University of Nairobi

School of Business
Assignment: Organization Behaviour
Term Paper on Motivation.
Motivation is a psychological feature that arouses an organism to act towards a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains certain goal directed behaviors. It can be considered a driving force; a psychological drive that compels or reinforces an action toward a desired goal. For example, hunger is a motivation that elicits a desire to eat. Motivation has been shown to have roots in physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and social areas. Motivation may be rooted in a basic impulse to optimize well-being, minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure. It can also originate from specific physical needs such as eating, sleeping or resting, and sex. Motivation is an inner drive to behave or act in a certain manner. These inner conditions such as wishes, desires, goals, activate to move in a particular direction in behavior.

Abraham maslow,
The theory of Motivation
One of the many interesting things Maslow noticed while he worked with monkeys early in his career, was that some needs take precedence over others. For example, if you are hungry and thirsty, you will tend to try to take care of the thirst first. After all, you can do without food for weeks, but you can only do without water for a couple of days! Thirst is a stronger need than hunger. Likewise, if you are very very thirsty, but someone has put a choke hold on you and you cant breath, which is more important? The need to breathe, of course. On the other hand, sex is less powerful than any of these. Lets face it, you wont die if you dont get it!

Maslow took this idea and created his now famous hierarchy of needs. Beyond the details of air, water, food, and sex, he laid out five broader layers: the physiological needs, the needs for safety and security, the needs for love and belonging, the needs for esteem, and the need to actualize the self, in that order. 1. The physiological needs. These include the needs we have for oxygen, water, protein, salt, sugar, calcium, and other minerals and vitamins. They also include the need to maintain a pH balance (getting too acidic or base will kill you) and temperature (98.6 or near to it). Also, theres the needs to be active, to rest, to sleep, to get rid of wastes (CO2, sweat, urine, and feces), to avoid pain, and to have sex. Quite a collection! Maslow believed, and research supports him, that these are in fact individual needs, and that a lack of, say, vitamin C, will lead to a very specific hunger for things which have in the past provided that vitamin C -- e.g. orange juice. I guess the cravings that some pregnant women have, and the way in which babies eat the most foul tasting baby food, support the idea anecdotally. 2. The safety and security needs. When the physiological needs are largely taken care of, this second layer of needs comes into play. You will become increasingly interested in finding safe circumstances, stability, protection. You might develop a need for structure, for order, some limits. Looking at it negatively, you become concerned, not with needs like hunger and thirst, but with your fears and anxieties. In the ordinary American adult, this set of needs manifest themselves in the form of our urges to have a home in a safe neighborhood, a little job security and a nest egg, a good retirement plan and a bit of insurance, and so on. 3. The love and belonging needs. When physiological needs and safety needs are, by and large, taken care of, a third layer starts to show up. You begin to feel the need for friends, a sweetheart, children, affectionate relationships in general, even a sense of community. Looked at negatively, you become increasing susceptible to loneliness and social anxieties. In our day-to-day life, we exhibit these needs in our desires to marry, have a family, be a part of a community, a member of a

church, a brother in the fraternity, a part of a gang or a bowling club. It is also a part of what we look for in a career. 4. The esteem needs. Next, we begin to look for a little selfesteem. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs, a lower one and a higher one. The lower one is the need for the respect of others, the need for status, fame, glory, recognition, attention, reputation, appreciation, dignity, even dominance. The higher form involves the need for selfrespect, including such feelings as confidence, competence, achievement, mastery, independence, and freedom. Note that this is the higher form because, unlike the respect of others, once you have self-respect, its a lot harder to lose!

The negative version of these needs is low self-esteem and inferiority complexes. Maslow felt that Adler was really onto something when he proposed that these were at the roots of many, if not most, of our psychological problems. In modern countries, most of us have what we need in regard to our physiological and safety needs. We, more often than not, have quite a bit of love and belonging, too. Its a little respect that often seems so very hard to get! All of the preceding four levels he calls deficit needs, or D-needs. If you dont have enough of something -- i.e. you have a deficit -you feel the need. But if you get all you need, you feel nothing at all! In other words, they cease to be motivating. As the old blues song goes, you dont miss your water till your well runs dry!

