What motivates people?

Recognition as motivation
Lynn Pregitzer (lpregitz) (Oct 9, 2010 10:52 PM) - Read by: 11Reply to MessageReply

In my experience, I found that recognition was important to keeping people motivated. As a manager, I acknowledge achievements as they occur and praise employees for high quality work. I practice this consistently as it gives timely feedback that reinforces self-esteem. I see this as critical to retaining the best employees. As for my opinion regarding the merit increases, the high performers in my workplace recognize that the performance review instrument that determines the increase is subjective and flawed. In addition to the flawed instrument, the small percentage range of the increase can be demotivating for high achievers as the difference is approximately 1%.

High performing employees implicitly know that merit increases are not exclusively correlated to their own achievements. The amount of the increase is frequently dependent upon the characteristics of the supervisor. Heneman (1988) confirms this in his study, Supervisory and Employee Characteristics as Correlates of Employee Salary Increases. He states that some bosses have a better understanding of the company policy better and therefore give lower increases. Some supervisors give better increases to employees that they interact with socially. He also discusses the tendency for supervisors to give employees an increase based on the amount of their own increase.

Given that merit based increases are heavily influenced by the biases of the supervisor, I feel that it cannot be relied upon to provide motivation to the employees. A poorly administered merit pay policy results in motivating the low performers to stay with the organization and the inequities drive high performers to leave.