March 15, 2008
What should employee incentives accomplish?
By Terry Murphy CLP
Manager, human resource development
Many managers call me for advice when they feel their employees are not motivated, or they don’t think some of their employees are performing up to their potential. They ask me what I would suggest. Is there a solution for improvement?
The first thing I suggest is that there is no “cookie cutter” or “one solution fits all” solution or approach. Motivation is individual. Getting employees to perform at a higher level takes special skill from a manager or company. No two employees are the same and therefore what turns on one may be totally different from what turns on the other. We are all different. You may need different approaches within a single company.
Let’s look at motivation. What is it? The classical definition is the “understanding of attitudes and behaviours that induce an action or encourage people to perform in a certain way. It is the art of prompting an action or inner urge or to incite one to move a person to perform in a positive way or at a higher level.” We are all looking for ways to motivate employees. So motivation creates an environment that gets people to do more because of an “inner urge or inclination,” because they feel better for doing so.
What is an incentive? It is “that which incites action, provocation, encouragement, to spur on, or to stimulate.” An incentive is a meaningful reward that stimulates an activity for higher achievement; it promotes increased productivity of a person.
Motivation is the inner desire, dedication to an end, or the mind set to accomplish something. It’s what is in your gut. It is the climate in a company that wants to make people succeed, accomplish more or perform at a higher level. Incentive on the other hand is a reward, a thank you, and an encouragement for accepting this motivation or challenge of higher achievement or performing at a higher level. Motivation and incentive can go hand in hand where incentive provides the reason or prompting for the motivation in getting a job done.
What is the result of motivation? Generally it is the action of accomplishing goals or objectives. It may be profit improvement, productivity increases, accident reduction, increased sales, etc. All employees have to understand why you are creating the motivation or inducing this activity and they have to be convinced that it is for the overall and better good. They need the buy in. Motivation is that they want to achieve the goal; the incentive is the reward for success. In the next article, we will discuss the different types of rewards and what type of employee may act on or be motivated by which type of incentive.
There are two general types of incentives. One is monetary and the other is non-monetary. In future articles I will present different types of company incentive plans and the rationale for each. I hope to give you ideas to use within your own company for some approaches to operational or profit improvement. Please feel free to contact me with your company’s plan or ideas, or approaches on incentive plans.
Terry Murphy can be reached by e-mail at terry@landscapeontario.com.
Manager, human resource development
Many managers call me for advice when they feel their employees are not motivated, or they don’t think some of their employees are performing up to their potential. They ask me what I would suggest. Is there a solution for improvement?The first thing I suggest is that there is no “cookie cutter” or “one solution fits all” solution or approach. Motivation is individual. Getting employees to perform at a higher level takes special skill from a manager or company. No two employees are the same and therefore what turns on one may be totally different from what turns on the other. We are all different. You may need different approaches within a single company.
Let’s look at motivation. What is it? The classical definition is the “understanding of attitudes and behaviours that induce an action or encourage people to perform in a certain way. It is the art of prompting an action or inner urge or to incite one to move a person to perform in a positive way or at a higher level.” We are all looking for ways to motivate employees. So motivation creates an environment that gets people to do more because of an “inner urge or inclination,” because they feel better for doing so.
What is an incentive? It is “that which incites action, provocation, encouragement, to spur on, or to stimulate.” An incentive is a meaningful reward that stimulates an activity for higher achievement; it promotes increased productivity of a person.
Motivation is the inner desire, dedication to an end, or the mind set to accomplish something. It’s what is in your gut. It is the climate in a company that wants to make people succeed, accomplish more or perform at a higher level. Incentive on the other hand is a reward, a thank you, and an encouragement for accepting this motivation or challenge of higher achievement or performing at a higher level. Motivation and incentive can go hand in hand where incentive provides the reason or prompting for the motivation in getting a job done.
What is the result of motivation? Generally it is the action of accomplishing goals or objectives. It may be profit improvement, productivity increases, accident reduction, increased sales, etc. All employees have to understand why you are creating the motivation or inducing this activity and they have to be convinced that it is for the overall and better good. They need the buy in. Motivation is that they want to achieve the goal; the incentive is the reward for success. In the next article, we will discuss the different types of rewards and what type of employee may act on or be motivated by which type of incentive.
There are two general types of incentives. One is monetary and the other is non-monetary. In future articles I will present different types of company incentive plans and the rationale for each. I hope to give you ideas to use within your own company for some approaches to operational or profit improvement. Please feel free to contact me with your company’s plan or ideas, or approaches on incentive plans.
Terry Murphy can be reached by e-mail at terry@landscapeontario.com.