He also talks about these levels in terms of homeostasis. Homeostasis is the principle by which your furnace thermostat operates: When it gets too cold, it switches the heat on; When it gets too hot, it switches the heat off. In the same way, your body, when it lacks a certain substance, develops a hunger for it; When it

gets enough of it, then the hunger stops. Maslow simply extends the homeostatic principle to needs, such as safety, belonging, and esteem, that we dont ordinarily think of in these terms. Maslow sees all these needs as essentially survival needs. Even love and esteem are needed for the maintenance of health. He says we all have these needs built in to us genetically, like instincts. In fact, he calls them instinctoid -- instinct-like -- needs. In terms of overall development, we move through these levels a bit like stages. As newborns, our focus (if not our entire set of needs) is on the physiological. Soon, we begin to recognize that we need to be safe. Soon after that, we crave attention and affection. A bit later, we look for self-esteem. Mind you, this is in the first couple of years! Under stressful conditions, or when survival is threatened, we can regress to a lower need level. When you great career falls flat, you might seek out a little attention. When your family ups and leaves you, it seems that love is again all you ever wanted. When you face chapter eleven after a long and happy life, you suddenly cant think of anything except money.

These things can occur on a society-wide basis as well: When society suddenly flounders, people start clamoring for a strong leader to take over and make things right. When the bombs start falling, they look for safety. When the food stops coming into the stores, their needs become even more basic. Maslow suggested that we can ask people for their philosophy of the future -- what would their ideal life or world be like -- and get significant information as to what needs they do or do not have covered. If you have significant problems along your development -- a period of extreme insecurity or hunger as a child, or the loss of a family member through death or divorce, or significant neglect or abuse -you may fixate on that set of needs for the rest of your life.

This is Maslows understanding of neurosis. Perhaps you went through a war as a kid. Now you have everything your heart needs -- yet you still find yourself obsessing over having enough money and keeping the pantry well-stocked. Or perhaps your parents divorced when you were young. Now you have a wonderful spouse -- yet you get insanely jealous or worry constantly that they are going to leave you because you are not good enough for them. You get the picture. Self-actualization The last level is a bit different. Maslow has used a variety of terms to refer to this level: He has called it growth motivation (in contrast to deficit motivation), being needs (or B-needs, in contrast to D-needs), and self-actualization. These are needs that do not involve balance or homeostasis. Once engaged, they continue to be felt. In fact, they are likely to become stronger as we feed them! They involve the continuous desire to fulfill potentials, to be all that you can be. They are a matter of becoming the most complete, the fullest, you -- hence the term, self-actualization.

Now, in keeping with his theory up to this point, if you want to be truly self-actualizing, you need to have your lower needs taken care of, at least to a considerable extent. This makes sense: If you are hungry, you are scrambling to get food; If you are unsafe, you have to be continuously on guard; If you are isolated and unloved, you have to satisfy that need; If you have a low sense of self-esteem, you have to be defensive or compensate. When lower needs are unmet, you cant fully devote yourself to fulfilling your potentials.

It isnt surprising, then, the world being as difficult as it is, that only a small percentage of the worlds population is truly, predominantly, self-actualizing. Maslow at one point suggested only about two percent! The question becomes, of course, what exactly does Maslow mean by self-actualization. To answer that, we need to look at the kind of people he called self-actualizers. Fortunately, he did this for us, using a qualitative method called biographical analysis. He began by picking out a group of people, some historical figures, some people he knew, whom he felt clearly met the standard of selfactualization. Included in this august group were Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Adams, William James, Albert Schweitzer, Benedict Spinoza, and Alduous Huxley, plus 12 unnamed people who were alive at the time Maslow did his research. He then looked at their biographies, writings, the acts and words of those he knew personally, and so on. From these sources, he developed a list of qualities that seemed characteristic of these people, as opposed to the great mass of us. These people were reality-centered, which means they could differentiate what is fake and dishonest from what is real and genuine. They were problem-centered, meaning they treated lifes difficulties as problems demanding solutions, not as personal troubles to be railed at or surrendered to. And they had a different perception of means and ends. They felt that the ends dont necessarily justify the means, that the means could be ends themselves, and that the means -- the journey -- was often more important than the ends. The self-actualizers also had a different way of relating to others. First, they enjoyed solitude, and were comfortable being alone. And they enjoyed deeper personal relations with a few close friends and family members, rather than more shallow relationships with many people. They enjoyed autonomy, a relative independence from physical and social needs. And they resisted enculturation, that is, they were not susceptible to social pressure to be "well adjusted" or to "fit in" -- they were, in fact, nonconformists in the best sense.

