How to Motivate your Staff (without having to give everyone a pay rise)
Motivation from the top down tends to come in two forms:
- more money and/or promotion
- more training.
The problem is this: what if giving these things doesn’t motivate your staff?
Money does motivate some. Most people, when asked, will say that money is the reason they go to work. But actually, beyond the point at which financial expectations are met, money does not motivate the majority of people. (And as people’s income increases, their expectations go up, so for most people, receiving a pay rise will motivate them for a relatively short period of time.)
Promotion could be a real de-motivator if, for example you promote your best Sales rep to be the Sale Manager, and it turns out they hate management (and loved Sales). But promotion does work as a fantastic motivator for some.
Training will motivate some and not others. Provide any training which is above and beyond the basic needs of the job that a person is doing, and a lot of people are just not that interested. Yet there are some people who will go on endless training course if they are allowed, and they will love their job for getting them there.
Do you know what Motivates your Staff?
Motivation is very individual. What motivates some people would de-motivate – even terrify – others. Some examples of this might be:
- The opportunity to speak at a conference on the company’s behalf
- Becoming a manager or team leader
- Working on a project where they are told what should be produced, what resources they have to deliver and a time scale - then told to go away and come back when it is done
Do you know what would work for which of your staff? And what would not?
Finding out what Motivates your Staff
There is now a way to analyse what motivates people – simply and easily. By using Motivational Maps®, you can understand what motivations your staff have, then tailor your Reward Strategies to suit individual staff, rather than having a catch-all policy that will motivate some but could possibly de-motivate others.
Using Motivational Maps® you will be able to provide staff with what they want, rather than what you think they need. A Motivational Maps® analysis provides information on:
- the three key motivators a person has,
- how well their current role is satisfying each of those motivations,
- what Reward Strategies could be used to motivate them.
Reward Strategies
The Reward Strategies do not necessarily involve spending lots of extra money: they could be really simple things put in place that would mean a lot to the person concerned: for example a personal training plan, asking them to take on a mentoring role, providing them with extra feedback on their performance – whatever it is that will motivate them as an individual.
A Motivational Map® assessment takes just 15 minutes and can be done online. If you are interested in a Motivational Map® analysis for an individual member of staff or a group/team/department, or the entire business, contact Ailnoth on 0117 230 1458 or info@ailnothconsultants.co.uk for a free initial consultation.
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