By:
Patricia Thangaraj
Motivation is one of those elements that is critical to the success of any individual staff member or organisation because it has numerous benefits for both such as self-development for the employees and job satisfaction, which then leads those employees to work harder and produce more which in turn would reap profits for the company.
This was outlined by Economist at The Productivity Council, Nadia E.M. Skeete, in her article, ‘Effective Motivation: The Key to Business Success.’
“Motivation can be considered important to both the individual and the business because: (1) it can help an employee achieve both personal and professional goals; (2) if an individual is motivated, he/she will have some level of job satisfaction; (3) it helps with regards to the person’s self-development. (4) the more motivated the employees are, the more empowered the team is; (5) the greater the contribution made by either the individual and team, then the business would be more profitable and successful; and (6) motivation could lead to an optimistic and challenging attitude at the work place.”
She said that motivation can, be defined as something that encourages persons to take a certain course of action and while all of us are motivated in one area or the next, it may not be in the area(s) that management wants them to be. “It can be said that all people are motivated! However, they just may not be motivated to do what you want them to do. That, of course, is when the difficulty arises. But what exactly is motivation? Motivation can be defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. It is what causes us to act. Motivation also involves the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that activate behaviour. In everyday use, motivation simply describes why a person actually does something.”
She stated that there are three main aspects of motivation. These are activation, persistence and intensity. Activation is where a person starts a particular action; persistence is preserving until you accomplish your goal in spite of all of the hurdles that you may encounter and intensity is the passion and drive that you have in attaining that goal.
Motivation also has to with pre-motivators, which entails meeting certain criteria before a person is actually motivated. It involves those things that entice the employee to show up for work, she stated.
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