How To Motivate Employees -- And How Not To

Foundry Management & Technology Magazine recently surveyed 427 companies to learn how they are motivating workers to boost productivity in today's choppy economy.

The key take-home point: A growing number of workers today are being motivated by basic employment provisions: pay and job security.

As for the latest employee engagement fads, not so much.

A few other take-aways from the survey:

• "Due to the 2008-2009 recession's impact, workers now focus on basic rewards (job security) and economic motivators (the value of their paychecks.)
• "Short-term economic motivators like Gainsharing that match employees' short-term horizons had the greatest impact on productivity.
• "Employees expect 'extra' rewards for any 'extra' efforts asked of them. Fulfilling these expectations is critical to the long-term success of any new initiative for boosting productivity and eliminating waste. If the 'extra' is absent, employee cooperation is short-lived.
• "Although many employers have reemphasized 'engagement' efforts to influence employees' behavior, employees considered these to be of only secondary importance. Economics remained their priority.
• "Jargon has gone steroidal. Efforts to improve worker performance were called 'motivators' in 2002 and 'involvement efforts' in 2007.  By early 2012 these efforts had become 'engagement.' 'Engagement' has morphed now into the 'science of engageonomics,' at least by those promoting the latest jargon and trying to sell their version of it."

Read Foundry Management & Technology's full article here.