How to get subordinates to work: maximum impact on results

For many managers, the real problem is the refusal of subordinates to work or their laziness. In this situation, the boss feels powerless, his authority as a leader is at zero. They resort to all sorts of tricks, punishments and rewards, but often this does not produce results. You can’t force someone to work; you can only influence them by inducing them to work.

Some bosses don't know how to get their subordinates to work

Causes

They can be divided into two groups: those dependent on the manager and those dependent on the employee. Responsibility for changing the state of affairs lies with one of the parties.

Dependent on the boss

A boss is a person placed in a leadership position. Another person can take his place at any time. The reasons for the disobedience of his subordinates may lie in:

in the wrong management style, from three styles (authoritarian, liberal, democratic), the boss must choose what is acceptable at the moment for his subordinates;
the manager cannot explain to the staff their responsibilities and functions;
in the boss’s inflated demands, he expects his subordinates to achieve maximum results in a short time;
being rude to certain employees for no apparent reason.

https://youtu.be/RXBBZmgtK7c

Dependent on employees

Employees can also deliberately or unintentionally not follow the orders of the boss, and he cannot always influence the situation. Common reasons include:

the employee’s personal problems (illness, family troubles) that do not allow him to give 100%;
the employee cannot cope with the responsibilities assigned to him due to insufficient qualifications and uncertainty of the assigned tasks;
the employee does not want to perform certain duties due to a whole range of problems.

Signs of a “chronic” lazy subordinate

Even after creating ideal conditions, there are people who neglect the employer’s care and ignore their work responsibilities. You will have to say goodbye to these people:

They do not admit mistakes and look for excuses in other circumstances.
Delay in delivery of completed work.
They don’t go off the Internet, minding their own business: social networks, shopping.
When given a new task, they complain about the difficulties.
They often have conversations “at the water cooler”.
Chatting on the phone about personal matters.
They are interested in their rating, staging vigorous activity, and at the same time they are sensitive to criticism.
Clutter on the desktop.
They are constantly late and take time off for family matters.

If a person was previously productive, but there is a decline. Then he needs motivation and help. Consulting employee Veronica Kondratyuk has collected for you 4 ways to influence laziness that will help make a careless employee work.

Effective methods

Motivation

Motivation is the driving force of any process that encourages you to achieve the desired result; in working relationships it is the main one. The primary task of the boss is to properly motivate staff to achieve professional goals. If this works, then the problem of how to get subordinates to work will be solved.

In addition to salary motivation, financial instruments are:

bonuses, both quarterly and for completing specific tasks;
insurance of employees and members of their families;
various incentive lotteries.

Material motivation in non-monetary form includes:

holiday gifts;
Gift certificates;
tourist packages.

Gifts and additional rewards are great incentives for employees

Non-material motivation:

establishing a flexible work schedule;
provision of additional days off;
improvement of working conditions;
promotion;
presentation of certificates and thanks.

Methods of motivation are applied in each specific case individually. They are effective not only after achieving results as a reward, but also as incentives to encourage staff to work with full dedication.

Salary increase

For many specialists, salary is the most important factor in the performance of work duties. The manager must keep in mind that not all employees will work efficiently with a salary increase. This stimulates young subordinates, and experienced qualified specialists will easily find another place with higher pay. Each employee has his own threshold for a decent salary.

Increased earnings can be a motivator for no more than a year, and then it ceases to motivate you to work at full capacity.

An increase in wages is effective when the time interval between completing a task and receiving money is insignificant.

Methods of manipulation

Manipulation at work - influencing the feelings of subordinates using psychological techniques, covertly controlling them. If other ways to motivate the team to work effectively are ineffective, you can resort to manipulation.

A manager should use manipulation only to solve work problems, without affecting the personal life of a subordinate.

The choice of manipulation method is determined by the employee’s weaknesses, of which the boss must be well aware. You can influence:

conscience;
feeling of pity;
greed;
guilt;
sense of justice.

