Читать книгу Motivating Today's Employees - Lin Grensing-Pophal - Страница 14

As a manager, what do you want from your employees? Many managers might say, “I want them to be reliable, to come to work every day on time. I want them to be dependable; to produce consistent results. I want them to perform.”

Is it enough to have “motivated” employees? No. Motivation should not be the end goal of your human resource activities. Motivation is not enough. Motivation must lead to something — and that something is the realization of your business goals and objectives.

It’s not enough to have happy or satisfied employees. A team of happy employees may be highly motivated, but if their efforts are not being directed toward the accomplishment of specific business goals and objectives, what’s the point?

The desire to motivate employees is driven by the need to operate a successful business. That may seem somewhat callous, but it is the reality of doing business. Even in a not-for-profit environment, there are certain goals and objectives that must be met — raising a certain amount of money to support the organization’s mission, for example.

Suppose you have an administrative assistant who is extremely enthusiastic about her job. She comes to work every day, on time, ready to perform. But her dream is to be a graphic designer. The part of her job she loves the most is being creative with the documents she produces — she loves to find clipart on the Internet, and add it to memos and letters. She eagerly volunteers to create flyers for employee events and has developed a department newsletter on which she spends a great deal of time each week. Because she so enjoys these creative activities, she rushes through her other tasks. There is no doubt that your administrative assistant is a very motivated employee. But is she motivated to do the right things?

Yes, you should be concerned about motivating your employees. But you must recognize that motivation, in itself, is not the goal. The goal is the accomplishment of your business objectives — motivated employees are one of the tools that will allow your company to reach those objectives.