If you are an employer, you need to know more than just how business functions. You need to understand psychology. Many people are what you might call psychologically demented. They do not respond to reason. However, they do respond to particular stimuli. As a company boss, you need to understand that what a textbook says about motivating workers might be true in general, you need to understand the particular psychological makeup of EACH of your workers and subcontractors if you want to have an optimal working relationship. So, how do you go about this?
The shortage type
Some people are motivated by money. Others are motivated by laziness. A few like flexible work schedules, while many like a good quality of life. What I learned from reading and also from real life is that there is a set of people who are motivated by shortages. There is a particular mindset of some individuals where they are never satisfied. If you give them more, they respect you less — or at least not more. If you give them enough, they take it for granted. You can not motivate these types of people to do more unless they are afraid that they will not have enough. This type of people don’t save money, because they don’t plan for tomorrow. They only want enough to get by.
There was a car manufacturer that moved its operations to Mexico. They paid top dollar to have good workers. As soon as the workers had enough money in their pocket, they stopped coming to work. Yes — it was very short sighted to stop work like that. It is hard to get a good job at a good company. But, many people, particularly in the third world countries, do not think about tomorrow. The only way you get them to work is if they are hungry. Unfortunately, the strategy with this demented type is to keep them a little bit hungry. Not too hungry. Just hungry enough so that they don’t skip work.
Identifying the shortage type
To identify someone who is motivated by shortages is not hard. Offer them a bonus for good performance. See if they respond well. If they slack off after you give them a bonus. Try talking to them — try reasoning. If they still don’t respond. Try one last bonus after a few months if they did something to merit it. If there is still no good response, then you have identified that your employee is definately not the bonus type — the type who is motivated by bonuses (or who gets bonuses as the two go hand in hand). Step two, is to reduce the job responsibilities and payment for this individual to just below their comfort level. Knowing their comfort level might require some study and guesswork. Giving them 5% below what they think they should be making might be a good place to start. It is not low enough to panic, but low enough to get off their rear and start performing!
If they don’t respond to bonuses, maybe they respond to shortages. Use shortages as a way to motivate workers who don’t respond to bonuses and see what the results are. In some cases, your workers might not respond to any stimuli in which case you might have to phase them out! Good luck!
Tweets:
(1) If they don’t respond to bonuses, maybe they respond to shortages. #motivating workers
(2) Use shortages as a way to motivate workers who don’t respond to bonuses & see what the results are.
(3) If you are an employer, you need to understand business & psychology. R ur workers motivated by bonuses?
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Positively reinforcing good worker behavior & negatively reinforcing bad
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/03/31/positively-reinforcing-good-worker-behavior-and-negatively-reinforcing-bad/
What is your management style?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/02/02/what-is-your-management-style/
Are bonuses really the best incentive?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/01/17/are-bonuses-really-the-best-incentive/