They had an unhostile sense of humor -- preferring to joke at their own expense, or at the human condition, and never directing their humor at others. They had a quality he called acceptance of self and others, by which he meant that these people would be more likely to take you as you are than try to change you into what they thought you should be. This same acceptance applied to their attitudes towards themselves: If some quality of theirs wasnt harmful, they let it be, even enjoying it as a personal quirk. On the other hand, they were often strongly motivated to change negative qualities in themselves that could be changed. Along with this comes spontaneity and simplicity: They preferred being themselves rather than being pretentious or artificial. In fact, for all their nonconformity, he found that they tended to be conventional on the surface, just where less self-actualizing nonconformists tend to be the most dramatic. Further, they had a sense of humility and respect towards others -- something Maslow also called democratic values -- meaning that they were open to ethnic and individual variety, even treasuring it. They had a quality Maslow called human kinship or Gemeinschaftsgefhl -- social interest, compassion, humanity. And this was accompanied by a strong ethics, which was spiritual but seldom conventionally religious in nature. And these people had a certain freshness of appreciation, an ability to see things, even ordinary things, with wonder. Along with this comes their ability to be creative, inventive, and original. And, finally, these people tended to have more peak experiences than the average person. A peak experience is one that takes you out of yourself, that makes you feel very tiny, or very large, to some extent one with life or nature or God. It gives you a feeling of being a part of the infinite and the eternal. These experiences tend to leave their mark on a person, change them for the better, and many people actively seek them out. They are also called mystical experiences, and are an important part of many religious and philosophical traditions. Maslow doesnt think that self-actualizers are perfect, of course. There were several flaws or imperfections he discovered along the way as well: First, they often suffered considerable anxiety and guilt -- but realistic anxiety and guilt, rather than misplaced or neurotic versions. Some of them were absentminded and overly kind. And finally, some of them had unexpected moments of ruthlessness, surgical coldness, and loss of humor. Two other points he makes about these self-actualizers: Their values were "natural" and seemed to flow effortlessly from their personalities. And they appeared to transcend many of the dichotomies others accept as being undeniable, such as the

differences between the spiritual and the physical, the selfish and the unselfish, and the masculine and the feminine.

Metaneeds and metapathologies Another way in which Maslow approach the problem of what is selfactualization is to talk about the special, driving needs (B-needs, of course) of the self-actualizers. They need the following in their lives in order to be happy: Truth, rather than dishonesty. Goodness, rather than evil. Beauty, not ugliness or vulgarity. Unity, wholeness, and transcendence of opposites, not arbitrariness or forced choices. Aliveness, not deadness or the mechanization of life. Uniqueness, not bland uniformity. Perfection and necessity, not sloppiness, inconsistency, or accident. Completion, rather than incompleteness. Justice and order, not injustice and lawlessness. Simplicity, not unnecessary complexity. Richness, not environmental impoverishment. Effortlessness, not strain. Playfulness, not grim, humorless, drudgery. Self-sufficiency, not dependency. Meaningfulness, rather than senselessness. At first glance, you might think that everyone obviously needs these. But think: If you are living through an economic depression or a war, or are living in a ghetto or in rural poverty, do you worry about these issues, or do you worry about getting enough to eat and a roof over your head? In fact, Maslow believes that much of the what is wrong with the world comes down to the fact that very few people really are interested in these values -- not because they are bad people, but because they havent even had their basic needs taken care of! When a self-actualizer doesnt get these needs fulfilled, they respond with metapathologies -- a list of problems as long as the list of metaneeds! Let me summarize it by saying that, when forced

to live without these values, the self-actualizer develops depression, despair, disgust,alienation, and a degree of cynicism. Maslow hoped that his efforts at describing the self-actualizing person would eventually lead to a periodic table of the kinds of qualities, problems, pathologies, and even solutions characteristic of higher levels of human potential. Over time, he devoted increasing attention, not to his own theory, but to humanistic psychology and the human potentials movement.

Toward the end of his life, he inaugurated what he called the fourth force in psychology: Freudian and other depth psychologies constituted the first force; Behaviorism was the second force; His own humanism, including the European existentialists, were the third force. The fourth force was the transpersonal psychologies which, taking their cue from Eastern philosophies, investigated such things as meditation, higher levels of consciousness, and even parapsychological phenomena. Perhaps the best known transpersonalist today is Ken Wilber, author of such books as The Atman Project and The History of Everything.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation". Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow used the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through. Maslow's theory was fully expressed in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality.

