Motivating employees is a hot topic at the moment. The key motivational theories are covered on most MBA courses, touched on by many management books and of course blogged about.

Unfortunately despite the knowledge being widely available, it doesn’t seem to be widely understood. Instead managers seem to rely on the carrot and stick approach (pay more for results and threaten when they’re not achieved), while ignoring the fact that there are many more ways to motivate employees.

One far too often overlooked way of motivating employees is to ensure they actually enjoy their work and that they get satisfaction from doing it. Seth Godin notes that if you can achieve that then you’ll have a team of workaholics:

The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.

Just imagine how productive those workers would be…

I’ve covered the main theories of motivation in my post on how to motivate employees so you’ve no excuse not to read up on this.

So what are you going to change about your motivational strategy?

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