What problems do managers face to keep their employee motivating?

Here are ten tips about employee motivation and creating a work environment for motivating employees. This is the bottom line for understanding employee motivation.

• Every person is motivated. Whether that motivation revolves around work, a hobby, the family, the spiritual side of life, or food, each person has some items or issues about which he or she feels motivated to take action in his or her life.
• You can’t motivate another person. You can only provide an environment at work that is conducive to and supportive of employees choosing to become motivated about issues related to work. Your actions in the workplace either encourage motivated behavior or they discourage employee motivation. In some workplaces, company policies and management behavior actually squelch motivation.
• Actions and activities in the workplace that provide an environment supportive of motivating employees don’t have to be expensive. In fact, they don’t have to cost money at all. They don’t need to involve company financed events or company sponsored parties, gifts, or monetary awards.Activities and recognition that cost money are welcomed by employees as part of the motivation and recognition mix, but their impact on motivating employees is short term and will not over-ride the consequences of how people feel treated everyday in the workplace.
• Much of the workplace environment that encourages employee motivation involves management time and commitment: genuine interest and caring, employee-oriented policies
• • and procedures, and attention from both senior managers and line managers are all appreciated and valued.
  • Motivation is prevalent in workplaces where people are treated as valued human beings. Trust, respect, civil conversation, and listening prevail in a workplace that fosters employee motivation.
  • Clear direction plays a serious role in motivating employees. When I run polls about what supervisory behavior makes a manager a bad boss, the lack of clear direction ranks first consistently.Employees want to know exactly what you expect from them. When they have the reassurance of clear direction, motivating employees becomes easier because you and they have created a framework for their expected performance.
  • Supervisors ask frequently about how they can motivate employees. Wrong question. They can’t. But, supervisors can create an environment in which employees choose motivation. So, the right answer is that, generally, you know what you should do; you know what motivates you. You just do not consistently, in a disciplined manner, adhere to what you already know is effective about motivating employees.To be perfectly honest, since I am often accused of viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, some supervisors just don't care. They work to collect a paycheck and all of this stuff about motivating employees is just gobbledygook. (In these cases, are you looking for a new employer?)
  • Employee motivation is a constant challenge. What motivates one employee is not motivating for another. Research indicates that while treating employees nicely is a factor in motivation and happy employees are also a factor in employee motivation, more is needed for a successful organization.After all, a workplace of happy employees is great, but it doesn’t guarantee quality products delivered on time, delighted customers, or profitability – all essential to providing those happy employees with jobs. Factors such as demanding goals, success measurements, and critical feedback ensure the organization’s success.
  • Actively solicit information from the employees who report to you and from your coworkers about what motivates them. Employees know what they find motivating and they can tell you if you ask. Following through on the information you are given is key as employees test you constantly to see if your word is good.If asked, people expect to see something changed as a result of their response. If it doesn't change, and you don't tell them why, you risk wasting all of your efforts in motivating employees. Responding to employee needs and complaints is key in motivating employees.
  • Motivation at work is a choice employees make. No matter how hard managers try or how supportive company policies are, there is a bottom line for motivating employees. Employees choose to exhibit motivated behavior at work. You can know and do everything discussed here, but employees are ultimately in charge of motivating themselves.

   

   

For motivating employees a manager require emotional intelligence.And worst part is resistance from employees because different employees have different requirement for motivation

• Theory of economic man
• Theory of social man
• Theory of Mix of Social and Ecomic Man

One of the main reasons of motivation being a challenging job is due to the changing workforce. The employees become a part of their organization with various needs and expectations. Different employees have different beliefs, attitudes, values, backgrounds and thinking. But all the organizations are not aware of the diversity in their workforce and thus are not aware and clear about different ways of motivating their diverse workforce.

Following are the few factors that considered as barriers to emplyee motivation:

– The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he can.

– Because people dislike work, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed and threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational objectives.

– The average human being prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsibility, has relatively little ambition, and wants security above all.

– The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest.

– External control and threat of punishment are not the only means for bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. People will exercise self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which they are committed.

– Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.

– The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept but to seek responsibility.

– The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.

– Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partly utilitized.

i'm agree with mr. emad in his answer

Progress constantly

And financial and functional improvement of the situation constantly

And reward those who deserve only

"Managers face a tough challenge in maintaining employee commitment and motivation but the penalties of failure will be falling national productivity and a vicious circle of continued declines in pay and jobs as we lose out to our international competitors," he said.

"While inflation looks set to fall and personal allowances due to rise, these will not be enough to increase real earnings back to their pre-recessionary levels.

The challenge for employers is to keep staff motivated at work while many employees see their living standards hit. Organisations should review how they communicate the economic realities the business faces and what needs to happen for pay to increase."

Although almost half of workers received a pay increase last year – even if subdued – Mr Cotton warned just19pc felt their pay rise reflected their performance, suggesting there was a need for "improved communication of positive news".

Considering workers could have received no increase or a pay cut in the current climate, effective conversations between managers and staff could have seen a higher number appreciate what they got, he said.

"Only then might employees remain engaged with their work and motivated to perform well," he said.