Motivational Skills For The Workplace (With Examples)

Motivation is the reason for doing what you do. It is the driving force that causes you to begin and maintain a particular behavior. Knowing that, it should come to no surprise that motivation in the workplace is incredibly important. A motivated workforce is more productive and more satisfied, which creates a healthy environment for the employees and employer alike.

So, if you’re a job seeker looking to hone your motivational skills in order to advance your career, you’ve in luck. This article will cover everything you need to know about strong motivational skills in the workplace, as well as examples of how you can motivate yourself and others on the job.

Key Takeaways:

• There are two types of motivation, intrinsic, which is driven by internal factors, and extrinsic, which comes from external factors.

• Motivational skills include goal-setting, communication, and emotional intelligence.

• Motivation helps increase productivity, reduce turnover, and attract highly skilled talent.

• A leader in the workplace can choose from multiple motivation theories including Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory, Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene Theory, and Alderfer’s Existence, Relatedness, and Growth Theory.

Motivational skills

Motivational skills refer to your style of doing things that inspire a specific behavior in yourself and others. These abilities will determine your motivation towards accomplishing all that you are assigned to do.

A variety of motivational skills exist. You should include them in your resume to improve your chances of getting the job of your dreams.

Here are some of the skill sets you can highlight for hiring managers:

1. Goal-setting skills. Goal-setting is the art of achieving desired future results, often driven by intrinsic motivation. It starts with ideation – considering what and why you want something – followed by crafting goals and action plans.

   The nature of your goals influences your perseverance during challenges. Attainable, inspiring goals enhance commitment, lending purpose, direction, and measurability to your journey.

2. Communication skills. Effective communication skills involve clear information exchange to avoid confusion. Proficient communication ensures colleagues comprehend shared objectives, fueling their commitment and effort toward mutual goals. Clarity enhances their diligence.

   Adept communication involves attentive listening, fostering respect and a sense of ownership. This ownership boosts motivation. Further, communication fosters workplace rapport, reducing conflicts through understanding, fostering positivity, and sustaining motivation.

3. Leadership skills. Leadership skills include the ability to influence and guide individuals, teams, and even the entire organization.

   A good leader inspires self-motivation. You must find ways of pushing people to achieve great things even when there is no external reward for them. They should feel a strong sense of satisfaction about what they do.

   Leading by example is the best way to go about creating self-motivated individuals in the workplace.

4. Emotional intelligence skills. Emotional intelligence involves understanding and managing both personal and others’ emotions.

   Emotionally intelligent workers possess strong self-awareness, facilitating self-assessment of emotions and mental states. This skill prompts reflection on happiness, discouragement, and stress.

   These abilities aid in deep contemplation of aspirations and course corrections, vital when facing quitting-inducing challenges. Emotional intelligence enhances motivation, as it offers insights into others’ emotions, enabling understanding and effective encouragement for personal and organizational goals.

5. Problem-solving skills. If you are internally motivated, then the need to find the best solutions to your problems can be a reward on its own. Your drive to find efficient solutions can make you very persistent.

   There is a sense of satisfaction that comes from using logic, creativity, and critical thinking to solve organizational challenges. So, even when you experience failure, you will quickly dust yourself up and move forward.

   Your problem-solving skills can help you create innovative products that fulfill a customer need, find solutions to global problems, and improve processes to make companies more efficient. Ultimately, this can help you motivate yourself and others on your team to overcome challenges.

6. Collaborative skills. You need to work well with others to accomplish tasks and achieve goals.

   If you are not a good collaborator you may find it difficult to stay motivated. Others may also find it difficult to feel motivated especially if you take actions that make their lives harder when they work with you.

   You can improve your collaboration skills by becoming accountable. Take responsibility for your actions. That influences your behavior and drives you to perform well and complete your tasks. Also, learning to give credit to your teammates motivates them to work harder.

   Sharing feedback lets your team know where they went wrong so they can be inspired to do better. The desire to do excellent work will motivate them intrinsically.

7. Teaching skills. Can you help people acquire knowledge? Can you instruct and show them what to do so that they become competent?

   Sometimes people feel discouraged because they don’t know what to do. And when they ask for help, it’s not given to them. But if you can teach or train them, you will empower them to change their behavior. Their new abilities will motivate them to higher levels of productivity.

Why is motivation in the workplace important?

Motivation is important in the workplace for many reasons, as it drives productivity and goal achievement. Every organization needs motivated people. They need to have the right kind of motivator for every situation.

Below are some of the reasons why employees in every work environment need to be fully motivated:

• It increases employee productivity. Employee productivity refers to the output of individual employees over a specified period. For many organizations, the goal is to improve employee productivity.

  If you feel motivated, you tend to work harder and generate higher output. Overall, your organization will experience a better performance, which will translate to higher revenues.

• It reduces employee turnover. Employee turnover refers to the loss of talent within the organization. The more employees a company loses, the higher its employee turnover is.

  Employee turnover is costly. When an employee leaves, the company experiences a lower level of productivity and thus loses money. Additionally, it will lose money when advertising job vacancies and training replacements.

  A high level of employee motivation is essential to ensure that an organization retains its talent in the long run. It helps maintain employees’ interest in the work they do. And because they will enjoy working, they will stay on for a long time.

• It improves talent attraction rates. Talent attraction refers to an organization’s ability to convince people to work for them.

