People

Motivation is the will to work. This comes from the enjoyment of the work itself and/or from the desire to achieve certain goals e.g. earn more money or achieve promotion.

Managers spend considerable time working out how best to motivate their workers and there are a number of different opinions about how this can be best done.

A well-motivated workforce can provide the following advantages:

• Better productivity (amount produced per employee). This can lead to lower unit costs of production and so enable a firm to sell its product at a lower price
• Lower levels of absenteeism as the employees are content with their working lives
• Lower levels of staff turnover (the number of employees leaving the business). This can lead to lower training and recruitment costs
• Improved industrial relations with trade unions
• Contented workers give the firm a good reputation as an employer so making it easier to recruit the best workers
• Motivated employees are likely to improve product quality or the customer service associated with a product