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office politics

Personally, I would rather work in an environment where there are no politics, employers are honest with their employees and have nothing to hide, and are committed to the overall productivity of the firm. Here is a list of items that are considered to be detrimental to employee motivation:

• Create an atmosphere full of company politics.
• Develop unclear expectations regarding your employees' performance.
• Create a lot of unnecessary rules for employees to follow.
• Plan unproductive meetings for employees to attend.
• Promote internal competition between employees.
• Withhold information critical for employees to perform their work.
• Provide criticism instead of constructive feedback.
• Tolerate poor performance so your high performing employees feel taken advantage of.
• Treat employees unfairly.
• Underutilize the capability of your employees.

While some of those are worse than others, they will vary across companies and individuals. Any company that actually makes an effort to rid themselves of these annoyances is on the right track. It just goes to show that it does not take a lot of money to tap into an employee's natural ability. Here are some active measures companies can take to motivate:

• If your employees do routine work, add some fun and variety to their routine.
• Provide employees with input and choice in how they do their work.
• Encourage responsibility and leadership opportunities within your company.
• Promote social interaction and teamwork between employees.
• Tolerate learning errors by avoiding harsh criticism.
• Promote job ownership.
• Develop goals and challenges for all employees.
• Provide lots of encouragement.
• Make appreciation part of your repertoire.
• Develop measurement that shows performance increase.

the speed of business

With the rapidly changing competitive environment, key employees are becoming younger and with a variety of skills and accomplishments. This means that if they are unhappy with heir work environment, they are more than willing to move on. For employers, the speed of business is such that employees that join their company learn so much and become so valuable that employers need to do whatever it takes to keep them content.

If there is one thing you should take away from this article, it is the fact that you need to be happy at work. If you are dissatisfied, then you are of no use to your job, and it is of no use to you. Always make sure your needs and desires are met, and when they are, you will find your work to be rewarding and fulfilling.