We Light A Light!: How To Properly Motivate An Employee?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

And, such methods of non-material motivation as praise, personal attention of the leader, support, expansion of the area of responsibility are also just the tip of the iceberg, since in addition to this there are such important motivational components as internal personal values. What drives a person from the inside. You can forever motivate an employee non-materially: praise him, post a photo on the Hall of Fame, give him extra days off … just not the fact that he will need all this. Therefore, back in 1928, a wonderful book by Dr. Marston appeared, and then a method that made it possible to accurately, quickly and efficiently evaluate the most optimal method of motivation for each of the employees, we are talking about the assessment of DISC personnel. The method is based on the description of the observed behavior, i.e. how a person acts, and contains two very useful tools:

1.express diagnostics of a person within 10-20 minutes of communication, 2. an explanation of the basic motivators of a given person and, consequently, his preferences, likes and dislikes, patterns of behavior.

It helps to find those "levers" in the employee, including which you can encourage him to willingly and happily become more involved, to work with interest, to overfulfill the plan. So, according to our model, we have 6 types of motivation: traditional, theoretical, individualistic, utilitarian, aesthetic and social.

Traditional motivator - integrity and consistency, traditions, perhaps, are very important to a person. That is, if there is order in the company, everything is clearly marked and scheduled, a person understands why and for what he works, he has clear goals, then he becomes internally motivated and does his job perfectly.

Theoretical motivator - the employee is interested in developing and receiving new information. If the company can provide him with constant development, training, then such an employee becomes loyal to it with pleasure.

Social motivator - it is important for an employee to be useful to others, to see that his help is needed and bears visible results. Or it is important for him to understand that the company provides assistance to customers, its activities are aimed at supporting other people.

Aesthetic motivator - It is important for a person that everything around him be in peace and harmony: from his workplace, perfectly organized with a high-quality entourage, to the general policy of the company. This also includes the aesthetic values that the company brings to the world.

Utilitarian motivator - it is very important for employees with this form of motivation that the percentage of their efforts be equal to the result obtained. These are people not of a process, but of a result. It is important for them that they can clearly see the fruits of their work. If the company can provide such an employee with some freedom of action or entrust him with a certain task, for the results of which the employee is fully responsible, then he will work with pleasure.

Individualistic - This motivator is applicable to employees who can manage and love managerial positions, they have a talent for influencing others. They need subordinate personnel. These can be both bright leaders and informal leaders.

The task of HR is to identify which style of motivation is suitable for which employee and, based on the results, communicate with the employee in the language of this style: you may have to change the scope of duties or area of responsibility, apply a certain manner of communication with this employee, and the like.

For example, I had an employee who performed a certain, rather narrow functionality in the company. I noticed that he worked without a spark: he just completed his tasks and went home. He lacked a high level of motivation. I did DISC testing with him, and as a result, I identified two of his core values, thanks to which he could become highly motivated. It was important for him that in the company he could develop and learn new things continuously - this is a theoretical type of motivation, and he also wanted to get a certain high status at work that would allow him to influence other people - an individualistic method.

Indeed, I knew that my employee outside of working hours is constantly learning something, attending various courses, mainly on personal effectiveness. But at the same time, he did not always get to the courses organized by our company, due to the specifics of the work: he was listed as a seller. Nevertheless, the employee accepted my offer to undergo training to improve professional skills, despite the obvious loss of working time and, accordingly, his profit. He agreed with pleasure. I went through several sales courses, each time returning more and more enthusiastic. And when I asked him to take on the function of training other employees, since the company could not afford to send all the staff to the courses, he gladly agreed, without asking for additional remuneration. Moreover, I completely entrusted him with the responsibilities of how he would organize his trainings: announcement, gathering of listeners, presentation, and so on. He somehow managed to do this job with brilliance, given that employees worked in shifts and it was not always possible to get them together.

His trainings turned out to be interesting, informative and, moreover, brought excellent results. Later, he asked for an additional responsibility: become a mentor, take part in sales, watch how sellers make sales and adjust them somewhere. I had some concerns about how the staff would perceive such "trusteeship" over them, but at the meeting everyone unanimously accepted the proposal of their colleague. Thus, thanks to the DISC method, the company not only saved great money (after all, it was possible to send all the staff for training), but also perfectly non-materially motivated the employee, who did not ask for any reward for his coach's services and, by the way, still continues his coaching and mentoring activities!