Employee motivation
and engagement
How to unleash your employees’ performance and potential
Daniel Lafreniere

disengagement
The state of employee
in the workplace

Employees
have needs
Managers mostly focus on
providing the basic
employees’ needs when
they should focus on
motivational and relational
ones to truly engage people.
This is not without
consequences.
Work
environment
Tools
Clear goals
/challenges
Feedback/
dialogue
Sense of
progress
Empowerment
Purpose/
meaning
Salary Benefits Training Evaluation
Basic
Motivational
Relational
Self-actualization
Appreciation/
recognition
Team spirit Effective
leadership

70% of American
workers are not
engaged
This disengagement costs between
$450 billion to $550 billion in lost
productivity per year in the USA.
Source: Gallup (2013). State of the American Workplace.

Employees don’t
feel appreciated
55% of workers would quit for another
company that recognizes their efforts
and contributions.
Source: Globoforce (2012). Revealing Key Practices for Effective Recognition.

Employee turnover
costs are huge
The total cost of losing an employee can
range from tens of thousands of dollars to
1.5-2× annual salary.
How? Simply by adding the cost of hiring,
training, lost productivity, customer service
and errors, among other things.
Source: Bersin, J. (2013). Employee Retention Now a Big Issue: Why the Tide has Turned.

employee
Keys to unlocking
motivation

1.
Give employees
clear and
achievable goals
Communication is key.
Tell them truly what you expect from them.

2.
Give them a sense
of progress
According to Teresa Amabile:
“Of all the things that can trigger
emotions, motivation and perceptions
during a work day, the most important is
progress: moving forward and achieving
something.”
Source: Amabile, T. & Kramer, S. (2011). The Progress Principle. HBR Press, Boston, MA.

3.
Give employees
recognition
Employees that are appreciated at work not
only feel more sure of themselves but also
trust their colleagues and managers.
When employees are thanked for a job well
done, they feel as though they have a
purpose.
Recognition can enhance motivation by
attaining the upper levels of the Maslow
hierarchy of needs, which are a sense of
belonging, esteem and self-actualization.

Struggling with
employee
motivation?
Get our free guide on the
best practices for employee
motivation and recognition.
Read the guide

Rinse and repeat
“People often say that motivation doesn’t
last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s
why we recommend it daily.”
— Zig Ziglar, author, salesman,
and motivational speaker

Being appreciated
increases
engagement
61% of the employees said that being
appreciated by their manager/peers made
them feel more positive and increased their
engagement.
Source: Garr, S. (2012). The State of Employee Recognition in 2012. Bersin & Associates.

recognize
How to
your employees

1.
Avoid giving money
Unless it is critical for employees’
remuneration, avoid giving money.
In a recent study carried out among
salespeople, Doug Chung from Harvard
University demonstrated that they preferred
rewards that were not monetary, such as
points they can accumulate to take a day off
or buy a new TV, rather than money of
similar value.
Source: Chung, D.J. (2015). How to Really Motivate Salespeople. HBR, April 2015.

2.
Offer small rewards
more often
In their study published in the Journal of
Experimental Psychology, Carey
Morewedge and colleagues came to the
conclusion that “all else being equal, the
majority of people prefer having or
experiencing many small pleasures in life,
rather than only a few great pleasures.”
Source: Morewedge C. K. et al. (2007) Mispredicting the Hedonic Benefits of Segregated
Gains, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 136, 700-709.

3.
Offer time
Offering a day off, letting people take a few
hours to take care of time-consuming tasks,
or simply giving people time to do
something else, has become a reward that
employees really crave.

4.
Offer an experience
57% of Americans surveyed say that
receiving an experience (lunch/diner, tickets
for the movies, a show, sporting event or
trip) made them happier than a simple
material good. Only 34% said the contrary.
Source: Nicolao, L. et al. (2009). Happiness for sale: Do experiential purchases make
consumer happier than material purchases? Journal of Consumer Research, 36(2),
188-198.

5.
Offer badges
Giving a badge for an achievement or
behaviour is a nice way to motivate and
reward employees when on a tight budget.
Once obtained, badges show peers and
other managers that an employee has
developed a certain skill or performed a
remarkable achievement.
The fact that colleagues are earning
badges makes others want to surpass
themselves too.

6.
Surprise them!
Another way to engage people in their work
is to offer unexpected prizes. Surprise them!
Novelty always irresistibly begets
employees’ attention.
What’s more: people get a heightened
sense of pleasure and anticipation when
they receive positive surprises.

“Recognition is important, very important,
simply because it is proof of a person’s
progress and achievements, which attracts
the attention of and accolades from others.”
— Dan Pink

More motivation
More engagement
When managers recognize employees’
contribution, engagement increases by
60%.
82% of respondents indicated that
appreciation is one of the key factors in
improving their motivation.
78% of employees stated that they would
work harder if they had more recognition
from their employers.
Sources: Garr, S. (2012). The State of Employee Recognition in 2012.
Bersin & Associates and Globoforce (2012). Revealing Key Practices for Effective Recognition.

Wait a minute!I’ve read somewhere that giving awards is bad for motivation

Intrinsic
vs extrinsic
Proponents of the self-determination
principle believe there are only two types
of motivation: intrinsic (internal) and
extrinsic (external).
According to other academics, this dualism
is invalid because human motives are
multifaceted and do not divide into just
two kinds.
Source: Reiss, S. (2012). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation. Teaching of Psychology, March 2012.

Idealists
vs realists
Realists argue that in the real world
extrinsic rewards are common, expected,
and needed to enhance or maintain
motivation.
Idealists, on the other hand, suggest that
the real world is merely a human
construction, one that might be
reconstructed to de-emphasize extrinsic
rewards.
Source: Urdan, T. (2003). Intrinsic Motivations, Extrinsic Rewards, and Divergent Views of
Reality. Book Review in Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 Septembre 2003.

Different people,
different needs
The debate is ongoing, but one thing is for
sure: different people have different needs
as to what motivates.
In a nutshell, rewarding and recognizing
employees (in a variety of different forms)
plays a crucial role in improving overall
engagement.

“Not rewarding people who have come
to expect rewards may produce negative
reactions from those people, resulting in
a workforce and student body that is less
motivated.”
— Suzanne Hidi, Associate Professor of
Educational Psychology, University of
Toronto

Incentive programs
are an investment
46% of upper management in large-scale
companies deem that incentive programs
are an investment and not an expense.
Source: WorldatWork. (2013). Trends in Employee Recognition.

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