The fact is: The main reason employees quit is because of dissatisfaction with their current work environment – 81% of job seekers cite this as their problem. Thirty-nine percent also say that their supervisors and their leadership style have a strong influence on how they feel about their current job.

Such numbers are a serious cause for concern and will make any senior manager wonder, “How do I make sure my employees stay happy and motivated?” That’s why we have created this guide for you. We show you how important motivation and feedback are so that you don’t give your employees the feeling that they have to move on.

Motivation is important

Motivated employees play a crucial role in the success of any company. Studies show, for example, that organizations with committed and motivated employees are 43% more efficient. You also have fewer absenteeism and fluctuation and can improve product quality and customer service. They also help to increase the company’s reputation, which in turn makes it easier to find new employees.

But how do you manage to motivate employees? First of all, it’s important to understand that people can be motivated in two different ways – extrinsically and intrinsically. Overly motivated people engage in activities either to get a reward or to avoid punishment. With intrinsic motivation, the person engages in an activity for its own sake and as a personal reward. A company may reward excellence with a custom challenge coin.

Whether a person is extrinsically or intrinsically motivated can have a direct impact on how their motivation can be increased in the workplace. For example, incentives and rewards can even reduce the performance of intrinsically motivated employees!

Shape motivation 

To find out how to make a job more motivating, the organizational psychologists J. Richard Hackman and Greg R. Oldham developed the “Job Characteristics Model of Work Motivation” in 1975, a model that is still used in industrial psychology today. It was tested on 658 employees in seven different organizations and 62 different workplaces and delivered a number of convincing results.

This included identifying the five core areas that are critical for motivated staff:

Diversity of requirements • Integrity of the task • Importance of the task • Autonomy • Feedback

The model showed that focusing on all five areas led to higher internal work motivation and increased growth and job satisfaction as well as higher work effectiveness. In other words: all the qualities that are very desirable in workers.

The power of feedback

According to Hackman and Oldham, feedback is given when the employee receives feedback from his or her job in order to correct undesirable developments and thus learn how to get to their goal.

This ensures that the employee is fully aware of the success (or failure) of their performance and learns from any mistakes. Due to the resulting emotional connection to the result, he also attaches greater importance to his work.

Informing employees about their performance enables them to learn and develop. Companies that give their employees regular feedback experience 14% lower fluctuation rates. Of course, one might assume that employees would prefer positive feedback about their work. Studies have shown, however, that 82% of employees generally value feedback, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. A full 65% of employees want to get more feedback – so the only logical conclusion is to give them more.

That’s what matters

Motivation and feedback may seem simple; but both have a huge impact on your employees. In addition to increasing their job satisfaction, they will become more productive and efficient and also think less about changing jobs – good news for you and your company.