What demotivates employees?
What demotivates employees?
Employee motivation has long been a thorn in the side of business owners and managers, so many questions arise when considering the motivations in a workplace. If employees are struggling to find motivation then in turn, their performance will drop and this will negatively impact a business in numerous ways. Organisations have differing approaches in their attempts to motivate, some concentrate on monetary rewards and other on promoting a work-life balance through a range of benefits. However, rewards will have little impact on the motivation levels in the workplace if the fundamental processes are not being carried out correctly. It is important for organisations to sometimes consider what they could be doing that demotivates their employees instead of what they can do to motivate them.
Employees have more recently become inclined to view recognition as a key to their motivation at work. Recognising and appreciating an employees work and efforts can take a considerably less amount of time than planning an elaborate reward scheme; yes both might have to be implemented but if managers are taking time out of their day to give recognition then it could make an impact. This process is easy to overlook and many managers may believe that it serves no value as the employees should provide themselves with the recognition or that they do not deserve the recognition because that is their job, this is not a successful viewpoint.
This links to another demotivating factor for employees and that is bad management, if an employee feels they are being treated unfairly or that their manager is not being as efficient/effective as the business needs then this will cause them to feel unhappy in the workplace. Employees have evidenced that good working relationships are vital and none more so than the relationship that is had with their manager. If a manager fails to build good relationships with their employees then it could lead to a decrease in productivity for the business overall.
Overall, it is important to recognise within your organisation what could be potentially contributing towards employee demotivation and find whether it can be easily fixed or not. A lot of motivation comes from interpersonal relations within the business and these can be solved by giving employees purpose and recognition for the work that they conduct on a daily basis.
Sources:
http://www.onrec.com/news/news-archive/the-top-three-demotivators-of-the-workplace-being-invisible-and-undervalued-a-lack
