How to Motivate Every Employee: 24 Proven Tactics to Spark Productivity in the Workplace

by Anne Bruce

24 Ways to Motivate Every Employee Think about the managers who most influenced your career. They were successful because they infused employees--and organizations--with passion for work and motivation to achieve. 24 Ways to Motivate Every Employee provides two dozen creative and ready-to-use tools and techniques for ensuring that same enthusiasm, energy, and employee morale. Look to this concise but powerful book for workplace-tested techniques to: 24 Ways to Motivate Every Employee is filled with the employee-friendly, results-oriented strategies of Disney, Starbucks, Levi Strauss, and numerous other world-class companies. Let it show you how to build and maintain high employee spirits in your workplace and add measurable value to both your organization and your management career.

Genres: Business

Paperback

First published September 26, 1999

About the author

About the Author Anne Bruce is a nationally recognized speaker, workshop leader, and author. Her books with MHP include "Motivating Employees" (Briefcase), "Be Your Own Mentor" (Briefcase), "Building A High Morale Workplace" (Briefcase), "How to Motivate Every Employee" (Mighty Manager), "Perfect Phrases for Documenting Employee Performance Problems", and "Discover True North".

Reviews

[Sarah Draheim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the advice this book gave, although at times I felt like if you replaced the word "employee" with the word "puppy," all the advice would still apply.

[Ha Thu Hoang · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. Build a motivated workforce:
- 3 key points to help build that motivated organization:
+ Know why your employees would want to be motivated by you
+ Recognize that real motivation is an inside job
+ Turn employees on to what's important and meaningful
"The carrot and the stick" is an idiom that refers to a strategy of reward and punishment used to influence someone’s behavior.
- Note: The “carrot” represents a reward or incentive — something positive offered to encourage desired behavior.
+ The “stick” represents a punishment or threat — something negative used to force compliance or discourage unwanted behavior.
+ This phrase is often used in politics, management, education, or negotiation to describe situations where both incentives and punishments are used to motivate people.

2. Know what drives people
Managers need to know what drives their employees.
+ Starting by paying attention.
+ Send out an employee survey about attitudes in the workplace and ask for suggestions for improvements => improve everyone's working conditions, including yours.

3. Make employees feel like partners
When people feel ownership of something, they look out for it, protect it and pour themselves into it.
=> Empower people by some ways:
+ Encourage entrepreneurial thinking: sharing profit and stock options.
+ Explain how the business is run
+ Help employees feel as if they own the business

4. Show employees how the business operates
+ Influential managers must take the responsibility to help workers better understand the entire organization, gain a clearer perspective on just how the business operates, analyze the competition, learn to risks, and inspire innovative thinking.
- Note: Encourage "open-book managing" - sharing the organization's financial data and operational strategies with employees and then showing them specifically what they cost and what value they add to the organization. Some companies go as far as to post everyone's salaries.

5. Always expect the best from employees
- Note: The Pygmalion effect refers to a psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to improved performance in others. First described by Rosenthal and Jacobson in 1968, it gets its name from the Greek myth of Pygmalion, where a sculptor’s great expectations for his statue result in it coming to life. Essentially, when teachers or leaders expect more of others, those individuals perform better.

6. Fire-up successful performance
- It's the best to compliment a person face to face, then follow up by sending him or her a letter or email of appreciation. And in this day and age of technology-generated correspondence, a hand-written card or thank-you note is valued even more. Remember to always be specific in your compliments.

7. Encourage accountability at all times
- "No individual raindrop ever can take credit for the flowers." or "No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood"
=> Each making its contribution, it's lots of raindrops working together
- The best way to encourage accountability among the employees is helping them to understand and appreciate the role they play in the organizational

8. Boost morale
- The more you can do to build high-morale workplace, while instilling trust in your employees, the more motivated they will be.
+ Do what you say you will do
+ Let integrity be the highest form of intelligence in your organization
+ Be truthful and show your human side
- Employees will respect and appreciate your honesty and your humanity - 2 more characteristics of the high-morale workplace.

9. Make fun to make it motivating
- Some tips for setting up the "fun"damentals of motivation where you work:
+ Laugh with people, not at them
+ Lighten up. Don't take yourself too seriously
+ Think with a sense of humor
+ Adopt a fun and playful attitude
+ Plan to have a good time every single day
+ Help others see the lighter side of things
- A survey revealed that humor plays a significant part in the operation of a healthy, successful business.

10. Put heart and soul into your team
- "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care" => When you care about your employees, you create an atmosphere where they care about you and about each other
- The word "encouragement" has its root the Latin word "cor" - it means "heart"
=> When you encourage employees, you actually give them heart.
Notes:
- The feeling of loving and caring work environment is the essence of inspiring motivated teamwork.
- If your employees are laking in motivation, mediocrity will creep into your organization.

11. Unleash the power of human potential
- Train + Coach + Love

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dry reading which repeated in self in some ways concerning motivational ways to help employees. I really wanted to like this book more but really did not.

[Jimmy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very slack and shallow content. No insight about what are the root causes of the problems. Unfounded suggestions. Mostly cliche.

[Bobbi Galvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is nothing complex here, just advice and facts in short snippets. Easy read, but worth every reminder.

[Kurt Beard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snippets for all leaders



Whether your a new leader or an experienced leader it's important to keep reading. This book is perfect. It leaves out the complex illustrations and sticks to advice and facts in short snippets. Easy ready but worth every minute.

[PNWPageTurner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very inspirational quotes and ideas from big leading companies.

[Sharon]

Very informative