The motivation levels of the company’s employees may be a decisive factor that determines the company’s performance and should thus be paid attention to. Part of maintaining the sufficient levels of employee motivation is the recognition and prompt correction of any demotivating factors that might hold everyone back. Among common demotivating conditions are conditions that either do not provide people with sufficient resources or doubt their capacity of performing certain work, the absence of incentives for the desired performance along with incentives for undesirable actions, faulty expectations that set some people up for poor performance, and a too distant goal.
Not providing people with resources needed for doing their job well and doubting their capacity to handle certain tasks undermines their self-efficacy which is related to poor performance. Wrong incentives at the workplace may motivate behaviors that getting in the way of the company’s success while the absence of sufficient incentives for doing what benefits the company may serve as a demotivating factor. Further, because people are known to perform and act in accordance with how others treat them, managers having low expectations for some employees leads to their estimations to actually come true, which is also known as self-fulfilling prophecy. Lastly, assigning tasks without explaining how they contribute to the company’s success or setting goals that are too distant makes employees feel like they are working in vain.
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To assess whether the company makes any demotivating mistakes it helps to examine every aspect of work and communication processes and see whether there are any of the conditions mentioned above. Secondly, it helps to get honest feedback from the employees to confirm that employees do not interpret some of the policies and processes differently from management. To avoid making demotivating mistakes, it is important to frequently check in with employees, see how they experience the work environment, what forces affect their decision and behavior. Doing this is especially important after implementing policy changes to confirm that everything went as planned.
- Latham, G.P. (2011). Work Motivation: History, Theory, Research, and Practice. Sage.
