Improving Workplace Performance

Alignment of aims, purpose and values between staff, teams and organization is the most fundamental aspect of motivation. The better the alignment and personal association with organizational aims, the better the platform for motivation.

How important is salary in motivating employees? Frederick Herzberg acknowledged the complexity of the salary issue (money, earnings, etc), and concluded that money is not a motivator in the way that the primary motivators are, such as achievement and recognition

Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is an important model in understanding the motivational factors which influence our everyday lives. Maslow's ideas promote the responsibility of employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables employees to fulfil their own unique potential (self-actualization), are today more relevant than ever.

Vroom's expectancy theory separates effort, performance and outcomes, while Maslow and Herzberg focus on the relationship between internal needs and the resulting effort expended to fulfill them. How to use needs and motivators to fuel productivity and satisfaction among employees.

Gamification is a buzzword that has become increasingly prevalent in today’s business world. Companies such as Cisco, Uber, and Duolingo all use gamification to help them achieve strategic business objectives. But what is gamification and where does it come from? The word gamification starts to show up around 2010 on Google trends and it was initially defined as the use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems. However, gamification has not been stagnant and the definition has developed over the years with the most commonly cited focusing on the use of game design elements in non-game contexts.

Douglas McGregor first proposed his famous XY Theory in 1960 to help people develop a more positive management style.

Perhaps the most noticeable aspects of McGregor's XY Theory - and the easiest to illustrate - are found in the behaviours of autocratic managers and organisations which use autocratic management styles. These managers - who fall into the category "Theory X" - can be hard to deal with as an employee. Here we discuss a few tips and techniques used to handle an autocratic manager.

David McClelland talks on the three types of motivation: achievement motivation, power motivation and affiliation motivation. 

Charles Handy - organizational and social development guru, Motivation Calculus theory, and modern ideas about work, fulfilment, globalization and life purpose.

John Adams put forward his theory on motivation in 1963 which extends beyond the individual self and incorporates influence and comparison of other peoples situation.

Nudge theory is a flexible and modern change-management concept for:

• understanding of how people think, make decisions, and behave,
• helping people improve their thinking and decisions,
• managing change of all sorts, and
• identifying and modifying existing unhelpful influences on people.

Nudge theory was named and popularized by the 2008 book, 'Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness', written by American academics Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein. The book is based strongly on the Nobel prize-winning work of the Israeli-American Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Nudge theory is a highly innovative, effective model for change-management.

Motivation is often best explained by reference to real examples.

This article provides a structure and tips for creating an employee motivation survey questionnaire to help you develop your own tools for exploration of employee motivators.

Albert Humphrey (1926-2005) was a leading expert in the field of corporate strategic planning and strategy realization.