Types of theories and models

Mono-motivational theories
A class of theories about why people do things seeks to reduce the number of factors down to one and explain all behaviour through that one factor. For example, economics has been criticized for using self-interest as a mono-motivational theory. Monomotivational theories are often criticized for being too reductive or too abstract.

Conscious and unconscious motivations

A number of motivational theories emphasis the distinction between conscious and unconscious motivations. In evolutionary psychology, the "ultimate", unconscious motivation may be a cold evolutionary calculation, the conscious motivation could be more benign or even positive emotions. For example, while it may be in the best interest of a male's genes to have multiple partners and thus break up with or divorce one before moving onto the next, the conscious rationalization could be, "I loved her at the time". Freud is undoubtedly the person most associated with the idea that human beings have many unconscious motivations that cause them to make important decisions because of these unconscious forces such as choosing a partner.

Employee Recognition Programs

Employee recognition is not only about gifts and points. It's about changing the corporate culture in order to meet goals and initiatives and most importantly to connect employees to the company's core values and beliefs. Strategic employee recognition is seen as the most important program not only to improve employee retention and motivation but also to positively influence the financial situation The difference between the traditional approach (gifts and points) and strategic recognition is the ability to serve as a serious business influencer that can advance a companys strategic objectives in a measurable way. "The vast majority of companies want to be innovative, coming up with new products, business models and better ways of doing things. However, innovation is not so easy to achieve. A CEO cannot just order it, and so it will be. You have to carefully manage an organization so that, over time, innovations will emerge.

How to motivate employees: What managers need to know

How to motivate employees- February 13, 2010 by Ray Williams in Wired for Success How many management articles, books, speeches and workshops have pleaded plaintively, "How do I get employees to do what I want?" Motivating people to do their best work, consistently, has been an enduring challenge for executives and managers. Even understanding what constitutes human motivation has been a centuries old puzzle, addressed as far back as Aristotle. Now brain science is giving us some new insights into motivation.

When Frederick Herzberg researched the sources of employee motivation during the l950s and l960s, he discovered a dichotomy that still intrigues and baffles managers: The things that make people satisfied and motivated on the job are different in kind from the things that make them dissatisfied. Ask workers what makes them unhappy at work, and you'll hear them talk about insufficient pay or an uncomfortable work environment, or "stupid" regulations and policies that are restraining or the lack of job flexibility and freedom. So environmental factors can be demotivating, but even if managed brilliantly, fixing these factors won't motivate people to work harder or smarter. It turns out that people are motivated by interesting work, challenge, and increasing responsibility--intrinsic factors. People have a deep-seated need for growth and achievement. Herzberg's work influenced a generation of scholars and researchers--but never seemed to make an impact on managers in the workplace, where the focus on motivation remained the "carrot-and-stick" approach, or external motivators. What do we mean by motivation? It's been defined as a predisposition to behave in a purposeful manner to achieve specific, unmet needs and the will to achieve, and the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals. And why do we need motivated employees? The answer is survival. Motivated employees are needed in our rapidly changing workplaces, and to be effective, managers need to understand that and do something about it.

A review of the research literature by James R. Lindner at Ohio State University concluded that employee motivation was driven more by factors such as interesting work than financial compensation. John Baldoni, author of Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders, concluded that motivation comes from wanting to do something of one's own free will, and that motivation is simply leadership behavior--wanting to do what is right for people and the organization.

More recently, due to the expanding field of neuroscience, we've acquired new insights into the motivation issue. In the July, 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review, authors Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg and Linda-Eling Lee describe a new model of employee motivation. They outline the four fundamental emotional drives that underlie motivation as: The drive to acquire (the acquisition of scarce material things, including financial compensation, to feel better); the drive to bond (developing strong bonds of love, caring and belonging); the drive to comprehend (to make sense of our world so we can take the right actions);and the drive to defend (defending our property, ourselves and our accomplishments). Norhria and associates argue that managers who try to increase motivation must satisfy all of these four drives. Best practice companies have initiated reward systems based on performance; addressed the bond drive by developing a corporate culture based on friendship, mutual reliance, collaboration and sharing; addressed the drive of comprehend by instituting job design system where jobs are designed for specific roles, and those jobs are meaningful and foster a sense of contribution to the organization. And finally to address the defend drive, best practice companies restructure their leadership approaches to increase transparency of all processes, ensure fairness through the organization and build trust and openness with everyone. In his new book, Drive, Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, describes what he says is "the surprising truth" about what motivates us. Pink says that true motivation boils down to three elements: Autonomy, the desire to direct our own lives; mastery, the desire to continually improve at something that matters to us, and purpose, the desire to do things in service of something larger than ourselves. Pink, joining a chorus of many others, warns that the traditional "command-and-control" management methods in which organizations use money as a contingent reward for a task, are not only ineffective as motivators, but actually harmful. And brain science is now giving us some physiological clues as to how motivation works. Consider this: 98% of everything scientists know about the human brain has been discovered in the last 6 years; 80% of what scientists thought was true about the human brain before 1995 has now been found to be false, or misleading.