  The performance of a company greatly depends on the quality of its employees. So, an organization that struggles to attract great talent will experience lower productivity and revenues.

  Think about it. Would you be willing to apply for a job if someone tells you that the work is boring or pays a low salary?

  If you are intrinsically motivated, the thought of working in a boring job won’t appeal to you. And if you find extrinsic rewards such as money attractive, being paid peanuts will make you look for a job elsewhere.

• It creates a positive work culture. Work culture is the way people do things within an organization. It affects how employees relate to each other, their clients, and business partners. It also determines how well employees perform. They will become more productive, efficient, and innovative.

  A positive work culture makes life enjoyable for everyone. People will love going to work each workday rather than hurrying to leave their workplaces.

  If the work environment creates dissatisfaction, even those with an intrinsic desire to work hard will stray from the company eventually. There is only so much negativity human beings can take before they become unmotivated.

  So, if you want to enjoy a positive work culture, find work in an organization that motivates its employees.

How to choose motivational techniques

Motivational techniques are the stimuli that influence people’s behaviors in the workplace. Many factors affect how to choose motivational techniques. Below are some of these factors:

• The motivational theory a leader subscribes to. Leaders can determine the direction of a company based on their belief systems. The way they justify their beliefs and directions will influence the motivation of their employees.

  Different motivational theories exist. These include Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory, Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene Theory, and Alderfer’s Existence, Relatedness, and Growth Theory among others.

  Depending on what a leader believes in, he or she would make decisions on what incentives to provide the subordinate members of the organization.

• An organization’s resources. Resources refer to sources that an organization can use to derive a benefit. They include time, money, labor, and raw materials.

  The availability of resources will greatly influence the motivational technique that can be used to influence employee behavior. For example, you cannot offer a financial bonus when a company is making losses. The financial resource is not available.

• The nature of the people you want to motivate. People have different motives for doing things. What influences the behavior of one person may not have the same effect on someone else. The motivational technique that you use will depend on what drives the person you want to motivate.

Steps in the motivational process

Motivation is a process that can be broken down into steps. Remember that motivation varies on a case by case basis, so always adjust your process to the environment at hand.

1. Know who and why you are motivating. Before you begin to motivate, you need to assess your audience and purpose. Are you trying to motivate yourself or others? Are you in a leadership position or is this for your peers?

   The purpose of motivation can also take route in specifics. Perhaps there is a certain project that needs to get done. Alternatively, motivation can be used as a tool to improve general work conditions.

2. Choose motivational technique. As listed above, you can choose a motivational technique to guide your strategy. This is particularly helpful for those in leadership positions.

   Pick a theory that works for you and those who need motivating while understanding your resources and the nature of those who need motivating.

3. Communicate expectations, rewards, and consequences. Motivation relies on accountability. People are more motivated when they know that everyone is being held accountable. This includes leadership.

   To ensure accountability, clearly communicate your expectations and set up a system of rewards for success, and consequences for poor behavior.

4. Provide feedback. Motivation is a process, so you just can’t wait until the end to dish out rewards and consequences. Along the way make sure to observe what is going on and whether it meets expectations. Both positive and negative feedback may need to be provided depending on the nature of the situation.

   Either way, feedback should be used to guide a person to successful achieving the pre-determined goal. It helps to recognize good behavior and mitigate poor behavior. The sooner you provide this feedback, the better impact you will have down the line.

Motivational skills in the workplace examples

Below are examples of ways to motivate yourself or other people in the workplace:

Intrinsic Vs. Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation can either be intrinsic or extrinsic. The type of motivation experienced depends on where the driving force is coming from.

Intrinsic motivation is the type of motivation whose influence comes from within the person. It means that you do something for a sense of personal satisfaction as that is rewarding enough.

For example, you may enjoy helping others because it makes you happy. It can also be referred to as self-motivation.

On the other hand, extrinsic motivation depends on external factors. It means that you do something based on what you will receive out of it. In this case, you may work harder because you will receive an incentive such as an award, a bonus, attention, or a promotion.

This kind of motivation may also be influenced by the need to avoid a negative outcome, such as one that includes a punishment or physical pain.

Motivational skills FAQ

1. Is motivation a skill or quality?

   Motivation is both a developed skill and an inherent quality, dependent on perspective. In the case of jobs, having motivation as a skill or quality is useful. For example:

   As a skill, it grows through conscious effort and practice, employing techniques like goal-setting, positive self-talk, time management, and seeking inspiration.

   While, as a quality, it’s an innate disposition driving enthusiasm and goal pursuit. Both learned skills and inherent qualities play into motivation’s complexity, allowing for enhancement and personal growth.

2. How do I motivate myself at work?

   There are many ways you can motivate yourself at work and improve your motivational skills, from setting realistic goals to creating routines. Here are some of our top picks for self-motivation methods:

   • Stay healthy

   • Reward yourself

   • Use SMART goals

   • Build a sense of agency, competency, and belonging.

   • Get feedback

   • Use media that helps you focus.

Everyone has different techniques for motivation, however, these are some popular ones at work. It is important that you find a strategy that meets your professional needs.

Final thoughts

Motivation can be influenced by a change of mindset or by your external circumstances. But you need to understand what drives you or other people before you can motivate them.

Take time to acquire the motivational skills that you need to drive the change you want to see. And always include them in your resume.

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.