-and-carrot approach. Research shows that innovation and creativity, crucial to generating new ideas and greater productivity, are often stifled when extrinsic rewards are introduced.

Compensation and benefits are very important in motivating employees, but they are not the only factors employees consider. As an alternative, consider intrinsic rewards to increase employee motivation.  These intrinsic rewards — like work-life balance, learning and development, and fulfillment at work — are intangible, differ from employee to employee and need special attention from managers to fructify.

Increasing motivation by using intrinsic rewards can be accomplished through:

  • Responsibility: the extent that a person seeks to feel accountable. While some individuals find joy in making big decisions for their teams, others would like to share that responsibility with others.
  • Influence: the extent that a person seeks to influence others’ opinions and intentions. Those that are highly motivated by influence enjoy swaying others’ opinions, while those that are lower on this motivation dimension are happiest when they can stay open-minded to different points of view.
  • Belonging: the extent to which a person wishes to be part of a group. Individuals who are highly motivated by belonging seek to find common interests and hobbies with their coworkers to create a team feeling, whereas other individuals like to keep their interests or opinions independent from the rest of the group.
  • Challenge: the extent that a person seeks to get out of their comfort zone. Those that are highly motivated by challenge will always try to outperform their previous goals and achievements, whereas those that are not as motivated by challenge are content working towards attainable goals.
  • Recognition (Intrinsic enjoyment): Those that are on the lower end of the recognition dimension are seeking intrinsic enjoyment. They seek out projects and tasks that they enjoy doing, even if they are not receiving any external recognition for their work.
  • Reward (Need to contribute to society): Those that are on the lower end of the reward dimension seek to work on projects that have an impact on society. They need to understand the greater impact of their work, regardless of the tangible benefits they might receive.

Sometimes, inexperienced leaders will assume that the same factors that motivate one employee, or the leaders themselves, will motivate others too. Some will make the mistake of introducing de-motivating factors into the workplace, such as punishment for mistakes or frequent criticism, but negative reinforcement rarely works and often backfires.

It’s important to keep in mind that motivation is individual, and the degree of success achieved through one single strategy will not be the most effective way to motivate all employees. One size does not fit all and finding the right mix of motivational approaches requires patience. Remember that your team will appreciate having someone who cares about them and wants to help them be more meaningfully engaged at work.

 

References:

Forbes (2022, February 23) Anand Inamdar: Motivating Employees to Be Future-Ready

Positive Psychology (2020, January 14) Beata Souders: The Science of Improving Motivation at Work

Talent Today (2021, September 14) Andrew Bogue: Understanding the Difference Between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations

Bonusly (2023, March 1) George Dickson: 20 Simple Ways to Increase Motivation in the Workplace