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Motivation of Employees

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Submitted By IvanBarashki
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What are the essential elements of motivating people at work and to what extent do recent attempts to ‘engage’ people represent progress in modern management techniques?

Motivation is a driving force within an individual to do something well. Motivation is particular to an individual so it is important to find out what factors drive each person. Some employees may be motivated by working in a team whereas others could be driven by a desire to make a difference, therefore is understood in different ways from different people. Some are motivated by power, others by recognition in work and salary, and third by improvement in their social status. In the management sphere motivation of employees is one of the most valuable intangible assets of a company, because an entity cannot meet the expectations of customers, unless they maintain motivation of employees (Boddy,2008 )

As we all know, valuable things are not easy to accomplish, this is why employee’s engagement is one of the hardest challenges every manager. Some managers tend to become more self- centered and less mindful because of the fact that they are in charge, this is called “the fallacy of centrality” – the assumption that because someone has a central position in a company, he or she knows everything necessary to exercise effective leadership. (Sutton, R.I, 2009). This practice may lead to decreasing the motivation of employees by neglecting their opinions or points of view. Also ignoring their efforts or not providing them with some feedback can also be a source of job dissatisfaction. In that way the overall performance can be reduced. A real life example of a person like this is Robert Maxwell, who kept control over all decisions in his company and is famous for his motto: “ My way or the highway “ (Birley,S. and Muzyka,D, 1997) . This way of leading people is not exactly right

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