Motivation

Motivation is defined as, “the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior.” Motivation is key in personal life as well as the career world. Motivation in the work place is highly dependent on employers being able to understand the needs and wants of their employees. When employers can understand and satisfy an employee’s needs, the employee is more inclined to perform well in his position. “The ranked order of motivating factors were: (a) interesting work, (b) good wages, (c) full appreciation of work done, (d) job security, (e) good working conditions, (f) promotions and growth in the organization, (g) feeling of being in on things, (h) personal loyalty to employees, (i) tactful discipline, and (j) sympathetic help with personal problems.” (Accel-Team) In order to achieve all or some of these key motivating factors in the work place, an employee generally will want interesting work, good wages, and recognition from superiors and peers.

Interesting work is most important to employees. Surprisingly it beat salary as a motivating factor. The easiest way to find out what stimulates and inspires an employee to do his best is to simply ask the employee what his interests are and what he enjoys doing. A superior can then take that into consideration when the right assignment for that person comes along. Employers should think long term when hiring an employee in the sense that they need to see the employees motivation and where they stand. If the employee is not easily motivated and the employer finds it a chore to have to keep after the employee to do well on assignments, this can turn into a recurring problem and may cause additional problems in the long term.

When an employee finds his or her work more interesting, the employee wants to be more involved and therefore increases employee productivity. Thus the employee tends to exert an increased amount of effort for longer periods of time towards an individual as well as a company-oriented goal. Companies have begun to realize this and act accordingly to benefit the company and its desired long-term objectives. There are plenty of employees that just “punch the clock.” They go to work just for the paycheck and nothing else. Not only are these employees hurting themselves, they are hurting the company. It is no longer a 9...

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...where there are many employees, people there more than ever, need to hear that they have done a good job and for a gleaming moment stand out in the crowd of many. Something that I think is a good motto to live by is, “if you see someone doing something good, copy it and make it better.” I think this holds true in one’s personal life as well as the corporate world.

People are motivated to do better and advance themselves. Each person has an inner drive to meet an unachieved goal. Drive varies among different people. Whether it is the single mother working at K-Mart who is working to make more money to give her child a better life and better opportunities or it’s that one researcher who finds a cure for cancer and yearns to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his achievements, thus gaining notoriety. Everyone has their sights set on something better for them. The parents of today want more for their children today than they had, just as our parents wanted something better for us. A lot of this motivation opened up doors politically so more people were able to attend college not just upper class, but people of all backgrounds and economic classes.