What Every Manager Should Know About How to Enhance the Motivational Climate of the Workplace

It has been well documented that employees' productivity and job quality increase when we are made to feel welcomed at work. In other words, when the motivational climate is enhanced to meet their needs they produce quality work at the 100% rate.

The factor that caused them to produce at such high standards is their employer enhancing the motivational climate. As a result, they came to work, not because they had to, but because they wanted to.

By listening to your employees, they will tell you what you can do to enhance their motivational climate. In the meanwhile, here is a checklist to help you get started. Ask yourself, Do I:

* select the right person for the task based on a combinations of their needs and qualifications and the company's immediate requirements? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* hold regular, brief, but effective conferences so that they will be informed about developments affecting their jobs? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* encourage my employees to participate in goal-setting, planning, and decision-making activities? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* delegate whole units of responsibility with the appropriate level of responsibility? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* respond to their questions and concerns promptly, openly, candidly, and fairly? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* encourage them to join trade, professional, or civic organizations? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* give them proper and public credit and recognition when due? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* communicate so they understand the first time? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* conduct fair and consistent job evaluations? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* accept and implement their suggestions? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* help them see what's in it for them? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* support their educational pursuits? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* help them see the Big Picture?( ) Yes ( ) No

* take time to listen to them? ( ) Yes ( ) No

* attend to their needs? ( ) Yes ( ) No

Total your score. If your No's outnumber your Yes responses, it's time to sit down with your employees and find out from them what you can do to enhance their motivational climate.

Remember: When you maximize your potential, everyone wins. When you don't, we all lose.

© Etienne A. Gibbs, MSW

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in ezines, newsletters, and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Although advance permission is not required, please notify us at execandgroup-consulting@yahoo.com when you use this article.

Etienne A. Gibbs, MSW, Management Consultant and Trainer, conducts seminars, lectures, and writes articles on his theme: ... helping you maximize your potential. He offers management, marketing, and parenting resources at his Maximizing Your Potential blog.

More resources:

RELATED ARTICLES

Making Powerful Requests That Launch People Into Action
Do you ever wonder why people do not simply do the things that you want them to do? Well, instead of waiting for things to happen, decide to take responsibility for making them happen. The way to do this is often as simple as making an appropriate request.

The Crisis of Modernity
Since the beginning of the industrial era our world has been facing what some historians call an ongoing "crisis of modernity". As fast as we adjust to new circumstances, the circumstances change again, and, the rate of change seems to be multiplying exponentially.

How To Rebuild Trust
Here are some quick thoughts on ways to turn things around.Determine the real reasons why trust has diminished.

Quality Standards with ISO 9001
Standardizing Quality SystemsThe ISO, or International Organization for Standardization, was established in 1947 to develop international standards for everything from electronics to management systems. Having over 13,000 standards currently in place, ISO has created the auditing and certification process known as ISO 9001.

Five Steps to Increase the People Power in Your Business
Take some bold steps and help your employees and business partners open up to real change and help them start thinking again to the longer term. Send a message that you are ready to commit to new ways of thinking and that that includes a commitment to the success of your employees in the changing workplace.

Manage Your Business from the Rockies, not the Prairies
The day job as a manager is all about managing your people to deliver, to meet the needs of your customers or clients and generating success after success! Right? And you have consequences if that doesn't happen.Worst case scenario is that you lose your job or your business, because your people haven't delivered.

Managing the Human Resource Project
We obtain strategic results by aligning HR mission, vision and values. The following overview highlights a macro approach to project management.

Take Control of Your Paper in 3 Easy Steps
Do you have piles of paper on your desk. Many do and don't know how to deal with them.

Effective Meetings: Why Most Meetings are a Waste of Time
Whether your company holds one meeting a week or dozens of meetings a day it is essential that this time is used efficiently and effectively. Most meetings are less effective than they could be not because they are poorly managed, but because meeting managers spend all of their time focusing on the one or two hours when people will be gathered around the conference table or video screen.

Work Environment Tidbits
Color is a big factor effecting all indoor environments. Since most of us spend many hours each day at work, the coloring of the space has a big impact on us.

How Managers Can Turn Failures Into Successes
Although there are real, external reasons for managerial difficulty - including massive reorganization after takeovers and the realities of discrimination due to age, sex, and race - managers fail most often for reasons they themselves create.These reasons include ignoring the application of emotional intelligence, failure to recognize individual motivation to be effective, and a failure to adapt to change and rebound from setbacks.

Why Half of All Mergers Fail After the Honeymoon Ends
Marriages and corporate mergers in America have at least one thing in common, more than 50 percent end up on the rocks. In fact, according to a McKinsey study, only 23 percent ever recover the costs of walking down the corporate aisle.

Problem-Solving Success Tip: Measure the Right Things.
Measure the right things. It's not enough just to measure-you have to measure the right things.

What One Thing?
A few weeks ago I asked my readers what the most important issue was in their business. Hundreds responded with a variety of answers, but one of the most common was, "How do I get everything that needs doing done?" Happily, I have an answer for this question, but like many things in life, it carries both good news and bad news.

Well-Defined Processes - How to Create
Interested in learning how to reduce development time, save money and stay in control? Business professionals can learn how to create well-defined processes with the easy-to-manage Process Approach of Plan-Do-Check-Act.Real Tools for Real Business ProcessIn MBA courses, students come across a lot of buzzwords and the theories behind them.

Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Training is in the Eye of the Beholder
This article relates to the Training competency, commonly evaluated in employee surveys. It comments on the value of training to both the company and its workforce.

Dealing with Marginal Performers: The Therapeutic Approach
--PREPARATION: The purpose of the therapeutic approach is to spark an employee toward improved performance through counseling. The manager's goal is to help the employee recognize the existence of a problem, accept the need for change, and formulate his or her own program for improvement.

Why Training Fails
Sometimes when I conduct my workshop on Effective Meetings, one of the participants will ask, "Where's my boss?"And I say, "Your boss claimed to be an expert on holding effective meetings."Then the person laughs.

Managing Rebellious Employees
Surveys of executives reveal that many companies fall short of their profit objectives due to "people problems." Research for my Absolutely Fabulous Organizational Change book found these "people problems" fall into two "r" categories: rebellion and resistance.

Balancing Power in Outsource Contract Agreements
The practice of outsourcing business processes has long been subject to the discussion how best to ensure optimal benefits for both parties involved in the outsource agreement.In conventional outsource agreements conflict often arises between the objective to minimize cost and the necessity to continually develop the service.