How Project Managers Motivate Their Employees (Research Paper Sample)

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Motivating Employees
Motivation can be described as the will power to do something with the aim of satisfying a certain need. Motivation is vital especially when one wants a job to get done. Without it, employment and projects would get done without a purpose and no direction. There are many ways through which project managers can motivate their teams (Schmid, & Adams, 2008).
One important way is flexibility. According to research, men consider it necessary to have job autonomy whereas women always aim at having a learning opportunity, good interpersonal workplace relationships, and convenient work hours. For a project manager to motivate a team successfully, he or she must consider the members of their teams, and what it would take to motivate each of them. Flexibility comes in place since each of the team members are different with different personal needs and goals. These people are also from different cultural and ethnical background, and these too are factors that need to be considered. If a project manager fails to be flexible, then they fail to be successful motivators.
Another important form of motivation is through incentives, both to an individual or to a team as a whole. Incentives come in many different forms. It could be a day off, pay for good performance or just competency-based compensation. Pay for performance incentives are given to the team players based on an excellent and measurable performance. Pay for performance incentives include wage incentives, lump sum bonuses, gainsharing, and piece rate plans. Competence-based compensation rewards employees by knowledge, skill, and possessed behaviors. Some of these skills include problem-solving, decision-making, and leadership.
The compensation is often based on the level that these competencies are. Some project managers make the mistake of giving rewards to non-performance factors. These factors may be seniority or the job title that a person holds. Regardless of whether incentives are given or not, the team or individuals may reduce the level of motivation by being dependent on incen...