One of the critical challenges facing organisations today is how to continuously motivate people to perform.  There is a massive lack of motivation within organisation today.

The tight labor market and the many years of good economy have made it more challenging to continuously motivate people.  Many young people appear to be more motivated by money than by a rewarding career.

As a consultant, I have heard too often human resource managers lament on the high staff turnover rate.  They complain that staff are up longer loyal.  They are disappointed that after spending much time, effort and money to building their skills and knowledge, they simply leave the organisations for a more lucrative job elsewhere.

The motivation problem not only translates to staff turnover employees who choose to stay on also have motivation problems.  They often do not show initiative to take responsibility or take charge of situations.  They are reactive in their approach.  They undertake a lot of "fire-fighting" activities instead of "preventing fire breakout".  They do a lot of "maintenance repair" and very little "preventive maintenance" work.

Too often human resource managers are too quick to conclude that people lack motivation because of the compensation system.  They also point out that people do not take more responsibilities or be more proactive and because they do not know how, but because they are not motivated to.  They point out that people view work as an exchange: they will put in just enough work of undertake enough responsibility aligned to what they are being paid.

Hence, human resource managers conclude that it is money that motivates people to perform.  And due to this, many young people are being paid more and more and productivity is lagging further and further behind as wages increase.

The problem with money motivation is that it is superficial and does not quite sustain the motivation level of people once they get used to the increased salaries.  And it is so easy to justify one's worth by the salary one is earning.

The truth of the matter is that there will never be enough money to motivate people.  People will always want more and more if we use money as the main motivator in getting people to improve performance.

They will get used to additional money they receive and will take it for granted to the extent it no longer motivates them.  In fact, the blatant use of money to motivate people.  Either to join an organisation or to stay on, has created more motivation problems than it solves.  It often creates a system of unfairness or inequity.

Thus, newly recruited professionals may have been paid very much higher than existing staff with similar experience and qualifications in a desperate move to attract them to join the organisation.

Likewise, those staff who resigned for better pay and who are being counter offered will cause a sense of inequity for existing staff with similar experience but who did not resign.

In fact, using money as the only motivator may encourage even the normally loyal staff to resign or look for other jobs to seek "fairness".  And for those who stay on despite the perception of inequity, the morale will deteriorate.

The roof cause of all these problems can be attributed to the way people look at money and work.  If we motivate people by getting them to view work as an exchange for money, then we cannot get people to work beyond money.

I would like to point out that the motivation approaches taken by managers in organisations are not effective and are got working.  To motivate people to achieve the best work needs more than money.  They need passion, commitment, determination, and a powerful sense of pride in work.

Addressing the "What's In It For Me" (WIIFM) should go beyond money if organisations want to achieve a sustained motivation level in their staff.  For too long corporate leaders have addressed motivations in a superficial manner.

In view of market conditions, the high staff turnover and low morale in many organisations, it is time CEOs and corporate leaders reassessed the way they motivate people.

The effective way to achieve a sustainable high level of motivation is to address the fundamental need of people in work.  And work must serve as the key to providing this fundamental need.

In our research, we found that one fundamental need of people in work is to increase their value through performance with increased knowledge, skills and experience.

Our research with many organisations support the fact that people who know that they are building new knowledge, skills and experience and who are allowed the opportunity to perform will be more motivated as they know that their value will increase with their track record or performance.

With increased value, they know that they will be rewarded either internally within the organization or outside.

KL Strategic Change Consulting has over the years developed a proven approach in addressing this fundamental need in people and in keeping people motivated in organisations.  This model, which I call the Value-Driven Motivation or VDM, is shown in the diagram.

There are five steps in the process of this Value-Driven Motivation.

1. Breaking Mindsets

The process of motivation must begin with breaking the mindsets of individuals.  On the surface, the symptoms of low motivation are very apparent.  People do no do their best.  They are not efficient.  Their productivity is low.  They are not creative and proactive in the way they approach work.  They do not take charge or possess the sel-responsibility to improve work performance.  Or they simply do not get the work done.

There are many symptoms we can address regarding the lack f motivation at work.  However, to address the root cause, we must go within the individuals to break the mindsets of individuals, we need to address the assumptions, beliefs, values, perceptions, blindspots and complacency level.

Until we change these, we may not be able to even get people to develop necessary knowledge, skills and experience for them to do their work effectively and efficiently.

Likewise a conducive mindset is required for and individual to apply what he knows to improve his work.

Thus the first step forwards motivating people to perform is to eliminate the undesirable frame of mind which prevents them from acquiring more knowledge, skills and experience to improve.

Some will assume wrongly about the need for change.  Or they may assume customer needs have not change or that the degree of competition remains the same.  They may have strong beliefs of the old ways of doing things.

