Understanding Why People Work: Factors that Motivate and Demotivate Employees

This article explores the various factors that motivate and demotivate employees in the workplace. It discusses the importance of motivation in increasing productivity and retaining employees. The article also provides tips on how to create a positive work environment and support employee development. Additionally, it highlights negative factors that can impact employee morale and offers solutions to address them.

Why people work

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Various factors which motivate employee to work.....................................................................1
Positive and negative factors employee experience in their job roles.........................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERNCES...................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Work provides people a way to live their live in an organized way. Working is defined as
a process of connecting with people with similar interest level. People work for getting a better
livelihood, for earning money, to have food as well as to pay bills. In today’s world everyone
wants to be independent. Therefore working makes a person self-motivated and sovereign.
Social appreciation and assertion is also one of the major factor of doing work. (Diamantidis and
Chatzoglou, 2018).
MAIN BODY
Various factors which motivate employee to work
In today’s era working is very important for every individual and having so much
competition in the organization makes it difficult for employee to survive. Therefore, the only
thing which can retain employees to the organization is motivation. This is the act of making
things done in effective manner. Motivation is defined as the process which invokes you to act.
The need or desire of doing something for achieving the goal is termed as motivation. For
example, doing study for getting good marks or getting food for hunger both are a type of
motivation. If the employees are motivated to work at a high level then this will also increase the
productivity of the organization. (Rizky and Ardian, 2019). Every employee have their own
motivational factors which motivate them to work more effectively and efficiently. Organization
should have empathy towards their employee and know the need of their working members.
Motivation helps the employee to perform better and remain dedicated towards their work.
There are various factors which motivate employees to work such as:
Reward and recognition:
It is very significant for an organization to first win their employee. Reward and
recognition allow employee involvement to the company’s growth and success. Rewarding an
employee makes them more productive and dedicated. People work harder when they feel
appreciated. In today’s environment young workers are influenced by good pay, compensations
and benefits. Rewarding an employee makes him happy and a happy mind is more productive
for an organization. Small vocational trips, incentives should be rewarded to the employees for
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motivating them. People want to have their face value and want to be recognized for their good
work. This also increase the trust of the employee towards their competent authorities. IBM an
American multinational company provide recognition with digital badges. IBM open badge
program is an example of perfect link between social media, appreciation and recognition. IBM
give rewards for the best ideas in five categories on quarterly and yearly basis. These categories
are shareholder worth, customer fulfilment, practical, teamwork, and people. (Afsar and Umrani,
2019)
Development
Development is very important for motivating an employee. It has been studied that
employee prefers career development opportunities and trainings for enhancing their knowledge.
Employee appreciates and value when their higher authorities takes sincere interest in their
development. And this makes them feel more motivated and confident. When an organization
offer training sessions to their employees, this indicates that they value them as an individual
which creates a trust and motivation among the employees.
Work life balance
Healthy work life balance also helps in motivating the employee as it inspire employees.
It is important to ensure that the working hours are reasonable and uniting work actions which
promotes health and welfare of an employee. For example, offering healthy events such as yoga
classes, meditation classes, sponsoring gym membership encourages employee of doing work
more effectively.
Work environment
Having a positive work environment makes employee motivated. There are basically two
types of work environment physical and non- physical environment. Physical environment refers
to the open spaces, green areas and many more. The space in which you work affects' employee
motivation. (Pang and Lu, 2018) Non-physical environment involves commitment and
communication. Employee should feel like their “second home “in the office. Effective
communication helps the employee to have a better understanding.
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Relationship with leaders
Employee spend almost one third time of the day in the office. Interaction with
colleagues and managers impact their mood and negative attitude results in isolation or
demotivation so it is very necessary to have a good bong with the leaders or team members. For
example having some sessions for open communication where everyone can talk freely and
share feedbacks and queries, having lunch together and organizing some events for refreshment.
All these activities focus on team building which increases the productivity of the employee.
Employee feel motivated when there is somebody is there to understand them therefore they will
able to do their work more significantly. Having a fair communication helps in building trust
between the employee and the leader. Understanding what employee want to achieve and
showing him what to do for that is the main fundamental strategy of motivating the team.
