Step 1Identify What Motivates Employees

Ask your employees what motivates them. If you have trouble determining an employee's
motivators, ask what would make him or her more excited about their job. If an employee
seems hesitant or unsure, suggest several different motivators and get their reactions.
Most employees want:

Good supervision from a leader who can guide and direct their activity.
Clear goals and expectations that are mutually understood and agreed upon.
Accurate and timely feedback that fairly reflects their performance and helps them
improve.
Interesting work, or at least the opportunity for interesting assignments from time to
time.
Challenges that help them learn, grow, and test their talents and stretch their
abilities.
Responsibility and the chance to take on important tasks and show what they can
do.
Recognition for their efforts in the form of praise, rewards, and advancement.
Respect
Fair treatment

Motivated employees want:

Opportunities for growth

Control over their work
Participation in decisions
To be part of a team, and enjoy the camaraderie and sense of achievement that
comes from being part of a successful team.

Step 2Identify and Address Barriers to Employee Motivation

Negative Outlook
When you ask what motivates a worker, you make get some negative responses like:
If you want to motivate me, give me a raise.
Don't ask my opinion if you don't want to hear it.
Promotion means more headaches. Who needs it?
There are positive ways to counter these negative responses. For example:

If you want to motivate me, give me a raise. Employees often see money as the key
to motivation, and sometimes it is. If you cannot grant a raise, you may want to ask
the employee if anything else would inspire motivation. You may find that at times
employees who want a raise can also be motivated by other means.

Don't ask my opinion if you don't want to hear it. Employees who make this or similar
statements may be upset because their ideas were not adopted by the group or the
organization. Talk with employees openly about their ideas and the ideas of others.
Explain that while all the ideas were worthwhile, only some could be pursued at this
time. Make sure employees understand that their participation is always valued and
will be needed again.
Promotion means more headaches. Who needs it? Employees may be frustrated by
not advancing or may be intimidated by the idea of advancement or promotion.
Respond by talking to these employees about why advancement is important, to
their careers and to the organization. Talk about the support that is provided for
employees who are promoted, or want to be. Share with them some of the
satisfactions or rewards that may make the headaches worth it and make sure they
understand that you have confidence in them to make the best of any new roles.

Lack of Knowledge, and Fear

A combination of lack of knowledge and fear are big reasons why employees are not
motivated or show poor attitude at work. For example, fear stifles motivation when a new
worker refuses to ask questions lest he or she seem incapable of doing the job. Supervisors
can remind new workers again and again that their questions are valued and important and
encourage them to ask.

Step 3Develop an Employee Motivation Program

An employee's performance, actions, or attitudes can damage both their careers and the
organization. In such cases try first to come to an agreement about acceptable behaviors
through informal discussions. If that doesn't work, meet with the employee and develop a
formal employee motivation program. Get input from the employee. This is a chance to
listen and find out about the employee's concerns.
A great motivation program should include the following elements:

Clearly explain what the employee needs to do to meet expectations, and how what
the organization will do to provide support or assistance. Correction works best when
it is perceived as a partnership.
Monitor the employee's progress with care and meet frequently with the employee to
review the plan and the employee's conduct.
Provide encouragement, praise, and recognition as the employee's work improves.
Make it clear that the employee's value in the workplace is increasing.
Some employees are motivated by discipline. They don't take their work seriously
until they are threatened with some kind of sanction for unacceptable or inadequate
performance. But discipline should be used only as a last resort for problem
employees who fail to respond to other, positive forms of motivation.
Make it clear that resorting to discipline is not punishment by you or the organization
but a consequence of the employee's own performance and behavior. Put the
responsibility squarely on the employee, where it belongs.

Once you have warned an employee or applied necessary discipline, be sure to use
other positive motivators as well to encourage improved performance. Discipline
alone is rarely enough to turn a problem employee around.

Step 4Add Motivation to Employee Training

Start off with a bang. Get trainees involved right away. Take a few minutes at the beginning
of the session to grab their attention and create a little excitement. Encourage participation
by having employees take center stage and describe something they already know about
the topic, or give them the opportunity to ask a question about the topic they'd like
answered during the training session
Keep their attention focused. You talking and trainees just listening is probably the least
effective way to train. Experts tell us that in most cases hearing only accounts for 10
percent of learning, whereas more than 80 percent comes via the sense of sight. This
means safety training activities should be heavily weighted in favor of hands-on practical
experience, interactive discussion with the trainees doing most of the talking, question and
answer, and activities that have a visual impact.
Make it real . Reality TV is really popular, so why not try some "reality" training? Have a
speaker come in to give a short presentation about the topic. For example, you could have
an employee who was injured on the job talk about his or her experience and what he or
she learned from the accident as it relates to your topic.
Send them away all fired up. Although safety training sessions may seem like the end of a
long road for you--a process of preparation, presentation, and evaluation--remember that for
trainees, it's only the beginning. The rest happens on the job. If they don't apply what they
learned in the session to their work, you've wasted a lot of time, effort, and money. So send
them back to the job fired up about safety and eager to use what they've just learned. Have
a good wrap-up session prepared for the end of training. Make sure trainees leave with a
sense of accomplishment to reinforce that they've learned something really important. Also
be sure they don't go away empty-handed. Give trainees a handout or booklet to serve as
safety reminders and job aids. And be sure to tell them that your door's always open any
time they have questions, problems, or suggestions related to the training session.
Give rewards as appropriate. Some can be earned and some by chance. An example of
an earned reward would be giving each trainee a certificate of completion at the end of a
session. A chance award could be placing a gift card under one chair and at some point in
the session, ask people to check their chairs. Or you could give out small gifts, such as bitesized candy bars or a company logo mug, to trainees who participate in the discussion.
See several tips to add motivation and inspiration to your training .

Step 5Implement Procedures for Motivating an Aging Workforce

According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), by 2010
middle-aged and older workers will outnumber younger ones. See several useful tips
about training and motivating older workers .

Motivation is a complex subject. As you try out the techniques we've discussed, you'll find
that your understanding of motivation and how to motivate people will gradually change and
become more refined.