A U.S. National Institute of Health Study using brain scans, has found that the neurotransmitter dopamine is central to the human brain network governing motivation as well as reward and pleasure. Joseph Le Doux, in his book, Human Emotions: A Reader, describes new recent brain research that has shown that emotions are the driver for decision-making, which includes aspects of motivation. In summary, the implications for managers in organizations are significant. Leaders today must be not just cognizant of the latest research on motivation, but take action to make those organizational and relationship changes to take advantage of this research.

How to Motivate Staff

Edited by Morgan Barnhart, Lisa Brooks, Leena Kapoor, Imperatrix and 17 others Helping to motivate staff can be difficult at times, especially if the staff doesn't feel motivated any longer.

Steps
1. 1 Make sure you're setting a good example of productivity and cheerfulness. Don't let your own moods distract other employees from their work. 2. 2 Develop your listening skills. This means using active listening to its fullest potential, not just pretending interest. 3. 3 Be clear about the purpose of the job, and the big picture of the company's mission and goals. Foster pride in working at that company, whether it is designed to make the world's best sandwich or build the world's best bridge. Make sure everyone knows the big picture and where their department and individual jobs fit in. 4. 4 Don't let your personal likes and dislikes blind you to who is actually productive on the job. Be fair. 5. 5

6. Don't sweat the small stuff. If you have a good worker who is frequently 10 minutes late, let them know that you expect them to be on time, but don't belabor the point if their work is otherwise above average. Employees are human beings with strengths and weaknesses, not worker robots.

7. 6 Set goals and reward the staff when the goals are achieved. The reward can be as simple as a star on the calendar and a bigger reward at the end of the month if there are enough stars for each day. 8. 7 Be open, friendly, and professional with the staff, they're your hard workers and deserve to be treated with respect. 9. 8 Make it an atmosphere where doing a good job is recognized and appreciated. 10. 9

Encourage communication among people who have to work together. People may feel blocked in and unable to relate to coworkers when they're hidden in a cubicle. Ask the staff how they would like to see the workspace organized and set up opportunities for people to work collaboratively. 11. 10

If you have a problem employee, do not avoid the problem. Talk to that person and make sure they know what they're doing wrong, as well as what they're doing right. Make a plan and a time chart to correct problem behaviors. If the employee will not or cannot improve after several performance meetings, and it is in your power to do so, terminate their employment. It is very demoralizing to the

other staff members to have a fellow employee who isn't pulling their weight.

Tips

Think of ways to help people bond with each other and enjoy coming to work:
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Do something purposely silly, such as playing a kiddie accordion during lunch hour. Make it fun to come to work. Laugh at other people's jokes. Give the staff a break every once in a while. If there's something relaxing that people enjoy, rotate that "chore" around. For instance, if somebody needs to take the mail down to the mailbox, and several people like to get outside every once in a while, let various people do it. Have a staff party, play games and give out prizes. Relate the games to the job. You could do a pop quiz to see how many phone extensions people have memorized, or who can list the most company products that start with a certain letter. Make an idea/suggestion box, review it occasionally, and implement the good ideas. Take all suggestions seriously. Sometimes it's the unusual ideas that can revitalize a workplace. Recognize that most people work for their living, and that encouragement goes only so far before people want raises when they are consistently productive at their jobs. If you truly cannot give raises, give perks to deserving employees, such as a better workspace, more interesting projects, or the chance to meet people who can advance that employee's career.

