Think back to your first day on the job. If you’re like most people, you felt excited and were eager to get down to work. But, based on the results of field research I recently conducted, I am willing to guess that just a few months later that excitement dissipated and you began to feel dissatisfaction, even boredom, with some aspects of your job. You’ve probably witnessed a similar trend among the employees you’ve hired and managed as well.
Key Takeaways:
- Hundreds of studies in management and psychology have examined how organizations can increase worker motivation. Most theories, grounded in the job design literature, argue for redesigning or recrafting jobs — for example, by adding variety or increasing autonomy to people’s work.
- More recent research points to another key factor in increasing worker motivation: leveraging the social aspect of work. In particular, interactions with the beneficiaries of one’s work can be highly motivating because they heighten workers’ perceptions of the impact of their work.
- Both at work and away from work, all of us seek to fulfill a fundamental human need to belong. In our studies, positive words from internal beneficiaries of employees’ work — their colleagues — served as an important source of motivation by strengthening the workers’ sense of belongingness.
“In particular, interactions with the beneficiaries of one’s work can be highly motivating because they heighten workers’ perceptions of the impact of their work.”
