Motivating employees

Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation

Most companies have it all wrong. They don't have to motivate their employees. They have to stop demotivating them.

The great majority of employees are quite enthusiastic when they start a new job. But in about 85 percent of companies, our research finds, employees' morale sharply declines after their first six months—and continues to deteriorate for years afterward. That finding is based on surveys of about 1.2 million employees at 52 primarily Fortune 1000 companies from 2001 through 2004, conducted by Sirota Survey Intelligence (Purchase, New York).

The fault lies squarely at the feet of management—both the policies and procedures companies employ in managing their workforces and in the relationships that individual managers establish with their direct reports.

See commentary at:

Management Craft

BusinessPundit

Random Thoughts from a CTO


My $.02: I have a minor quibble with Rob on this one point--

Motivation is a two way street. The way to look at it isn't to discuss why you are or aren't motivated. The way to look at it is to realize how helpful motivation is to success and then figure out how to get motivated. Building up your own discipline and your own personal internal demand for excellence will get you much farther in life than whining about your work situation.

All that is true, but i think he overlooks other possibilities. "Don't whine" is right. But maybe the right thing to get motivated about is finding a better boss or company.

Max DePree wrote that the best employees of a company are essentially volunteers; they can find a good job elsewhere. When a manager or corporate system demotivates the best employees, they lose them. The intrinsically unmotivated (if they exist) are the ones who stick around and whine.