Motivation and Communication

In class tomorrow we will be discussing motivation and communication. After reading multiple things from multiple websites I realized that there are a lot of different ways to motivate people to work. I don't work right now and haven't for a while so I haven't seen motivation in the workplace recently. I see motivation in school all the time. I am motivated to do my school work this semester only because I need a good grade. I am highly motivated in school by grades. I am easily motivated by food, as well as money. Sometimes I am motivated simply because I want something and I am going to work for that. Other times I am motivated because I want to look good or simply just complete something.

This summer I am signed up to run in the Wasatch Ragnar Relay, a crazy long race spread between 12 people. I have some of the shortest runs in the entire race, but those will still be hard for me and I don't want to be the slowest, worst, most retarded runner in my group so I am starting to train so that I can run most, if not all of the miles that I have to run. I am also trying to lose weight and become more healthy and running is helping to meet those goals.

Motivation is a big part of getting things done. If people weren't motivated, either by their own drive or out of fear, then things wouldn't get done.

After class:

In class we talked about different ways that managers can show their appreciation to their employees. Making it personal is the most important part, it needs to seem sincere. We talked about validating the needs of the employees. Being consistent is the most important part of validation and appreciation. If the unit you oversee has done something incredible you don't want to reward them with a small bowl of chex mix. They should be rewarded with something of equal value to what they did like catered lunch.

Get to know your employees so that you can personalize thank yous. Get to know their "love language" so that you can reward them in a way that they will most appreciate. Just telling someone thank you when they love to receive gifts won't seem like much. But getting them a candy bar (their favorite) and telling them that they did a great job and you really appreciated it would be more motivating to them. :)

Personal Career Development Plan

In one year I want to be working in a hospital gaining experience as a nurse.

In two years I want to continue working in the hospital, possibly a different unit. I would love to work with women and children. If I can get a job in mother/baby or labor and delivery in the next two years I would love that.

In three years I would like to be working toward preparing to go to grad school to become a nurse practitioner. I would start looking into schools and programs. I would prepare to take the GRE.

In four years I would finish preparing for grad school so that by year five I can be in grad school and becoming a nurse practitioner.

Motivation

Motivation is kind of a hard subject. Everyone is motivated in a different way and sometimes it is hard to find out what that motivation is. I have had many times in my life where I have been motivated to do things and other times when I have not been motivated at all.

I had a manager once that would constantly tell everyone that if they didn't do their job well that he had a pile of applications on his desk to replace us. This didn't really motivate me to work hard and be a good employee. I am usually self motivated, especially when I'm doing things that I like to do. When I'm working I want to do a good job, I want to take good care of my patients. A manager telling us that we are easily replaced didn't bother me because not doing my job well was never an option for me. Also, I believed him to not be telling the full truth. We weren't fully staffed, and we never were the entire time I worked there. In my mind that meant that he didn't have people to hire, so his "motivation" didn't work.

Interview

This class period couldn't have come at a more opportune time. I was just scheduled for an interview on Tuesday. I felt that the information that I read about interviews has/will help me for this interview. I want to have the best interview that I can and I feel that the websites that we looked at had some really good information on them for both the interviewer and interviewee.

After Class:

We discussed the process that the interviewer goes through before they can hire someone. I was surprised with the whole process and how long it can take to hire someone. I found it interesting to learn more about the perspective of the interviewer, because I have always been the one that gets interviewed. It will definitely be interesting when I get to be in the other position.

My interview with the ICU went well, I did not get the job. :( I did have another interview over the break. I interviewed for a position in the mother/baby of Timp hospital. This is my dream job. The interview went well. I have yet to hear back from them yet. :) I have my fingers crossed.