As in many other realms in life, expectations are crucial in business success. They are the driving force that carries a business forward. As the “Expectancy Theory” of Victor Vroom of the Yale School of Management explains, expectations, or simply “what is in it for me”, are a psychological phenomenon that drives employees of an organisation towards both performance and satisfaction.
The human resources team in a business structure plays one of the most important functions of employee motivation. The role of HR is multifaceted and responsible for shaping the organisational culture, fostering engagement, and motivating the workforce towards performance.
The Human Resources Department helps an organisation to achieve short- and long-term goals by taking care of employees. Through their activities, they can protect the individual employees and promote individual and team performance, which in turn produces the results aimed at by the company.
Particularly in today’s fiercely competitive business world, organisations recognise that people are their most valuable assets. Despite technological advancements, companies realise that despite all the technological advancements, human involvement makes a business achieve success.
Therefore, ensuring that each of the employees is motivated and performing to their full potential is not just desirable but essential for long-term success. This responsibility falls heavily on HR departments, which are tasked with developing, implementing, and sustaining strategies that influence both motivation and performance.
Talent management is the predominant responsibility of HR. Starting with recruiting as the first step, the HR team of the organisation keeps fostering a workplace environment that motivates its employees to perform well. In order to achieve this feat, they must establish values, attitudes, and team spirit to maintain a positive work environment.
Intrinsic motivators
There are two factors that motivate employees. That includes intrinsic motivators where employees consider personal growth, job satisfaction, accomplishments, and opportunities for creativity. Secondly, the extrinsic motivators are financial benefits, including salary and perks, recognition, promotions, and job security. Motivation involves both these factors, and HR must address both equally to create a balanced work environment.
Modern HR no longer is an administrative function. It is strategic and aligns with an organisation’s vision, mission, and goals. As the key responsibility, HR must create an environment where employees are properly motivated to achieve their best performance levels.
This function involves a wide range of tasks, from recruitment to resignation or termination of an employee. In between, they are responsible for effective onboarding, training, performance management, and teamwork practices.
The HR team is accountable for recommending a fair and transparent reward system, providing opportunities for career development, fostering a collaborative work environment, and improving the satisfaction levels.
When employees feel a strong connection to their work and loyalty to the organisation, the chances of success increase significantly. Engaged employees have a lower risk for turnover, elevated productivity levels, increased growth, and better satisfaction at work.
A motivated workforce always performs best when it believes in trust, mutual respect, and inclusion. This workplace culture creates a sense of ownership among individual workers. Hence, it is the duty of the HR team to promote employee engagement in all possible situations. The HR team can create a balance between the management and employees to create a trustworthy bond.
Promoting positive attitudes in the workplace is one of the easiest ways to motivate employees. When they feel that their performances are valued, they are more likely to push further to go the extra mile. Work-centred compliments may even take it upon themselves to change and develop the right attitudes to earn recognition.
Hence, HR should provide performance feedback consistently. This practice can help employees focus on the areas they could improve.
Training
Employees can also be motivated by offering opportunities for personal and professional growth. In this context, HR can play a pivotal role in analysing the skill levels of individual employees and introduce training that can help upskill workers. This not only increases performance and productivity but also adds value to the organisation.
Training is an investment many employers willingly make in their workforce. When companies offer training and education to their employees, they indicate that they value their people and the contributions they make. Naturally, this creates attachment, loyalty and enthusiasm among staff.
Training helps employees understand how their work fits into their company’s structure, mission, goals and achievements. It also makes them more enthusiastic about their work. They value skill and knowledge development, as often they realise that such knowledge can help them advance their future careers.
The HR team must ensure that they are always working in alignment with the attitudes of employees, individually and as a team. They must be willing to listen to workers and speak to them with a genuine interest in their professional and personal problems. By showing employees that they are heard and taken seriously, they feel safe in the workplace.
With the prevailing fast-paced business environment, businesses sometimes concentrate on technology rather than the human aspect. The human resources department is in a unique position to focus more on the human nature of the employees than other functional sections.
The HR department can strike the perfect balance between technology and the human aspect to obtain the optimum output of both. By supporting human input professionally, they can improve quality of life and the standards of living outside the workplace setting. This can be a hugely beneficial HR function that can maintain workplace happiness.
Leadership has a significant influence on motivation. Good leaders identify and understand each member of their employees and set positive examples to motivate them. By providing support, they foster a culture of trust and mutual respect. HR is responsible for training and developing functional managers who can motivate and engage their respective teams.
Line Managers must be trained to be role models, demonstrating commitment, integrity and enthusiasm. They also must provide support by offering required tools, resources, and information to perform individual duties effectively. Motivated employees tend to be both creative and innovative. Hence, they are more likely to share ideas that can immensely contribute to achieving common goals.
HR plays one of the most vital roles in enhancing employee motivation by implementing strategies that address both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. HR teams provide career opportunities, recognise the value of contribution, encourage engagement, and create a balanced and positive work environment.
By serving as a bridge between organisational goals and employee needs, HR enables the creation of a motivated, engaged, and high-performing workforce. From the moment an employee is recruited, through their development, recognition, and career progression, HR is instrumental in shaping their experience and influencing their drive to succeed.
Ultimately, the success of any organisation depends not only on what it does but also on how well its people are motivated to do it.
