When it Comes to Employee Motivation, Here’s What Matters Most [Study]

What motivates you? How do you motivate others? When you're looking to drive great performance, or keep your high performers happy, what actions do you take? In this article, I review a survey about motivation that I participated in online and share some other things with you that I thought about along the way. Afterward, please share what you think and let me know if you agree!

Recently there was an interesting survey on LinkedIn. Someone asked the online community, “What keeps an employee motivated?” There were over 3800 responses; people were obviously passionate about telling the world what motivated them.

The survey's answer options were:

1: Support from top management

2: Recognition at work

3: Job security

4: Good Salary

5: Inspiration

Click here to see the full results and details of participants.

How would you have responded? Would you have chosen money or security? According to these results, recognition won by a healthy margin, getting 46% of the vote! The next closest, at 20%, was support from management. Is that what you would have expected? I can't say that I saw these results coming.

Now, here at the end of 2012, after having been in one of the worst economies in our nation's history for 4 years, I'm very surprised to see that “job security” (4%) was the least motivating factor. Having been laid off myself, and with one in every ten people in America currently unemployed, this piqued my interest. What I find even more interesting is the most popular choice, “recognition at work.” According to this survey, people are more motivated by being recognized and praised than by keeping their job.

People find more motivation in recognition than in making more money,  than in being inspired, more than in support by top management or even by having job security.

Knowing that, let me ask you a question. If you're trying to motivate the members of your team, your students, your kids or your friends to do something, does this study and its findings apply to you? If so, how?

“But recognition is expensive!” You might say.

Well, not necessarily. While some recognition for motivation could include trips and gift cards, let me give you an example of one of the easiest and lowest cost ways of giving recognition and driving a significant amount of motivation.

Every year there is a tournament. The best golfers in the world go out Augusta, Georgia. They compete for multiple days, fighting head to head to be known as the best. While there is a financial “purse” to be won, everyone knows the true prize… the famous Green Jacket. This $400 sports coat in “Masters Green”, much like a bowl ring or championship trophy, symbolizes an elite club of Masters Champions. While the prize money is $8 million dollars, I'd be willing to bet that the winner is as equally proud of their new, $400, Green Jacket.

Below is one of my favorite videos on motivation. Daniel Pink, in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, says that money and money alone, is rarely a great motivator. Pink suggests that companies and employers should “pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table” and then you'd get the best out of them.

An interesting concept on how proper motivation could work for  people. I highly recommend spending 11 minutes to watch this video! Scroll to the bottom afterward for some final words.

So, tell me. What do you think? Where do you find motivation? For me, I like facing and conquering a challenge. I like becoming an expert on things. I enjoy mastering fun activities and sharing what I've learned.

Share with me, and our other reader, what it is that motivates you!