Page 15 - How to Motivate Every Employee

Don’t worry about what
drives people
Know what drives

people

Managers need to know what drives their employees. Do you?
For starters, if you put people in jobs where they can meet their
individual needs while doing the work that’s important to the organ-
ization, you’ll have employees who are more motivated to perform at
their best.
Managers have to make work a place where employees feel good
about themselves and where the work people do helps them to feel
good inside as well. When your employees come to work, they can’t
turn off their human side, in other words, their human nature.
Employees’ needs don’t shift when they walk through the workplace
door. To get people to perform at high levels, you must plug into
their human side, or their human nature, affirm them, and help
them meet their own needs.
Start by paying attention. Watch people doing their jobs. What
gets them excited? What turns them on? What turns them off?
Encourage employees to try out their own methods, provided those
methods are compatible with effectively getting the job done.
Next, send out an employee survey about attitudes in the work-
place and ask for suggestions for improvements. Once you get this
feedback, don’t ignore the results. Use the findings to make changes
that will improve everyone’s working conditions, including yours.
Of course, you can’t help every employee meet every need. And

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