Indicators of Employee Motivation

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Indicators of motivation

According to the organizational change author, Ray Anthony, there is a strong link between high morale and a motivated group of employees. He lists six major indicators that show employees are genuinely motivated to strive toward peak performance and contribute to the success of their teams:

Indicator 1: They are conscientious and take the initiative.

If your employees want to accomplish something, they will take charge and act on their own before being told to move ahead. The best teams in your organization consist of a group of leaders, not just a group with a leader.

Indicator 2: They challenge management to make the organization better.

Motivated employees care about and show great pride in working in an organization that constantly gets better and wants to be the best in its sector.

Indicator 3: They support and help each other.

A highly-motivated environment builds teams of employees who take care of and otherwise support each other.  Openness, honesty, and best intentions reign in these relationships.

Indicator 4: There is minimal absenteeism, conflict, or avoiding of responsibility.

You know employees are excited and thrilled when they experience a deep and abiding sense of purpose, meaning, satisfaction, and achievement in what they do.

Indicator 5: The organization is a learning organization, seeking feedback for self-improvement.

The goal is to get better and better all the time, raising the bar of what was deemed best then, to what is best now and in the future.

Indicator 6: They volunteer for tough, challenging assignments.

After successfully finishing a difficult, but an enriching project, these employees feel a sense of deep accomplishment, and tapping into their inner work is their norm. This further fuels their motivation to continue to volunteer for challenging projects.

When employees are motivated, they are regularly accessing their inner-work and have an enthusiasm that drives the on-going success of their team and their company as a whole.

Role of the manager

As a manager, how can you ensure that these indicators are visible in the workplace? Well, you can:

• Ensure high expectations are set for all employees and for the team.
• Ensure that every employee has adequate resources to support their work performance.
• Display empathy by understanding what is most important for each person’s employee experience in the organization.
• Build-in clear, timely, constructive feedback.
• Hold team members accountable for their successes.
• And finally, recognize failure as being an intrinsic part of employee motivation that also has learning value. You should use mistakes for their learning value and internalize the maxim: ‘If I am not making mistakes, I am not trying hard enough.’