Employees form the most important asset for any business organization. A sustained productivity of an employee means quality work and more business. To keep employees productive and passionate about their work, there regular assessment and motivation is the key. In order to gain a better understanding of what motivates employees and what drives them to work, a close examination is required. For business managers, this is the tough task. This is where human resource management proves to be the secret weapon to determine what motivates every individual in the company.

Finding the Motivational Factor

Every organization has diverse employees with varied needs and motivation factors. What motivates one employee might not motivate the other. While some go for monetary incentives others get their drive from job satisfaction. So, there is no set rule for motivating employees. It is on the human resource manager to recognize the need of the employees and determine what would be the best incentive for them. By playing the role of a motivational speaker and interacting one-on-one with the employee will help build up a relationship. This will also help create a work environment which will foster employee engagement.

Fostering Relations with Employees

While building relationships a human resource manager can often misconstrue communication as an informal interaction. Though the informal interaction might help you get some friends but this is not the way to motivate employees. Being the HR professional, finding the middle path between too friendly or too autocratic will work wonders in understanding what an employee seeks from an organization.

Money Matters

For some employee’s money matters the most. The salary that is paid to an employee also determines how much work he is going to put into the work assigned. For some, their pay package reveals the value of the organization and work. While for others, money is secondary to other factors like job satisfaction and recognition play an even bigger role.

Job Satisfaction

The next factor which is a key factor for continuing a particular job is the job satisfaction. It might be the case that a particular job is not highly paid but since the work is challenging and an employee is satisfied this will result in higher output. On the contrary, a well-paying job but not so challenging work coupled with nagging supervisors will never give satisfaction and the employee will immediately think of switching. In such a case the HR can play an important role in determining which work the employee is more interested in taking up.  

Recognition

Recognizing employees at work for their performance by the HR manager will be the biggest booster for their on-going commitment.  Publicly highlighting an employee for his achievements and announcing awards for recognizing his effort will boost the morale and make his job more interesting. Going forward, this strategy makes the employee’s go an extra mile

Lateral Moves

As every organization seeks to reduce their costs and be profitable, promotions are not possible every now and then. Therefore, to boost the employee confidence and motivate them to work harder, lateral movement of employees should be undertaken. In this way, the employee will get to work on new and challenging tasks. Further, this will make them learn new skills and be complacent with the existing job.

Independent Working Culture

Every employee’s desires to work in an organization where they are treated as adults and has no scope of constant nagging and supervision. Working independently towards one’s deadline without much supervision makes an employee feel accomplished and helps him overcome his challenges all by himself.

Showing Concern

As motivation is mainly centered around the employee’s of the company, for a human resource professional It is essential that he/she has concern for them. Sending across a clear message that they are essential for the organization and can easily approach the management for any personal matter or professional query. But, the HR should restrict the conversation to a business meeting and should avoid any personal meeting. This will dispel all employee concern and skepticism.

Though the above approaches will go a long way in motivating employees. Other measures which can be followed include that a human resource professional should always be easily approachable and keep an unbiased approach towards employees. Besides, seminars/conferences can be organized within the organization which can have a positive effect on the employees to work with more zeal and gives their best performance.