Flattery and comparison with colleagues will give a positive result; if a specialist is ambitious, then it will not be difficult to make him work.

How to make employees work more efficiently

If you ask any manager what goals he sets for himself, one of them will certainly be to improve the performance of his employees. There is always a desired level of productivity for the company and department and an existing level that differs from the desired one, and this is not 10–20%. Managers want their instructions to be strictly followed, employees to show initiative, work zeal, and surprise him with their productivity and breakthrough ideas. Often managers compare employees with themselves and believe that if the manager himself can work efficiently and productively, then nothing prevents employees from working the same way, you just need to find the ideal one. There is another extreme: managers, disappointed in humanity, do not expect anything good from employees and only tighten penalties, resulting in turnover. How to organize work so that employees work effectively, and so that efficiency does not depend on the stick method?

First, let's define what efficiency is. How can we understand whether a person works with full dedication or is capable of more? It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of norm and personal effectiveness. The norm is a certain average indicator that is acceptable for any employee of a particular position. Of course, we are talking about mass professions, such as a sales manager or an employee, the result of which is determined by the number of operations, products, etc., performed per day. But people’s abilities are different, and for some the average is easily achievable, while for others it is given to the strong tension. In such cases, different levels of productivity are established and material motivation is linked to the degree of fulfillment of the standard indicator. But there are many professions for which it is difficult to determine such an indicator. And then you need to proceed from the tasks facing the department or a specific employee and whether the employee is making every effort to achieve them.

Several factors influence employee performance:

Compliance of the employee’s abilities with the tasks assigned to him. If the employee is creative, then you need to take into account this specificity of his personality and offer him creative work. A person who is not very communicative will cope poorly with tasks that require communication, etc. The competencies of employees and their suitability for a particular position is a separate task that is quite successfully solved by a qualified recruitment manager.
An employee’s understanding of the company’s goals, its place in the market and how the company’s success depends on his personal contribution, the company structure, and the functions of various departments.
A clear understanding by the employee of his tasks, what exactly is expected of him, and what are the criteria for success.
Comfort in the workplace, noise level, availability of everything you need. Comfort levels may also vary from person to person. What is obligatory for one is indifferent for another. Sometimes a person may not be aware of the things that are negatively affecting them, such as an open space workspace or the inability to take breaks other than lunch.
Good relationships in the team. During the formation of business culture in Russia, some companies did not encourage friendly relations between employees. But practice has shown that such experiments are fraught with staff turnover, and work works better in a friendly atmosphere.
Motivation. An employee must understand what he will get for devoting 8 hours a day (and more on the road) to work. There are various factors that motivate employees. And you need to understand that this set is different for each person. The main factors of motivation: monetary reward, development and training, respect, teamwork, desire to do a certain thing, work in a reputable company, etc.

Here are the top ways to improve individual employee performance.

Competent formulation of the problem. The task that is assigned to the employee must be within his capabilities, he must be ready to complete it, and he must understand how his part of the work affects the achievement of the goals of the department and the entire company.
Confidence. When a company trusts its employees and consults with them about completing a particular task, it can also motivate them to perform well.
An inspiring challenge. Sometimes employees are mobilized by high, ambitious goals that challenge them.
Control. Tight control can be a turn-off, as can low levels of control, which employees may perceive as evidence that their work is unimportant and unnecessary. But control is a must, and sometimes the very fact that work is controlled motivates employees to perform at their best.
Responsibility. Each employee must understand where his area of responsibility is and what the consequences will be if he does not cope with his responsibilities.
Encouragement. Employees need to know not only the negative but also the positive consequences of good performance. Failure to focus on outstanding results results in employees doing only what is necessary. Incentives can be different: from gratitude in front of the entire team to valuable bonuses. But in any case, encouragement should not be formal, otherwise it will not have a motivating effect. It is especially appreciated by employees when the reward is personal.
Understanding career prospects. When employees understand what their career growth depends on, they are willing to put effort into faster advancement, which affects their effectiveness.
Education. If employees receive tools for increasing efficiency in the form of new knowledge, they are happy to use them for the benefit of themselves and the company.
Establishing an individual schedule. The ability to stagger the start of the working day or set a part-time working week in accordance with personal circumstances is perceived by the employee as attention to his needs and can help improve productivity.
Possibility to correct a mistake. If an error has been pointed out to an employee and there is an opportunity to correct it, then it is worth allowing him to try to rehabilitate himself before imposing a penalty. As a rule, employees try to correct the situation and appreciate such trust.

