Types Of Employee Motivation Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Employee motivation is the foundation for making your employees more engaged and connected to your company. Any successful business manager would tell you that they wouldn’t have been able to reach their goals without motivated employees.

But what exactly drives these people to do their best at the job? Why are some people picking up while others are slacking in the same environment?

Well, as we will show you in this article, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to motivating employees. As a matter of fact, there are five different types of motivation we see on a regular basis in the workplace.

So, let’s dig into our list of types of employee motivation, and illustrate them with some concrete examples.

1.  Affiliation Motivation

Affiliation motivation is the desire to relate with people or organizations on a social basis. Employees motivated by affiliation thrive on communication and teamwork. They work better when cooperating with others and when praised by management or their peers.

An employee motivated by affiliation can be beneficial to your company for various reasons. Some of these are:

Excellent communication skills.

Good negotiations with team members and customers

Pointing out relevant skills in other team members

Creating a group identity as a part of company culture can encourage employees to be motivated by a need to succeed as a team instead of as individuals. It’s a great incentive when money cannot be used to motivate.

Here are some examples of how you can implement affiliation motivation:

• Provide socialization opportunities in the workplace
• Organize in-person or online team-building activities that encourage employees to build trust
• Prioritize small-group projects over individual campaigns
• Encourage collaboration between different teams

2.  Achievement Motivation

Employees motivated by achievement are driven by specific goals in the form of growth within the company. Achievement motivation is a more grounded approach to motivating your workforce. Success is measured for its own sake, not by the rewards it brings.

Therefore, employees need to be able to anticipate future acknowledgment in order to remain engaged throughout a process or project.

This type of motivation is beneficial as it drives individuals to be goal-oriented in their work.

Here’s how you can achieve this in your organization:

• Implement an employee of the month program
• Acknowledge all team members that contribute to successful projects
• Show public recognition for overachievers
• Support opportunities for industry-related awards, certificates, and recognitions.

3.  Incentive Motivation

Incentive motivation is when employees earn a predetermined compensation for exceeding expectations. As long as the rewards are clearly stated they can be either financial or perk-based.

This type of motivation effectively rewards success instead of punishing failure. It installs a goal-oriented atmosphere in the workplace, where employees continuously work towards earning a certain reward. This kind of motivation works bests in metric-heavy industries like sales.

If you have the budget, here’s how you can accomplish it within your company:

• Awarding extra profit percentage for the most sales achieved
• Provide free lunch for teams delivering projects before deadline
• Allow everyone to leave an hour early if weekly expectations (sales, customer satisfaction KPI etc) are exceeded

4.  Competence Motivation

This type of motivation relates to being good at something in order to provide high-quality work. Employees that are motivated by competence usually work toward a goal that would result in education, training, and more knowledge.

These employees want to find a way to become a master at what they do and will take pride in developing and using their problem-solving skills. They strive to be creative when confronted with obstacles.

Implementing competence motivation will provide your company with a highly skilled workforce and create teams of problem-solvers.

These are some examples of how to include competence motivation in your working environment:

• Implement in-house learning programs
• Fund and promote third-party training
• Reward employees that get certifications

5.  Power Motivation

Power motivation may be the most abstract form of motivation on our list. It’s when employees are driven by the desire to influence people and make changes in an organization.

They are drawn to careers where they can direct other people’s behavior through positive actions. It’s crucial to detect people driven by the power within the workforce, as they often make the best managers.

People in the workplace who are interested in building power through influence rather than achievement are usually the most effective at motivating teams. Their teams exhibit a greater sense of responsibility and have more team spirit.

Here’s how you can apply power motivation to your organization:

• Celebrate achievements, big or small
• Set challenging, but achievable goals
• Publicly praise employees when successful

Wrapping up

Employee motivation is crucial when it comes to success and growth. And there are many types of employee motivation to consider. Where one type of motivation could drive an individual forward, it might be ineffective on others.

This is why it important to take into consideration all different types of motivation and try to apply them to your company. If this seems overwhelming, make sure to pick out at least two types that will effectively increase motivation in the long term.