The motivation of employees is a challenging task for managers. Managers have to use individual approaches to encourage employees to demonstrate extraordinary performance. One-size-fits-all is a wrong strategy if we speak about motivation.

There are several theories of motivation that explain how to motivate employees.Managers are often guided by the theory of motivation that based on human needs developed by Maslow. Maslow presented all needs in the form of the pyramid where the basic needs are in the bottom and the most sophisticated needs are placed on the top of this pyramid. Here are several implications of this theory to help you better understand employees’ motivation.

Basic Level: Security and Safety

If we look at the pyramid of needs, the need for security and safety is placed in the lowest level. It means that security and safety at the workplace are taken for granted. It’s a primary obligation of managers to provide their teams with safety both in a physical and psychological sense. The workplace without harassment, bullying, and intimidation is an example of a safe working environment.

Distribution of Rewards

The distribution of compensations and benefits must be fair enough so that employees would be encouraged to come to work where their every effort is valuable. Work motivation depends on the fair distribution of rewards. Therefore, there should be a balance in the distribution of incentives to keep employees motivated on a continuous basis. In other words, employees should strive for the main goal by doing small steps and getting rewards accordingly.

Affiliation

The need for belonging to the certain community is strong in people and managers use this feature to develop their strategies. Being a part of a team at work is one of the strongest drivers for people because work is an important part of our life. Material incentives are important, but recently experts start to increasingly discuss the role of non-material incentives in employee motivation. Managers should pay attention to the differences in individual and organizational values when developing strategies because these inconsistencies may discourage employees to work better.

Personal Development

Employees tend to seek for appreciation of their efforts at the workplace. Everybody wants to know that they are doing something important and contributing to the development of organizations. According to uma monografia únicas escrita por profissionaismonografia únicas, team motivation significantly depends on the opportunity of personal development. Therefore, managers need to give them the feeling of being needed and contribute to organizational success. The opportunity to plan personal development and move up the career ladder is crucial for employee retention.

Work-Life Balance

The current studies refer to the increasing need of employees to maintain work-life balance. However, employees whose age is starting with 40 usually have kids and are motivated by the opportunity to spend more time with family. Unlike to their predecessors, millennials are not willing to devote a lot of time to work. In the future, employers will have to offer more incentives to reach the desired level of motivation in the workplace.

So, what is motivation? It is a set of material and non-material incentives encouraging employees to perform better at work. Effective motivation requires individual approach since all people are different. Lack of motivation threatens with the decrease in morale, increase in turnover rate, low involvement and performance. Therefore, managers should take into account individual incentives of employees.

The main idea of presenting the levels of motivation is that managers should find points at which the needs of employees and organizations aren’t coincided. Furthermore, these inconsistencies should be eliminated to achieve higher levels of employee motivation. Offering safe working environment and fair compensation is a good start.

Managers should be aware of the levels of employee motivation and assess individual needs of each team member. Also, there is a need to engage with each team member and explain the difference in motivation levels so they can help you identify the best way to motivate them. It is important to offer people what they need. If you noticed that a young ambitious team member strives for promotion, offer them a new position. Even if they seem too young for this position, their initiative will help perform better and do their best to comply. Employees who belong to Baby Boomers generation will likely try to reach work-life balance. You may offer them flexible working schedule or the opportunity to work from home. They will feel more motivated and inspired if they have enough time to stay with family. Being creative is important for any manager. You may invent your own approaches to motivate employees because you know them better than anyone.