As for methods of increasing efficiency that will affect the entire team at once, these could be the following tools:

Competition. When criteria that are clear to everyone are announced and motivating prizes are offered, the entire team is included in the competition, which, if properly organized, not only increases efficiency, but also improves the moral climate in the team.
Reducing stress levels, removing demotivating factors. Such a factor may be an employee who has a bad effect on the moral climate, an abundance of reports, too tight control, a complex approval procedure, an “extra” manager, an excessive number of service personnel, irregular salaries, etc.
Implementation of corporate standards. When management declares what is acceptable and desirable and what is prohibited, so that employees do not speculate about the criteria for evaluating their work, this always has a positive effect on discipline and, therefore, on efficiency.
Load distribution optimization. When employees see that one is overworked and another is slacking, this has a bad effect on the climate in the team. At the slightest suspicion of such an imbalance, it is necessary to review the responsibilities of employees.
Collective forms of encouragement. For example, for the company to achieve high results over a period, management can organize an extraordinary field trip.
Streamlining document flow. The introduction of reasonable regulations, job descriptions, and a trade secret regime eliminates misunderstandings among employees of company procedures and leads to increased efficiency.
Implementation of a working time recording system. As we have already noted, the very fact of control (but not excessive) has a positive effect on the team and eliminates 90% of violations.
Transparent, working bonus system. If an organization has a complex payroll system, so much so that employees do not understand how they can earn more, this has a corrosive effect on productivity and work discipline. Conversely, if employees understand how they can influence the size of their salary, and their expectations are met, then work efficiency increases.
Conducting personnel certifications. This is a good addition to the training system. If, after training and subsequent certification, an employee receives a salary increase or a new position, then he will make efforts to acquire new skills.
Fair penalties. Oddly enough, this is also a good tool for increasing work efficiency. The team must understand that poor performance of their duties inevitably leads to penalties.
Updating equipment, improving working conditions, placing a coffee machine, and other improvements in living conditions have a one-time effect. Therefore, small improvements should be practiced periodically.
Placing a box in the workroom for messages to management, into which both personal and anonymous messages can be sent. Sometimes this method helps prevent conflict or identify a factor affecting work efficiency. Employees are not always ready to make their proposals publicly; sometimes it is more comfortable to propose an idea anonymously, so that if the reaction is positive, they can identify themselves. It is also a convenient way to identify demotivating factors.
Social networks as an opportunity to let off steam. Some companies strictly prohibit the use of social networks while working. But if employees are generally adequate, then they will not overuse unproductive activities, and the ability to switch briefly will help cope with the intense pace of work.

The StaffCop Enterprise software package for monitoring user actions and system events can significantly help managers in the difficult task of increasing employee performance.

Working time tracking. As we have already noted, the fact of control helps to reduce the number of violations. The StaffCop system records employee arrivals and departures, lateness, overtime, duration and number of breaks. Work in software applications and websites is recorded. Some apps and websites are labeled as productive, others as unproductive. Applications and sites that are not marked in any way fall into the category of neutral. The better the system is configured, the smaller the number of neutral applications and sites. An employee's presence at the computer is tracked using activity markers, which are mouse movements and keyboard keystrokes. The resulting strip graph shows gaps occupied by different types of activities and downtime. You can view individual schedules for each employee, or you can group them by department. After a certain period, you can obtain statistics of the most frequently late employees and the most late department. The program also records overtime and makes it possible to accurately determine their quantity.

