Employee work motivation is the internal force within each employee that drives them to exert effort, perform work tasks with appropriate quality and timing, and pushes them to set professional and organizational goals and work towards achieving them.
Motivation is the fundamental difference between an employee who comes to work physically during attendance hours and an employee who arrives with both body and mind, fully dedicating their capabilities to serve their job.
Motivation can be observed through tangible behaviors and actions in the work environment. Work motivation makes the employee enthusiastic about coming to work on time, not fabricating excuses for delays or absences, and working with focus and dedication until the last minute of the workday. They constantly think about improving work quality and offer development suggestions without being asked.
Motivation makes the employee cooperative and supportive of teamwork, possessing a team spirit, helping colleagues without being asked, and expressing their opinion with complete confidence. If they make a mistake, they do not blame others but take responsibility without fear or expectation of negative reactions from management.
Motivation transforms the employee into a continuous learner who cares about upgrading their skills, constantly learns new practices, values feedback, and performance evaluations that reveal performance weaknesses and deals with them positively.
How is Motivation Generated in Employees:
Work motivation arises in a positive and stimulating work environment that supports the employee in achieving their goals in innovation and advancement. Motivation requires supportive leadership that manages with positive energy and makes work a real opportunity for achievement and learning. Motivation also requires fair evaluation systems that provide appropriate incentives, identify performance weaknesses, and implement solutions to help employees overcome them. Additionally, motivation requires clarity in roles and responsibilities, ensuring that every individual in the company clearly knows their role and the boundaries of their responsibilities.
However, practical experience in our Arab companies often tends to blame the employees themselves if their motivation decreases. At best, training programs may be offered to improve performance and address deficiencies.
This view, unfortunately, is limited and overlooks many external factors that lead to decreased employee motivation. We can briefly highlight these factors in the following points:
- Lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities: An employee who does not clearly know their role in the company, the boundaries of that role, or whose tasks change daily will lose trust in the company, feel insecure, and consequently lose motivation to work.
- Unmotivating or unfair leadership: Employees always need motivation and encouragement from their manager, as this makes them feel secure and that their work is not being ignored by management. Management's preoccupation or failure to fulfill this role, or doing so unfairly, leads to loss of trust and makes the employee feel threatened, thus losing their ability to achieve.
- Absence of opportunities for career advancement and acquiring new experiences: If an employee feels that their future in this company will not add new skills and experiences and that opportunities for promotion to higher positions are unavailable, they will lose their ambition to work. There must be a clear career path allowing employees to advance according to sound professional criteria that ensure fairness for everyone.
- A tense work environment that promotes negativity: A toxic or negative work environment is one of the most important reasons that kill motivation and lead to what is called burnout. Improving the quality of the work environment is fundamentally linked to developing the company's internal organization.
Indicators That Low Motivation Is Due to Organizational Reasons:
It is very important, before taking steps to treat low motivation, to distinguish between motivation loss due to organizational reasons versus personal reasons, to ensure the treatment plan is successful and addresses the real problem. Several indicators distinguish motivation loss due to organizational reasons, including:
- Low motivation is not limited to specific employees but is a prevailing characteristic in the company, affecting entire departments or work teams, not just individuals.
- Low motivation appears in new employees shortly after hiring.
- Repeated complaints about evaluation and promotion systems, lack of clarity in responsibilities, and overlapping roles.
If you confirm that low motivation is due to organizational reasons, training will not be an appropriate solution to this problem, nor will hiring new employees. The only solution in this case is to review the internal system and implement policies and procedures that ensure fairness, provide opportunities for advancement and growth, and reduce negative manifestations in the work environment.
Recommended Consultations to Address the Problem of Low Employee Motivation Due to Organizational Reasons
What Can Be Done?
