How Do You Motivate Employees Who Only Care About Salary? Seeking Your Ideas and Input

Employee Shows Negative Attitude Towards Employee Engagement and Development Program

This program is implemented to motivate employees in the workplace. What should be done if employees are reluctant to participate? Is this enough to motivate employees, or are there other factors to consider?

In my recent experience, I have developed and implemented programs like the Employee Recognition Award, birthday celebrations, occasion celebrations, IT training, and other functional trainings.

In recent interactions with employees, I found that they have been working like this for decades. These initiatives hardly matter to them; only salary matters. They say, "We don't want anything, only increase our salary." Why would a company pay if you are not following company policy and performing your best in the workplace?

Now, I am planning to find a new way to increase their performance and keep them motivated. I believe only counseling and disciplinary action will be effective.

I want to know your ideas and input, kindly share them with me.

Regards,
Shaikh Abedeen
Human Resources Professional

Thank you, Dinesh, for your reply. I have developed the appraisal template based on the factor rating method, individual development plan, and self-appraisal form. The fact is they show a very casual approach, and implementation is very tough. I face challenges from management and employees.

I am identifying employees who have performance and behavioral issues. I believe in giving them one chance to improve, or else we need to consider replacing them. I am working on convincing management to hire quality manpower.

Regards,
Shaikh Abedeen
Human Resources Professional

Your one sentence "I face challenges from management and employees" sums up everything. It is the levity on the part of management that has allowed employees to become like this. This has become part of your organization's culture. Now what you are facing is cultural resistance. Without buy-in from management, it is just impossible to change anything.

In this connection, you may check my reply to the past posts "How to improve the culture of the organization" and "Learning Culture in an organization".

All the best!

Regards,
Dinesh V Divekar

What sector is your company in? And what's the overall profile of your employees?

Going by your location [Bhubaneswar] and what little I observed there earlier, I think you can multiply Dinesh's remarks: "Without buy-in from management, it is just impossible to change anything." The basic mindset of the employees, especially in the unskilled and semi-skilled categories, in that part of the world is really constricted and narrow.

I would suggest focusing on the management first, even before you attempt to introduce any new changes regarding the employees. When focusing on the management, try to convert whatever ideas you come up with into money—that's the only language they will understand, in all probability. If you end up showing good savings to the company by introducing the changes, you are sure to have them on your side. In a single word, 'quantify' the changes/suggestions.

All the Best.

Regards,
TS

Thanks for your response; I am working on a short assignment in a hospital. Management has hired me to develop the hospital and its employees based on my past record. Management has given me absolute authority to do so, but not a single employee in a key position is helping me. Instead, they are provoking others not to cooperate. I am determined to bring about change and will do it. They do not pay well; the salary is not up to the market level for general employees, but key positions receive handsome salaries. I am trying to convince them to spend money on employees and to view this as an investment, not a cost. However, the finance personnel don't want to be convinced. I believe things will start changing in a couple of months.

Regards,
Shaikh Abedeen

Re: Leadership and Engagement

It sounds to me as if you are attempting the impossible. Engagement is a choice an employee makes based on how they are treated by management. Achieving engagement is done through leadership, and leadership is not something that can be delegated to a person or a group to implement. Tasks can be delegated, but leadership cannot be delegated. And leadership starts from the top. If the top does not change, there will be no engagement. The formula for what top management must do is simple.

Rather than spending its time trying to control employees with goals, targets, orders, bureaucracy, and the like, thus disengaging them, management listens to whatever employees have to say. Management does this often enough to more than satisfy the employee's need to be heard.

Management then responds to what was said in a timely and respectful manner to the satisfaction of the employee or better, thus satisfying the employee's need to be respected. Once employees realize this will always be done, they realize that they can influence everything in the workplace. This ability to influence everything begets a sense of ownership - that this is their workplace just as much as it is anyone's. In the same way, a sense of ownership begets commitment. This process will also satisfy the employee's needs to have competence, autonomy, and relatedness, and with all needs satisfied, they will choose to become engaged.

If that sounds too simple, it is exactly what I did to create several fully engaged workforces whose performance rose to a level at least four times higher than I had thought humanly possible. Stephen Covey senior wrote in 1991 that the possible gain is 500%, and my experience agrees with him.

Best regards,
Ben Simonton

Leadership is a science, and so is engagement