Load distribution between employees. The StaffCop system records not only processing, but also the movement of information within the company. You can see bottlenecks in electronic document management, KPI implementation, and unnecessary procedures. Thus, the system allows you to see the most overloaded employees and, based on this information, optimize business processes.

The StaffCop system implements control of messengers and end-to-end search by keywords. Tuning in to “conflict” words allows you to identify “elevated” communication between employees, which may be the basis for further investigation. Behind this may lie a conflict or neglect of one’s duties, as well as a violation of corporate standards of conduct and communication with clients. Using this mechanism, you can also monitor the quality of customer service.

Working time control using StaffCop is conveniently configured, reports are quickly generated and issued, statistics are presented in a visual form, which, moreover, can be selected. Flexible settings allow you to enter individual criteria and organize results based on current tasks.

Increasing labor efficiency is not an easy task, but it can be solved. But it is worth noting that actions to improve efficiency must be systematic and comprehensive, then they will give a lasting, noticeable result.

Ways to improve productivity

Of course, the first thought that came to mind was to shout, scold, tighten control and do it in front of the entire department. But! At first it may work, but then everything can go completely the opposite. Employees will be in fear. An assigned job that they may not be able to handle will lead them into a stupor and discourage them from doing it. And there may also be a decisive step - dismissal. The subordinate you decide to force to do the work may simply leave.

It is best to have a conversation with an employee in a separate room and alone. Explain to him that you are not satisfied with his attitude towards work. The main thing is to convey the information to him correctly and clearly without shouting, without getting personal, without threatening. And also explain what will await him if he ignores the remark or if he takes it into account.

The second way to force subordinates to work effectively is to organize competitions in the team for the best employee of the department. You don't have to make a board of honor, you can just come up with a small prize. Subordinates will be interested in high-quality work and the desire to receive a gift. This idea has been used by such a large and well-known company as McDonald's for many years. Of course, care must be taken to ensure that these competitions do not turn into rivalries. Emphasize that employees should not work better than each other, but better than another department, that is, as a team. This will help force subordinates to work collectively and not compete with each other.

You may be interested in: Rational organization of workplaces

You also need to become a role model. You must work intensively so that your subordinates take an example from you and see that you are not only a manager, but also an employee like everyone else. Try not to be late for work, come on time so that your subordinates understand that they are not allowed to do this either. Do you want your subordinates to complete tasks and assignments well? No need to force, just show them an example of how to work and how you do it.

A fourth interesting way is an idea box. Surely your subordinates have interesting ideas or suggestions regarding work issues, but they may be embarrassed to tell you about it. Maybe employees are not entirely sure of the uniqueness of their idea or think that they can make you laugh. An idea box is the best way to let subordinates express their thoughts, suggestions, or provide feedback. In this way, you will open up a lot of new and interesting ideas in your employees and show that you are listening to them, which will become an incentive to work.

Try to encourage your employees. If you have the financial ability to do this, write bonuses. The subordinate will understand that he will receive a financial reward for a job well done. You can also give additional days off if the employee deserves it. The team will understand that they can receive a reward if they work well and you will not have a question about how to get your subordinates to work and fulfill their duties.

Try to promote and promote your employees up the career ladder. A manager's position in another department has become available - recommend your subordinate. Other employees, realizing that a promotion is possible for them too, will cheer up and begin to work harder.

We also discussed the secrets of effective staff motivation in a separate article, which we strongly recommend reading!

Reasons for not wanting to work

Trying to solve the problem starts with identifying the reasons for employees’ reluctance to work. Among the common ones are:

poor health (illness or illness),
fatigue,
dissatisfaction with the boss
negative attitude of the manager towards the employee,
lack of money,
bad relationships with colleagues,
lack of career prospects,
loss of interest in work,
inability to realize talents and skills in this position,
large volume of tasks.

