The Number One Way to Fail at Motivating Employees

Are you still Fishing for employee motivation?   This was a popular employee motivation strategy several years ago.  There are lots of books on Amazon.com that will teach you about how to motivate employees.  Every business wants good employee relations and a happy, productive workforce.  Strong and positive employee morale is necessary for optimum productivity.  I can’t think of any client who has told me they didn’t want high employee satisfactory.  All companies work hard to motivate employees.

Corporate leaders and business owners have a lot of reasons to know how to motivate employees.  High levels of employee engagement make their jobs easier.  They want less stress in their employee relations.  They have profits to increase.   They want to sharpen their competitive edge.  They want to keep costs low and productivity high.  They want to generate more revenue.  They want, they want, they want…   Are you reading this?  They want to motivate employees for all their corporate reasons and this is why most companies fail in how to motivate employees.

Employee motivation, employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and employee relations will never improve if it is all about what the company wants.  No one is going to work to make the company better or to reach company goals.   Organizations will fail if they believe a slick, new “program” is the way to motivate employees.  Employees will only be motivated when they know what’s in it for them.   They will increase productivity only when their needs are met.   Incentives to motivate employees must be tied to what they value and desire.  Strategic employers know this.  They work hard to understand what makes their employees tick.  Only when employee values are linked to motivating incentives will companies succeed.