Positive and negative factors employee experience in their job roles
Employee engagement has a great impact on organization’s success or growth. When employee
are engaged in an organization they are motivated and dedicated to do their best work.it is role
of the leaders to encourage them for achieving their goals. Leaders are the backbone of their
entire team. Proper support and motivation is needed to work in this competitive world.as there
is so much competition there should be some positive environment in the organization to retain
the employee. For providing a positive employee experience the organization should focus on
some points. (Gagné and et.al., 2019)
Listen to your people.
Listening is the essential part of communication. A leader should know the difference
between listening and hearing. The employer should understand and listen to the employee, they
should put themselves in their shoes and truly appreciate them on their daily activities. A great
leader is the one who is a good listener. One should listen, understand and then give a solution to
their team members. Good listener did not get distract easily and are good learner also.
Keep an open channel of communication with the team.
Employer should give a proper open platform for communication where employee can
share their feedbacks and queries. Their reviews about the work atmosphere should be
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appreciated and changes should take place on employee’s requirement. Employee should feel
connected with one another. Transparency among employees builds trust between them which
results in giving a positive environment to the employee.
Support your employee’s development
Supporting employee in their development motivates them at high level to make them
understand that you are available for each individual’s growth and development builds a
connection which increase the productivity and also encourage the employee to grow. Support
the employee by giving feedbacks, training sessions and e-learning modules for better
understating.
Likewise, not understanding employee situation makes the situation worst and therefore
results in demotivating the employee. There are also some negative factors faced by employee in
their job roles.
Insufficient communication is one of the major factor by which employee face negativity in their
job. Proper and clear communication is very much necessary for good result. Lack of
communication results in conflict between the employees. Lower compensation makes
employee dissatisfied with his job role. (Abolade, 2018)For retaining employee good
compensation and benefits should be given to the employee. Having a bad management also
affect the organization as well as the employee. A negative work environment can result in
weakened performance and also lower the morale of the employee. It also damages Company’s
reputation and decrease the revenue.
Therefore, employee losses their trust towards the organization. The employee should
focus on creating a good and positive environment in the organization. For example, Microsoft
is setting an example of its diversifying quality. They invite top talent across the world. Many
organizations are not open to change. If an employee is ready for adaption then solution is
easier. Poor work ethic is also a negative impact on employee. Lack of commitment should not
be there in the organization. An employee should be promoted on regular basis as not promoting
them on achieving the goals demotivate them. Proper human resource policies should be
introduced to make the environment happier as it makes the employee dissatisfied with his job.
When an employee did not get any support from human resource department or from the
competent authority then this makes the environment negative. Not giving attention to new ideas
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or innovations leads to the disappointment of the employee. All these factors makes the
employee negative in the organization which results in the downfall of the company. Therefore,
having a positive environment in the working place is very much-needed because it makes the
team motivated and dedicated.
CONCLUSION
By summarizing the above topic it should be understood that motivation is dynamic.
Employee motivation is very important for an organization to have a good market value in this
competitive world. Real motivation practises should be take place at the organization. Through
this study, companies will be able to understand different ways to give a positive environment
for motivating their employees and will also understand the negative factors affecting employees
in the workplace.
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REFERNCES
Books and Journals
Abolade, D.A., 2018. IMPACT OF EMPLOYEES’JOB INSECURITY AND EMPLOYEE
TURNOVER ON ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE IN PRIVATE AND
PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANISATIONS.
Afsar, B. and Umrani, W.A., 2019. Transformational leadership and innovative work behavior:
The role of motivation to learn, task complexity and innovation climate. European
Journal of Innovation Management.
Akhmetshin, E.M., Morozov, I., and et.al. 2018. Motivation of personnel in an innovative
business climate.
Gagné, M., Tian, and et.al., 2019. Different motivations for knowledge sharing and hiding: The
role of motivating work design. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 40(7), pp.783-799.
Lazazzara, A., Tims, M. and De Gennaro, D., 2020. The process of reinventing a job: A meta–
synthesis of qualitative job crafting research. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 116,
p.103267.
Pang, K. and Lu, C.S., 2018. Organizational motivation, employee job satisfaction and
organizational performance: An empirical study of container shipping companies in
Taiwan. Maritime Business Review.
Rizky, M.C. and Ardian, N., 2019. Enhance employee performance for increase work motivation
on Universitas Pembangunan Panca Budi Medan. Journal Homepage: http://ijmr. net.
in, 7(08), pp.19-34.
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