Methods of influence

There are several proven methods to get an employee to work. Please note that methods suitable for one are contraindicated for another. The boss using these methods must apply them taking into account the age, psychological type of the subordinate, state of health, and position he occupies in the organization.

The manager’s goal is to make the employee work better to obtain profit or other tangible results, but he must remember that his capital is people, they must be treated with care.

Praise

Praise is an effective way to raise an employee’s self-esteem and improve their mood. Ideal option: praise matches the complexity of the task completed. Some employees are immune to praise due to high self-esteem and believe that they deserve more. Others are shy and don't like being praised in front of others, but a kind word from their boss in private will inspire them.

Encourage

Any job involves remuneration. In addition to the established salary, employees can receive incentives. This is an effective way to make them work. An inquisitive boss finds out about his subordinates and what they need most. Among the main methods of encouragement are:

bonus,
additional day off
present,
travel voucher,
certificate,
the opportunity to undergo training, if this is not necessary for the job, but the employee wishes,
internship.

Become an example

Often employees do not understand what their boss wants from them. This happens due to a lack of mutual understanding and trust between the manager and subordinates. If employees are lazy to do something, the boss needs to show how they should work by example. He is not obliged to always work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, but for a short time, in order to achieve results in his professional activities, he can resort to this option.

Deprive financial support

It is effective for rapid change to deprive employees who are lazy of financial support. It's not about salary - that remains the same. If a person does not want to work properly, then the boss needs to stop paying him bonuses and financial assistance. Finance is an excellent regulator of labor discipline. If an employee is absent from work without good reason, this period must be deducted from the salary.

Tighten the nuts

Authoritarian managers, faced with the fact that employees do not want to do anything, tighten the work environment to the limit. This brings positive results, but only for a while. Due to constant pressure, subordinates will not start working better, but will quit. This method can only be used during the period when high professional goals are set and the full dedication of employees is required.

Use the carrot and stick method

One of the most effective, it gives not only tangible professional results, but also allows you to maintain the respect of subordinates for the leader. In practice it can manifest itself in different ways. Some bosses, after reprimanding a subordinate, may try to talk frankly and get into the situation. It all depends on the degree of trust. The carrot and stick method is one of the most effective manipulation options.

When to use rewards

What to do if a subordinate does not want to work?

If you see that an employee is not fulfilling responsibilities and has become less productive, this is a problem that needs to be addressed. If an employee can get away with it, he will set the tone for others. If you start making excuses for employees or allowing exceptions, it will not take long before the entire team of employees begins to ignore a number of responsibilities and requests from the manager.

Find out the reason and uncover the root of the problem

Laziness can have two sources: management or the employee himself. In the first case, behind every bad employee there is a bad manager, keep this in mind.

If the problem is with the employee, you need to find out why it happened. Have a conversation and ask a series of questions:

Do you feel like you are performing worse at your job?
What tasks are the most difficult?
Which of your colleagues would cope with the assigned tasks well? Why?
What qualities are missing to do the job well?

This way you will learn about external reasons or realize that the employee does not have the required set of skills. A lazy person is one who does not do what he does not want to do. There is nothing wrong with this; perhaps you need to change your field of activity.

Motivation

A prudent boss does not force, but motivates for successful work activity. Motivation must precede any work. An employee needs to understand what he is working for. His ability to realize himself within the framework of a project (or organization) must be equal to the degree of responsibility that is assigned to him. Otherwise, any form of motivation will be useless. The boss’s motivation to work is always more clearly expressed than the motivation of his subordinates.

For motivating factors to be effective, several circumstances must be taken into account:

Each employee must be given tasks that are adequate to his abilities and strengths,
the employee must see the end result of any business,
it is important to emphasize the importance of the employee when performing the task,
the employee’s job responsibilities should move forward, and not push back in terms of the level of development in the company,
It is important for a leader to inspire subordinates.

