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. :)