How to raise the interest of staff in their professional activities?  What methods help to create a healthy atmosphere in the team? 

The article describes the tangible and intangible systems motivation, methods of motivation, their advantages and disadvantages. Premiums, interest, bonuses, bonus, team-building - what they are and when to use them.  It describes methods of motivation of staff, depending on their leadership goals.

Creating a cohesive team of highly qualified professionals working for the benefit of a common goal and their own prosperity - is a continuing process. Even if assembled an excellent team and a seemingly all conditions for work, comes a time when members lose interest in the responsibilities or leave the company. The reasons may vary but their essence is one - a lack of motivation. The motivation is actions aimed at increasing the interest of employees in their professional lives that can be both tangible and intangible basis.

MATERIAL MOTIVATION

Talking about the priority of its physical motivation and greater effectiveness in comparison with the soft not always justified. The physical motivation although has certain advantages. In particular it is the most universal because, regardless of their situation, the workers more money to promote and appreciate the opportunity to dispose of funds received. In some cases, employees are even willing change any intangible methods of promoting their cash equivalents. The fact that the soft tools of motivation imply certain limitations: if you subscribe to a fitness center as a promotion can only be used for its intended purpose its monetary value - as they wish.

WAGES

The most effective way of physical motivation is to raise wages and the most basic definition is the magnitude of change in wages. To get the real impact of the employee the size of the expected reward should be substantial otherwise this could cause an even greater reluctance to carry out their duties. Some managers are on the path of least resistance and periodically increase the salaries of employees in small amounts but the motivation is even more effective once, a significant increase in salary.

Ideally, the decision to raise wages should be the employer on its own initiative but it typically does not happen - at least in our conditions. Accordingly, the requirement for revision of wages has become the usual method of blackmail by some officers threatening to withdraw from work. Often this method works but a significant improvement in wages speech in this case cannot be. For this reason, after being an employee again demonstrated their dissatisfaction with salary, because there is so-called «the effect income habituation».

PRIZES

One of the most common ways to motivate the material is quarterly or monthly premiums as well as the prize for longevity. The increase per cent allowance for longevity is in the early years of work in a company when an employee works effectively for the benefit of the company and tries to realize its maximum potential. On the other hand there is a risk that after 2-3 years of employee for whatever reasons wants to change employment. The highest stability is observed for the staff that worked for the company over 5 years especially since by that time service pay is already significant amount.

The Russian companies are often have the practice of issuing «awards-prizes» - remuneration received by staff spontaneously for any successes. It is felt that the effect of surprise must be more to inspire the staff but this is just confusing because the employee ceases to understand why in one case he received the prize and the other - not. For this reason, it is better to inform employees about the specific situations of a bonus issuance. On the other hand if the prize has become an attribute of monthly income (for example, as employees of industrial enterprises) it is also poorly motivated them to improve the efficiency of labor.

PERCENT

The next best way to the material motivation distributed in commerce and the provision of various services. This is a percentage of revenue the essence of which is that the worker earnings has no clearly defined limit and depends on the employee's professionalism and its ability to promote the sale of goods or services. Some companies are also focusing on the skills of their employees as the material provides a way of motivation - an award for professionalism. This promotion is appointed as a result of certification assesses the results of the employee and his line position.

BONUSES

Among the incentives include various bonuses but a fixed amount is often disincentives. A fixed sum payment is not conducive to desire to multiply the result because the amount of monetary reward, it still does not change. Accordingly in order to enhance motivation are encouraged to use an extensive system of payment of bonuses.

For top management provides additional compensation (bonus) issued for his contribution to improving the overall financial and economic indicators such as reducing costs, increasing overall profits and other bonuses can be not only personal but also the team. The command represents a premium bonus remuneration of the group to achieve certain goals (for example, the increase in sales). In calculating the bonuses should be borne in mind that the promotion of one division may be justified in specific cases but to improve overall performance this is not enough. All structures of the organization linked in one way or another and the promotion of only one of them cannot motivate another.

It should be noted that while the effectiveness and universality of monetary reward only the physical limitation of motivation would not yield the desired result. Members of any team are people with different values and attitudes and the issuance of awards and bonuses to promote teambuilding rather problematic. Moreover, material incentives are calculated on the basis of the results of work performed and can vary even among people who occupy the same position in the business hierarchy. This often causes frustration and cannot create healthy atmosphere in the team. In many cases, just needed some moral compensation and the balance factor, which serve as methods of promoting the intangible.

