Discuss some practical ways to motivate employees.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The theory of motivation is relatively simple. An employee has a need or needs, and the employer applies some kind of incentive (or stimulus) that promises to satisfy that need. The employer's main problem in motivating employees is to know them well enough to know what they need and what incentives will stimulate them to perform.
Some of the progressive methods that have shown good results in motivating employees, especially in small businesses, are: (1) quality circles, (2) zero-defects programs, (3) job enrichment, (4) variable work schedules, and (5) job splitting and sharing.
Quality circles (QCs) are small, organized work groups that meet periodically to find ways to improve quality and output. They motivate by getting employees involved and taking advantage of their creativity and innovativeness.
The zero-defects approach is based on getting workers to do their work "right the first time," thus generating pride in workmanship. It assumes that employees want to do a good job-and will do so if permitted to.
Job enrichment emphasizes giving employees greater responsibility and authority over their jobs as the best way to motivate them. Employees are encouraged to learn new and related skills or even to trade jobs with each other as ways of making jobs more interesting and therefore more productive.
Variable work schedules (also called flexible work arrangements) permit employees to work at times other than the standard work week of five eight-hour days. Such schedules are being extensively used by small firms to motivate employees. Flextime allows employees to schedule their own hours as long as they are present during certain required hours, called core time. This gives employees greater control over their time and activities.
Job splitting is dividing a single full-time job into distinct parts and letting two (or more) employees do the different parts. In job sharing, a single full-time job is shared by two (or more) employees, with one worker performing all aspects of the job at one time and the other worker doing it at another time.