4.3a Motivating Employees
Benefits of Motivated Staff
Motivated staff bring:
- Higher productivity and accuracy – workers want the business to do well and will do their best.
- Reduction in staff turnover – happy workers will stay with the business, retaining skills and saving the business time and money from recruitment.
What is "motivation"?
Motivation is the range of factors that encourage people to act in certain ways.
Staff motivation techniques can be categorised as:
- Financial incentives
- Non-financial incentives
Financial Motivation
A very effective way to motivate staff is to pay! There are several different ways a business can do this:
Salary
- A fixed amount paid by the employer
- Usually stated as an annual amount
- Split into twelve and paid in equal instalments on the same date each month
- Typical salaried employees: management, professionals, office staff
- Disadvantage: no incentive for workers to increase productivity
Wages
- Based on an hourly rate – the more hours someone works, the more they get paid
- Typically paid weekly or monthly
- Encourages staff to work more hours
- Typical wage employees: manual and low-skilled workers
- Disadvantage: may encourage workers to take their time and work more hours to get a job done
Commission & Piece Work
- Pay is calculated on the number of products made (piece work) or sold (commission)
- Usually in conjunction with a low basic salary or wage
- Encourages staff to work hard
- Typical piece work employees: factory workers
- Typical commission employees: sales staff
- Disadvantages: encourages quantity over quality
Profit Share
- A percentage of the business annual profits will be split with staff as a bonus on top of their wage or salary
- Encourages productivity
- Can include all staff at all levels
- Disadvantages: does not reward staff based on their individual productivity
4.2 Recruitment and Selection of Employees
4.3b Motivating Employees
