What really motivates employees? It’s a question that’s been asked countless times by countless people in countless professions over countless years.
Thankfully, research over the last several decades has helped lift the veil and the conclusion is simple: if employees feel respected and valued, they will be motivated.
Choose to create a welcoming, warm, interesting, inspiring and generally cool culture and you’ll find that finding and retaining employees will be a breeze.
“If you treat people right, they will treat you right…ninety percent of the time,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said.
Being treated right 90 percent of time sounds good to me. How about you?
Creating a culture that will motivate your employees will also benefit the bottom line. You might remember the service-profit chain. The service-profit chain establishes relationships between profitability, customer loyalty and employee satisfaction, loyalty and productivity. Put simply, if employees like their chair, their boss, the leave policy and the food in the company kitchen, they’ll be happier. If they’re happier, they will be nicer to customers. If they are nicer to customers, customers will be happier and they will buy more. And everyone wins.
So what doesn’t work as a motivator?
Money. Money can be nice, but it doesn’t keep employees happy or keep them around. It may be counterintuitive to some, but decades of research has proven it. Money can’t also overcome a negative working environment. Free sporting event tickets won’t work to motivate you if you don’t feel valued.
The hard line. Today, to motivate people, you can’t use the hammer, it just doesn’t work. Employees, particularly millennials, won’t put up with it. Those who don’t leave, simply won’t try as hard. Another danger of the hard line is that employees lose their sense of safety and trust in their boss. If they lose trust, then they won’t share their ideas for fear of reprimand or being ridiculed. And no new ideas is not a good thing.
So stick with honey and leave the vinegar on the shelf, dear friends.
And let me know if I can help.
By Blair Koch