Some may have a blindspot regarding their weaknesses such as the lack of knowledge or skills.  Others may become complacent with their level of performance.  They may not see the value of improving or putting more effort in their work.  They may perceive that their effort and performance are not linked to reward and hence have little motivation to improve.

For example getting people to use work as an opportunity to build knowledge, skills and experience.  Better knowledge, skills and experience will allow people to perform better.  With better performance track record, a person's value will increase, which should attract higher reward.

And this higher value of oneself is motivating enough irrespective of whether the organisation rewards the person or not.  The truth of the matter is that if one's own organisation does not reward someone with and increased performance track second and hence increased value, some other organisation will.

ONCE people's mindsets are broken, they will view developing knowledge, skills and experience in a more relevant and beneficial manner.

The role of leaders is to provide opportunities for people to increase their knowledge, skills and experience.  They can do so by providing the necessary resources such as training, books, videos, computer based training, on-the-job training and relevant job assignments.

People should be encouraged to learn and experiment with new ways of doing things.

Leaders must make learning fun, meaningful and rewarding.  Learning should be provided in an interesting fashion.  For example, training can be conducted outside the building on the lawn and under the sun, or by the lake with the birds singing.

Trainers should not only teach, but they should also entertain to make teaching lively, memorable and fun. 

Those who learn under pleasurable conditions are more open to accept new skills and knowledge.  What is learnt with pleasure is certainly learnt full measure.

Organisations should also ensure that the knowledge and skills taught should be relevant and applicable to work.

Learning can be encouraged on an individual or team basis.  Many organisations who practice the concept of organisation learning are encouraging team learning whereby staff come together to share their knowledge, skills and experience.  They teach and learn from one another.

Learning organisations make people feel good and internally rewarding through knowing that they are recognized for their knowledge, skills and experience through asking them to share with others.  People also feel good and important that they are chosen to enable them to develop knowledge and skills.  Making learning meaningful, relevant and interesting is thus rewarding and motivating by itself.

Building Performance Track Record
Encouraging people to learn new knowledge and skills is not meaningful and rewarding if this staff are not shown how to apply the knowledge and skills in the workplace.

Too often, employees do not commit themselves totally to learning as they see little relevance of what they have learnt to what they are being asked to do in the workplace.
To ensure that people find learning meaningful, the knowledge and skills that they learnt should help them improve their performance.

Learning organisations which have successfully developed people understand the importance of the follow through in learning and its application in the workplace.

Allowing people to practice the new skills at the workplace is one good way of ensuring the relevance of training and learning.

This can be done by designing work or proving work assignments that will allow people to utilise the new skills and knowledge fully.

The role of leaders in organisations is to develop people and allow them to use the knowledge and skills learnt to improve their performance.  Getting people to learn, grow and improve is one key role of leaders today.  Helping people improve their knowledge and skills and improve their performance is a very motivating act.

Employees who use their new knowledge and skills to build up a track record of good performance will fell good about themselves and this good feeling will motivate them further to learn more and perform more.

Increasing Value

Once the employees have seen for themselves how knowledge and skills can help them build up a good track record, their motivation will increase.  Their increased performance with the application of new knowledge and skills will help employees view themselves as more capable.
They will be motivated to learn more because they perceive their value has increased as a result of the improves track record of performance.  And with the employee viewing themselves as more capable and more valuable, their confidence and their self-image will improve and their motivation will further increase.

The critical role of leaders is to transform employees with a negative mindset to a positive mindset to enable them to take positive action to achieve positive results.

Positive action is taken when an employee see the relevance of the new knowledge and skills to his or her work.  Positive action may or may not crate positive results.  It is here that leaders need to encourage employees to continue to take positive action until the positive results are achieved.  Once the positive results are achieved, employees will appreciate the value of their skills and knowledge and this will further reinforced their motivation level and their positive mindset.

Providing attractive rewards

One of the great challenges of motivation is to get people motivated first to perform well before they are rewarded.
Once they have perform well and the company's financial strength increases, the issue of rewards should not be a problem/  the only challenge that remains now is to ensure that people are rewarded fairly and attractively.

The key role of leaders here is to ensure that the staff who have built up their knowledge skills and experience along with their track record of performance do not leave the organisation.  This is critical as the staff have increased their marketable skills and thus their market value has also increased.  The role of leaders here is to provide rewards that are fair and which will attract the staff to stay on.  With fair and attractive rewards and with a motivating environment whereby the staff are given the opportunity to learn, grow and improve their value and confidence, there should be every good reason for the staff to remain in the organisation and stay motivated.

Victor S.L. Tan is an international consultant and authority on change management.  He is the author of 4 books and the CEO of KL Strategic Change Consulting Group. He can be contacted at 603-90741129 / 90742219 or email: victorsltan@klscc.com