[jaykaywy]

I am preparing a presentation to a company that needs some serious motivation. Currently the employees are being treated as if they were members of a big family. Unfortunately, this family is going broke too few members are working hard enough to make money for it. Sales are dropping fast. Employees are being paid a good salary and they receive year-end bonuses regardless of performance. Every friday the owner brings in bagels and coffee for the employees as well as treats them to birthday lunches. I know that job satisfaction and morale are important in maintaining good employees but we need to motivate them. Please give me some ideas to help me with this.

[Chrissy Scivicque]

Hi there - well, I think you've already identified one of the problems here: employees get year end bonuses regardless of performance. That sounds crazy in this economic climate. I know that not everyone is motivated by money but it just makes good business sense to correlate bonus to performance - otherwise, it's actually de-motivating. It sounds like these employees are (sorry to be blunt here) spoiled. They have been given a very cushy job environment and in return, they don't have to do, well, anything. If this group really is a "family" I think they will understand that corners need to be cut and performance needs to improve to survive. If you're working to motivate them, focus on everything the company has provided them and appeal to their sense of family. Tell them it's their time to give back now. Then, set clear goals that are tracked and ensure that they see how those goals play into their pay structure. Performance simply must impact them on a real level or it won't sink in. That's just my two cents. I hope you get some more feedback from the community. I'm interested to hear what others recommend. Best of luck to you!

[Ania]

I think that the first thing is to let them that they are "special" even they have most of the advantages and salary. In this will make sure that when they are going to work they don't have a terrible headache!. You can do this, by always provide positive feedbacks, congratulate and honor when needs. Organise some "having fun together" to really show that we are a big familly. When you need to reprimand, do it in a closer area and please do not yelling! Make sure that you provide all necessarly tools and informations to facilitate your team work.
Hope that we get your answer!

regards