What Motivates Employees

Money seems to motivate a majority of employees, but there are other ways employees find satisfaction in their jobs, according to a recent survey from CareerBuilder. The survey, which examined the responses of 2,600 hiring professionals and 4,000 employees, found that 55% of employees arent impressed by a fancy title, and salary matters more than a title for 88% of employees, so you can pretty much disregard titles as a way to motivate your employees unless you know theres one they really covet. But there are other ways of motivating your workers if you cant afford to pay them everything theyd like. Of those, quality of life and rewarding work seem to matter most. According to CareerBuilder, 59% of employees value a flexible schedule more than a title, and a third would rather telecommute. 48% would prefer to make a difference in their jobs, and 35% would rather have challenging work. 18% would value academic reimbursement more than a title, and 17% would prefer to have their own offices. So there are a number of ways you can reward employees that wont cost you a ton of money, and best of all, they also might make your small business a better place to work according to Dennis McCafferty at CIO Insight.

How Employee Recognition Programmes Improve Retention

According to Manfred Pfeil, who is a managing partner at Direct Search Consultancy Treasury Executives 53 GmbH, Hamburg, Strategic recognition of employee efforts not only drives their loyalty, but may also generate a positive impact on the financial development of the company. By using appropriate recognition methods, chief financial officers can enhance the performance of their employees permanently while also safeguarding the companys overall development.

Thinkstock, iStock
Our employees should be happy to have a job in our company. During strained economic times, many chief financial officers will agree with common sayings like this. However, such statements reveal that scores of managers in do not esteem their employees to be the companys most valuable resource. Such attitudes are apparent in incentives too: in finance, gratification usually comes in the form of an annual bonus. Employees receive an annual bonus if

result-oriented targets were met. Nonetheless, positive behavioural patterns are much less frequently commended. Yet positive attitudes and motivation amongst employees primarily affects the impressions of shareholders, customers and suppliers. Whether working as a treasurer, controller, purchaser or receptionist, each employee represents your company, even in their private lives. Weve all heard of well-intentioned but old-fashioned approaches many CFOs use to express recognition: usually a holiday dinner or an annual bonus payment, equally distributed to all employees in the department. Nevertheless, these activities dont actually correspond to tangible projects and miss out on having a personal, positive impact on employees. Your staff members expect continuous, real-time recognition and plausibly rendered feedback based on measurable performance figures. Such feedback is influenced by guiding their behaviour. If delivering a service constitutes one of your core company values, managers should not simply take note of the extra mile gone by an employee, but should explicitly esteem this performance as a positive example, making it clearly visible to other employees. Thus, strategic recognition helps employees to grow and motivates others to imitate such behaviour. The Watson Towers Talents Report from 2003 highlights that a 15% increase in employee engagement corresponds to a 2% gain in operating margin.

Employee retention: a cost-saving approach for chief financial officers

For CFOs, fostering a close relationship between employees and the company pays off. Companies with low employee retention rates suffer from much higher costs caused by a loss of know-how, recruiting efforts or absenteeism. These dwarf the relatively minimal expenses created by introducing a structured recognition programme. As a prerequisite to strategic recognition, the characteristics and relevance of company values and visions must be defined and linked with business objectives. Simultaneously, the market should be searched for employee recognition programmes, which allow

minimal-effort implementation and help to cut costs. Additionally, CFOs and other managers must participate in workshops that cultivate their own personal, positive attitudes towards company values. These further promote positive behaviour by setting standards for the workforce. Any employee recognition programme should allow for expressing recognition in increments. For example, recognition ranges from basic acknowledgement of expected behaviour to various highgrade ratings. Most importantly, CFOs should express appreciation on the spot and in public. Recognition may be given in monetary values or in scores. These can be collected on a personal employee account and later be exchanged for rewards at a time selected by the employee.

Avoid additional incentive programs

Upon introducing a strategic employee recognition programme, all other existing incentive schemes should be stopped. Additionally, annual performance bonuses awarded to managers should depend on results achieved through implementing and promoting the employee recognition programme in their respective areas of responsibility. There is generally no need for CFOs to worry about additional costs generated by the introduction of strategic employee recognition. Money that was once spent sporadically on incentives usually covers the majority of expenses required for an employee recognition programme. Best practice companies such as DOW, Symantec, GE, P&G and DHL already use strategic employee recognition. The tactic has shown how increased performance and motivation amongst employees results in the tangible, positive improvement of facts, figures and deliverables. Most importantly, however, they foster stronger customer relationships and employee retention.