... demotivation is always the expression of an unsatisfied need.
Motivation destroyers are easy to identify: they are actions, reactions, messages and words that tend to weaken or destroy needs that are intensely felt by employees.
Here are the main ones:
Impairment of safety
Rumors of relocation, mergers and acquisitions, changes in management, relocation or reorganization, as well as audits by strategy firms, introduce a strong sense of insecurity that weighs heavily on employees.
The unknown is anxiety-provoking, and everyone lives with the spectre of having their job eliminated or redefined. Minds are haunted by multiple, generally unanswered questions, right up to the final denouement.
Teams become demobilized while waiting for the verdict, and when it comes, even if the outcome is favorable to the employee, he or she retains a mark on them, and their sense of belonging is deeply damaged. Added to this is a heavy sense of guilt: "The ball and chain didn't go far. Colleagues fell. I was lucky. Next time, it could well be my turn".
Impairment of the need for recognition
It's the number-one complaint in the list of demotivating factors. There are managers who don't say hello, others who never thank or congratulate, and still others who don't give feedback to their staff, except to criticise them. The need for recognition of millions of employees is thus regularly ignored.
What can we say, then, when the manager humiliates, harasses, mistreats, assaults and belittles his colleagues? Their self-esteem is seriously damaged. Motivation plummets, and with it productivity, creativity and commitment. And yet, all the managers who attend our training courses are convinced that they are delivering the recognition they need, and that this grievance has nothing to do with them. When we share with them, sometimes in private, the comments of their colleagues - without mentioning any names - it's often a shock for them to measure the gap between the image they think they project and the one they actually send back to their contacts.
Impairment of comfort
Failure to satisfy the need for comfort is the ultimate demotivating factor (cf. Herzberg and hygiene factors). When the conditions under which an employee performs his or her job do not - in the employee's opinion - allow him or her to work in the best possible conditions, motivation is gradually undermined. The need for comfort is undermined, either because employees feel they are under-utilizing their abilities due to an environment that doesn't allow them to express their full potential, or because management doesn't care about their well-being and therefore doesn't respect them.
Environmental parasites include those related to :
- external environment: office or factory far from home, industrial zone without soul;
- indoor environment: cold, dilapidated building, bare walls;
- amenities: no company restaurant, no public transport;
- working conditions: noisy workstations, poor lighting, no air-conditioning or heating;
- work tools: outdated equipment, obsolete computers, overly complex software;
- assistance: lack of training, support staff, help desk.
Impaired need to belong
Very similar to the need for recognition, the need to belong is undermined when employees no longer feel connected to their professional community, for example if they find themselves left out of a decision that concerns them, not invited to a meeting or "put on the back burner".
Just look at the tension in society when a political decision seems to "fall" from on high, without consulting the people concerned or the trade unions that are supposed to represent the grassroots. The same causes always produce the same effects.
Quite often, it's not so much the decision itself that gives cause for complaint as the conditions that led to its announcement. The absence of consultation and the fact of not being involved in a decision that concerns us are always a source of demotivation, because they flout our need to belong and, by the same token, our need for recognition.
Attacks on the need for self-development and fulfillment
The vast majority of jobs are exposed to this "mortal" risk: boredom. Including prestigious positions, as this airline pilot can testify: "People think our job is exciting, when in fact it's boring, repetitive and terribly dull in the long run. Especially on long-haul routes. Fortunately, I'm passionate about the stock market. It's become my primary activity, because I spend most of my time researching, even in the cockpit" (Henri Vandermeulen - Long-haul airline pilot).
The spectacular discoveries of neuroscience in recent years have identified the brain structures involved in the need for discovery and novelty. We can all see this for ourselves: any activity, professional or otherwise, that used to fascinate us ends up no longer doing so, because we've already mastered it. Interest wanes, habit sets in and, gradually, weariness. One day, we give up.
In large companies, the most efficient human resources departments are careful not to leave employees in the same job for too long. They are therefore assigned to other tasks, or offered training or given different assignments. Newly acquired skills and new challenges thus revive interest in the job.
Unfortunately, many companies, especially smaller ones, do not always have new opportunities to offer, or even the possibility of enriching their employees' tasks. The only thing left for them to do is to create a working environment that is as pleasant as possible, if not the least restrictive, so as to avoid demotivation among employees and, with it, a procession of disputes: conflicts, work stoppages, staff to be trained as replacements, etc.
When a job has no creative, artisanal or intellectual function, motivation is impossible. There's no chance of a worker forgetting fatigue, hunger and thirst, like Marie Curie, and asking to continue working beyond her normal working hours.
Source: Extract from " The Art of Motivation " - Michaël AGUILAR - DUNOD - 2009