9 Ways Organisations Are Killing The Motivational Levels Of Employees

The pattern of working in most organisations have undergone a vast change in the last two decades. Companies are facing stiff rivalry in the market due to availability of better products and services and to fiercely compete with one another, they are adopting more modern work ethics and culture. Earlier, employees used to be treated as a family but now businesses are growing ambitiously and employees have become assets, who need to provide good returns to the company.

The behaviour with employees, style of working, methods of extracting work, etc have become very rigid nowadays. On the employee front, the main aim of the employee other than becoming financially secure is a steady career growth. For a bright future as a professional, employees tend to learn things from the working environment and they get motivated to perform with optimum efficacy. But the pressure from top bosses creates a hostile working ambience, owing to which the motivational levels of employees that trigger within themselves, starts diminishing. They, thereby have a reduced zeal towards work, which has a direct impact on the quality of work.

Here comes the challenge for the employers as they want their employees to work with a motivated attitude but there are some factors that forcefully intrude the optimum working conditions for the employees. The organisation comes up with ideas and opinions that they seem are in wake of the benefit of the company but they somehow have negative effect on the motivation levels of employees. If you want to be aware of the factors that are creating a retrogressive effect on the interpersonal relationship of the organisation and its employees, you must understand how in these 9 ways organisations are killing the motivational levels of employees:-

1. Focusing On Mistakes & Errors While Forgoing Great Performance

This is one of the major problems with almost every employer these days that instead of applauding the employees for great performance, their flaws and mistakes are highlighted. This is common scenario at the appraisal and promotion meetings. Managers must be able to provide a balanced feedback comprising of an employee’s performance ranking and number of mistakes. But mistakes are being so much discussed that an employee can feel highly demotivated and may even lose confidence. This approach will in fact, cause loss of interest in work and employees will then commit more errors.

2. Keeping A Continuous Track On Employees

This happens when employers tend to behave like guardians of their employees. They behave with their employees as if they are not matured enough to handle their key responsibility areas and are not capable of accomplishing their tasks independently. In this process, they start keeping track of every small activity of their employees and thereby ruining their zeal to perform creatively.

3. Announcing New Policies Due To An Objectionable Act Of Few

Companies design policies and rules to regulate its employees’ behaviour towards each other and towards their work and to create a uniform code of conduct for everyone. But some organizations tend to bring up new policies and regulations frequently as soon as they face a difficult dispute with few employees. By announcing new policies and procedures instead of taking strict action against the few people, employers burden all the other employees with increased responsibility and rigid working environment.

4. Not Letting Employees To Access Their Rights

Every employee gets into an organisation with the hope that he/ she will commit themselves completely to their work by effectively utilising their rights and performing their duties with high efficacy. Even employers fill them with motivational speeches citing their rights and how they will be exercising them. But when it comes to action, their rights are seized and the decision making power comes under direct control of their bosses. This is where employees start feeling that their position is useless as they have no authority over decision making at any level.

5. Not Recognising Ideas & Opinions Of Employees

This is yet another factor that kills the motivation of employees by making them feel worthless. Employers must understand the importance of brainstorming with employees and must actually motivate employees to give creative solutions to tackle day to day business issues. But dominating your employees and disregarding their valuable suggestions for enforcing your ideas are a perfect example for ensuring an unhealthy working environment.

6. Taking Decisions In Favour Of Favourite Employees

Favouritism is one of the major mistakes of managers or team leaders that can bring down the morale of employees. Rules, goals and maintaining work ethics should be common for all employees and any inequality between employees such as giving leniency to some employees and bring strict with others will create a feeling of bias among employees. Not only the employees will have a disrespect for their team leader or manager but they will also have poor rapport with those favoured employees.

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7. Make Employees Responsible For Areas Not Under Their Control

In most organisations, it is common to see employees being reviewed and questioned about responsibilities which are not a part of their key responsibility areas. For example, if the production manager is questioned about why the material was not procured on time, then though he shares minor responsibility to ensure that the production goes seamlessly, he is actually not the person liable completely for tracking with the suppliers. In such cases, the performance review also takes notice of such inefficiencies and consequences are often borne by more than one employee.

8. Sharing Confidential Employee Details To Other Employees

Trust is the basic factor that helps in maintaining good interpersonal relationships between the manager and the employees. Employees feel highly motivated when their managers maintain the trust level. But if the trust is violated even once, then the employee will hardly find it possible to trust his manager again. If at all a manager wants to share a confidential information about an employee, he must first ask for his permission citing a valid reason. If the manager share an employee’s opinions, personal thoughts or any other confidential information without permission, then he will not only lose the trust of the employee whose information has been shared but the person on the receiving end will also feel that the manager is not trustworthy.

9. Setting Impossible Goals & Then Making Employees Responsible For Losses

In many organisations where their is improper decentralisation of authority, it is common to see the flow of determined goals passing onto the lower levels from the top bosses. But in practical terms, such flow of goals are effective, when the goal setters are in direct contact with the goal accomplishers so that they communicate well about the feasibility and employees can give their valuable feedback. With lack of communication and feedback, it is impossible for workers to realise goals that are unattainable and they feel demotivated as they are unable to give their feedback and they are aware that non-accomplishment will result in penalties.