According to various sources, the average employee wastes approximately two hours of work time. It’s easy to calculate that two hours out of eight is a quarter of the entire working day! Exaggeration? Not at all. However, this does not mean that all people are slackers and quitters. The main reason for the loss of working time is, as a rule, not that a person does not want to work, but that he is not motivated to work. Recently, the development of various motivational schemes has become a common HR practice. Without a doubt, this task pursues a noble goal: to cultivate in employees a desire not just to visit the office and sit through working hours, but to work for a common goal and achieve specific results. However, very often the motivation itself is approached so formally that the correct idea is completely distorted.

Motivation through "o"

Motivation is not just a motivational scheme. Motivation is always present to one degree or another: without it, a person simply does not work. Another thing is that he can fulfill his duties formally, or he can “sick at heart.” This truth is one of those that everyone knows, but which everyone stubbornly ignores. For example, when a person runs his own business, he often thinks: “I pay money to these employees, but they do nothing, shirking work, although I myself work hard from morning to night!” And he really can work hard from morning to night and at the same time receive not much more, or even less, than his own subordinates. But the fact of the matter is that he has motivation, but the workers he hires do not. No one wants to go out of their way for someone else’s business if they don’t see important aspects in this specifically for themselves.

The character of Oleg Yankovsky in the film “In Love of His Own Will” is his own motivator

It would seem that everything is simple and obvious. However, in reality this turns out not to be the case. Most employers approach the issue of motivation incorrectly. There are several most significant factors that are most often not taken into account in this matter:

The level of motivation among managers and operational workers is different. In the first group it is almost always higher. Meanwhile, bosses themselves often believe that they are accomplishing a feat if they work more than others. You should not assume that if a top manager is in the office every day for 12-14 hours, then he is much more hardworking than a clerk who leaves work exactly at 18:00. This principle works like in boxing: you cannot compare people in different weight categories.

Motivation and “percentage of sales” are not the same thing. There are people who are motivated by payment for a specific sale (usually they become sales managers), and there are those for whom such motivation is contraindicated, and this does not at all mean that the person is lazy.

Formal and real motivation can be very different. For example, a company may have adopted a certain motivational scheme, but people are not psychologically inclined to implement it or something prevents them from implementing it. It happens that the system itself is built incorrectly: the wrong indicators are selected, the wrong things are rewarded, etc. Thus, in a company, the main criterion for paying bonuses may be the absence of delays and strict adherence to the work schedule: must sit for 8 hours, being late by more than 10 minutes is not allowed (otherwise - a fine), lunch - no more than 1 hour (otherwise also a fine). ). In this case, employees will be more likely to be busy calculating the time spent in the office rather than performing specific tasks.

Motivation can only work when the employee's capabilities and responsibilities coincide. If the manager demands that certain indicators be achieved, but at the same time limits the employee’s capabilities (“do only this way, and not otherwise, but there must be a result”), then the employee actually has no motivation. Moreover, he does not even have the opportunity to influence the result, since he is only the executor of someone else’s decision, and the decision may be completely wrong. As a result, it turns out that a person is responsible for something that he has no control over. This is a path to two things: employee layoffs and company stagnation.

Building a motivation system

When constructing specific motivational schemes, of course, one must proceed from the specialists for whom they are created. It is important to understand that these schemes will be different for buyers and marketers, accountants and programmers, HR managers and designers. But there are general principles that need to be followed when developing any such system:

1. Each employee must understand what and why he is doing, how his work is evaluated, and what goals he has. To do this, clear evaluation criteria must be created that need to be conveyed to the employee. There should be no information vacuum, omissions and uncertainty like “today is one thing, tomorrow is another.” Otherwise, a person will not be able to plan not only a career in this company, but also just everyday work. Every employee must understand how he can achieve more, increase his salary, or get a new position. 2. Work should be perceived as a part of a person’s life and an opportunity for self-realization, and not as time of life that he does not want, but is forced to spend for objective reasons. It depends on many reasons. But the main thing is the organizational culture of the company: if it provides the opportunity to develop through achieving specific results, then people will work, if not, then there is nothing to expect.