INTANGIBLE MOTIVATION

The main difficulty of the application of non-motivation is that for each team requires a certain adjustment of standard schemes. There are general principles effective in most cases however that the motivation was truly effective should adjust it to the specific interests of workers. It turns out that how many people - so many ways and motivation should be because even the perception of the same situations in very different workers. For a single employee can serve as a powerful motivating verbal encouragement of superiors and for others it is a natural recognition of his good work. Personalization of systems and methods of motivation of course is not possible especially with a large number of employees. For this reason, many managers are limited to average models of motivation in light of the situation, which takes the employee and his basic needs.

The simplest scheme is applicable to lower-level employees who perform any support function. With an increasing degree of responsibility of growing demands on the efficiency of its operation, respectively, special attention is paid to the motivation of management companies. For middle managers and top executives usually develops its own methods of motivation (both material and immaterial) because of their organizational abilities are directly related work of other people. Systems motivation for people holding different levels of job hierarchy should be different and because of that depending on the promotion ladder the person changing the criteria for motivation.

Goodwill motivation includes a system of promotion does not require the issuance of the staff of the material and non-cash assets. That does not mean that companies do not need to invest funds in the realization of intangible motivation. For the major companies is not the existence of subjective factors in determining the motivation and mechanisms for the promotion. The underlying principle should be the maximum objectivity and transparency and the criteria for assessment of staff needs to be defined initially and to inform them about the staff. If the incentives vary continuously without any reason it would disrupt the work of employees and cause discontent.

The aim of intangible motivation is quite simple: to increase employee interest in their work which impact on productivity growth and consequently to increase profits. Goodwill motivation in the form of joint participation in corporate activities contributes to a healthy atmosphere in the team that also affects the overall performance of staff and their willingness to contribute to the common cause. However, in addition to the formal approach to the use of non-motivation only with a view to profit many managers make the basic rate of raising the corporate spirit of teamwork and improving self-esteem of staff.

Methods of non-motivation can be applied to a particular officer or sold addressless. To address non-material motivation applies in particular greetings to the staff member's birthday and the members of the leadership team. It may also be various forms of reward in the form of gifts for the important occasion and financial assistance in cases of severe illness or death of relatives of employees. To address the motivation is also encouraging word for a worker's work. Practice shows that the evaluation work sounded from the lips of the head a very positive effect on loyalty and the overall workplace mood worker. Especially important intangible address the motivation for new recruits despite everything have not yet accustomed to the working methods of the head and in the community. Promotion can be expressed as in personal conversation, and at a general meeting of members of the team. Note that address the specific motivation of the staff should not enter into a habit as this will reduce the effectiveness of its impact as well as not be overly subjective. If the staff is constantly hear praise of the same of his colleagues it does not contribute to raising interest in his work. Methods of targeting non-motivating managers should handle very carefully not to create inequality in the team.

By addressless motivations include the holding of joint business events as well as the provision of various benefits - Social package. To date Social package is one of the most effective ways to motivate staff: it is an organization of free meals, medical insurance, payment of transport and mobile telecommunications, soft or free stays in a sanatorium for medical reasons as well as an opportunity to improve skills or receive training from the company.

By the methods of non-motivation can be the creation of optimal working conditions for employees: the installation of new computer equipment, creating comfortable working areas for staff, improving the design, installation of modern systems of air conditioning and heating systems, etc. The addressless motivation includes the issuance of the entire staff of clothes, depending on the work performed as well as various attributes of the activities (e.g., T-shirts with the logo of the company). The most important tool for non-material motivation is corporate events especially with family members. There is such a thing as team-building through joint visits to rest homes or sanatoriums, participate in excursions and general activities. Presentations and other activities aimed at demonstrating the success of the firm must also be held with members of the team to build their sense of ownership in the common cause.

Summing up, we can make absolutely clear the need for the use of both tangible and intangible encouraging for the success of any business structure. Existing today motivational mechanisms are far from ideal but they are valid and continue to be used in practice. In particular in order to improve the material motivation should be compared the performance of material incentives with business objectives and provide a system of reward is not for the realization of specific tasks and for the implementation of general plans. In fact, the preferred material of the promotion of staff and working groups as it is believed that these methods easier to manage the motivational mechanism.

The main disadvantages of the methods of intangible motivation can be attributed homogenized approach to employees without regard to individual needs. Apparently, many employers the importance of intangible motivation not yet fully understood but recognize the importance of these methods but any thinking manager one way or another will come. After all, the reason of the failure at proposed goods and services market reduced sales and the number of potential customers sometimes do not lie in the erroneous economic calculations and a lack of motivation of employees.

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