Motivate those employees

Employees are naturally motivated. First eliminate negative practices that zap away their natural motivation. Second, develop true motivators to spark your employees into being motivated.

Want to ZAP your employees motivation? Then do the following:

• Develop unclear expectations regarding your employees' performance.
• Create a lot of unnecessary rules for employees to follow.
• Plan unproductive meetings for employees to attend.
• Promote internal competition between employees.
• Withhold information critical for employees to perform their work.
• Provide criticism instead of constructive feedback.
• Tolerate poor performance so your high performing employees feel taken advantage of.
• Treat employees unfairly.
• Under-utilize the capability of your employees.
• Create an atmosphere full of politics.

True motivators will help your employees tap into their natural ability to be motivated. If your employees do routine work add some fun and variety to their routine.

• Provide employees with input and choice in how they do their work.
• Encourage responsibility and leadership opportunities within your area.
• Promote social interaction and teamwork between employees.
• Tolerate learning errors by avoiding harsh criticism.
• Promote job ownership.
• Develop goals and challenges for all employees.
• Provide lots of encouragement.
• Make appreciation part of your repertoire.
• Develop measurement that shows performance increase.

The following are natural human desires that you are tapping into by providing motivators:

• Desire for activity
• Desire for ownership
• Desire for power
• Desire for affiliation
• Desire for competence
• Desire for achievement
• Desire for recognition
• Desire for meaning

That's it! Remember; don't work to change one individual at a time. Work to change your area to decrease the de-motivators and thereby increase your employees natural ability to self motivate themselves.