When developing a motivational plan, you need to take into account the psychological characteristics of people. People are different, their motivations are also different. There are, of course, some points that concern everyone or almost everyone, but without taking into account individual characteristics it is impossible to build motivation.

This can be explained with a simple example:

A woman with a small child most likely strives to spend more time with her family and evaluates the opportunities provided by her employer from this point of view. It may be important for her that her boss allows her to leave work early when there is little work to do. At the same time, events to improve corporate culture, team building, may well cause her rejection: she will perceive them as something absolutely unnecessary, but taking up her time.

And, for example, a young man focused on career growth can make great efforts and exceed the plan if he understands that this will be noticed and appreciated. For him, extra time is time that he potentially loses to the detriment of his development and career.

These two people may work in the same department and in the same positions. In this case, the motivation system for them, as a rule, is built in the same way. In practice, this usually results in neither employee getting what they want.

How to determine motivation?

You can often hear the phrase from job seekers during interviews: “Career growth is very important to me.” Recruiters, as a rule, react to this with the question: “What does career growth mean to you?” In this way, they want to understand whether a person is truly motivated to grow or whether he is simply hiding something else behind this formulation. The candidate can answer like this: “Growth is the possibility of promotion over a period of time.” In this case, the HR specialist is unlikely to perceive career growth as a motivation for the interlocutor. The answer may be different: “For me, career growth is the opportunity to plan my career in a company based on the achievement of specific indicators, clear and transparent, so that the achievement of these indicators depends on my work.” Here the motivation for growth is more pronounced.

However, interviews are interviews, and you can really find out a person’s motivation only in the process of his work. The employee himself shows by his behavior what he is interested in, what is a priority for him and what is secondary. If he not only performs his duties well, but also plans how to make the work of his area even more effective, and takes on the implementation of this task himself, rather than looking for others, then this indicates his motivation for growth. Moreover, such behavior should be consistent and based on achieving real indicators and setting real goals, and not on simulating hectic activity and trying to get involved in any matter.

Many candidates prefer material motivation. And this certainly makes a lot of sense. But you need to determine whether the desire to increase your income is a motivation, and not just a desire. If an employee is ready to take on additional work and responsibility while successfully completing the main one, show the results of this work and then talk about the need to take these merits into account in terms of salary increases, then this is normal material motivation. If a person works well, records all the results and then demonstrates positive dynamics to management with a request for a salary increase, this also indicates healthy material motivation. But if he just constantly says that “he would work better, but they don’t pay enough, then why bother?”, then this is not motivation, but an unprofessional approach to business. If a person is hired, it means that he agreed to perform certain duties. It is to fulfill them, and not to promise that he will fulfill them if they pay more. That is, the main criterion when determining material motivation is the employee’s ability to prove that he really works well and is ready to justify a salary increase.

A comfortable office as motivation to work. Office project for the future of the Dutch company RAAAF

Working conditions are also an important motivation for many people. It can be determined by observing an employee. If you notice that he generally works well, but sometimes is late, or does not come in accordance with the dress code, then this is not at all a reason to constantly reprimand him. Otherwise, a person’s real motivation will disappear, and he will work worse, even following all the formalities. And in this situation there will be nothing formally to complain about, and the result will be much worse. It is better to come to an agreement with such people and make some exceptions for them than to limit them to strict limits. Naturally, you first need to determine whether these factors really motivate the employee, or whether he is simply not organized enough. The criterion is simple - quality of work. If relaxations give a person the opportunity to work better, then they make sense; if not, then it is better to refuse them, otherwise the motivation of other employees who comply with all the formalities may suffer.