How to Motivate Workers During Hard Times
Introduction
The organization is experiencing a tough time, confronting with both the outside pressure of economic downturn and the inside problem of low motivation level. To fight this hard time, it is important to explore applicable and effective methods to motivate employees within the organization. This essay aims to take the view of the leader of this organization to discuss the reasons that cause this demotivation and how to motivate the organization’s staff applying motivational theories. (This essay assumes that the organization is unable to provide its workers with monetary motivators, hence only non-financial motivation approaches are examined.)
Possible Sources of Demotivation
To decide ‘how to motivate’, the first step should be ‘what to motivate’. Apparently, workers’ demotivation is caused by the delay in the pay increase. However, there are far more reasons behind these people’s demotivation and the causes can be eliminated through various methods other than increasing wages.
Limited Communication
Workers may only see the fact that the company is unwilling to pay them more. They do not have a clear idea about the organization’s current financial position and are not informed about difficulties that the organization is facing. This situation can be explained by poor communication within the organization. An autocratic leadership style and a poor communication system could both contribute to communicational inefficiency.
An autocratic leadership style refers to the leadership style that the leader gains the whole control of the decision making and the goal setting process without the participation of subordinates (Lewin, Lippitt, and White, 1939).According to Hackman& Johnson (2009), an autocratic leader only do one-way communication (which is more likely to occur during the time of crisis), resulting in misunderstanding and confusion of employees. Besides, employees may feel their relationship with the organization becomes weaker, as
The organization is experiencing a tough time, confronting with both the outside pressure of economic downturn and the inside problem of low motivation level. To fight this hard time, it is important to explore applicable and effective methods to motivate employees within the organization. This essay aims to take the view of the leader of this organization to discuss the reasons that cause this demotivation and how to motivate the organization’s staff applying motivational theories. (This essay assumes that the organization is unable to provide its workers with monetary motivators, hence only non-financial motivation approaches are examined.)
Possible Sources of Demotivation
To decide ‘how to motivate’, the first step should be ‘what to motivate’. Apparently, workers’ demotivation is caused by the delay in the pay increase. However, there are far more reasons behind these people’s demotivation and the causes can be eliminated through various methods other than increasing wages.
Limited Communication
Workers may only see the fact that the company is unwilling to pay them more. They do not have a clear idea about the organization’s current financial position and are not informed about difficulties that the organization is facing. This situation can be explained by poor communication within the organization. An autocratic leadership style and a poor communication system could both contribute to communicational inefficiency.
An autocratic leadership style refers to the leadership style that the leader gains the whole control of the decision making and the goal setting process without the participation of subordinates (Lewin, Lippitt, and White, 1939).According to Hackman& Johnson (2009), an autocratic leader only do one-way communication (which is more likely to occur during the time of crisis), resulting in misunderstanding and confusion of employees. Besides, employees may feel their relationship with the organization becomes weaker, as
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