Morale is Not Necessarily the Road to Improved Productivity

Employee performance a more complex issue than merely relying on recognition and rewards, says Impact Achievement Group

SEATTLE – October 23, 2007 – Motivating employees has always been a high level concern for managers. As such, recognition and rewards often takes on mythical status in value for managers to improve employee productivity and increase retention. A U.S. Department of Labor study indicates 64 percent of working Americans quit their jobs because they feel unappreciated, and Gallup ® research estimates that seven-tenths of Americans complain about no recognition or praise at work.

Yet Rick Tate, senior managing partner for Impact Achievement Group Inc., a leading performance management and leadership development firm, cautions that (1) managers often take a leap of logic that more recognition and rewards will improve productivity and increase retention and (2) managers make profound mistakes in how they approach employee motivation by taking the easy route through extrinsic reward and recognition programs.

Research indicates that there are many more factors to consider regarding employee motivation, which when missing, erode the impact of recognition and rewards. In their book, "People Leave Managers, Not Organizations" Tate and Dr. Julie White expose many motivational myths and ineffective morale boosting methods traditionally thought to improve employee performance.

Impact Achievement Group has made Chapter 2, titled "Motivation at Work", available as a free download.

The authors state that the motivation to perform comes from a work environment which allows employees to be productive, to achieve, and to participate in a meaningful manner. Citing recent groundbreaking research by Gallup and seminal work by other renowned experts, the authors provide managers and supervisors with more effective options for motivating excellent performance than typically seen in the workplace. Tate and White explore the question, "Are happy employees productive employees, or are productive employees happy employees?

"Without a shared philosophy and framework for performance expectations, standards, accountability and meaningful participation, common tactics to motivate and recognize employees result in a very low return on investment—even a negative return," said Tate. "All too often the effort to motivate and inspire is merely a disguised attempt at bribery—and employees can always tell the difference. Recognition must be viewed as ‘no strings attached’."

Dr White, senior managing partner at Impact Achievement Group added, "True appreciation for employees is demonstrated when they have a work environment which values their contribution, where they can do their best work, where co-workers are committed to quality work, and where they can achieve, learn, and grow. Without these intrinsic motivators in place, recognition programs and perks such as company parties have very little meaning.

About Impact Achievement Group

Impact Achievement Group provides assessment, coaching, customer loyalty and leadership development training that focuses on employee selection, retention, employee engagement and customer engagement. By integrating and blending the world's best assessment and recruiting processes, workshops and eLearning training, coaching and measurement programs, Impact Achievement Group helps organizations improve human performance to achieve bottom line results.