By: Fatima Amr

During the past months, I’ve noticed a lack of enthusiasm among the workers I supervise. They all seem lackluster and languid. In order to motivate them, I’ve come up with a set of goals and arranged a plan which will hopefully stimulate my fellow subordinates. One of the first approaches to employee motivation was Frederick Taylor’s scientific management. Taylor believed that employees work only for money and that they must be closely supervised and managed. Frederick Herzberg found that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are influenced by two different sets of factors. Hygiene factors, including pay and working conditions, affect an employee’s degree of dissatisfaction but do not affect satisfaction. Motivation factors including the tasks recognition and responsibility that are derived from the tasks, affect an employee’s degree of satisfaction but do not affect the degree of satisfaction. Several techniques like job enrichment and modified workweeks helped me boost employee motivation. Job enrichment is an attempt to provide workers with variety in their tasks, and it accords them some responsibility for and control over their jobs. Compressed workweek, the flexible workweek, job sharing and working at home were described as alternatives to traditional work schedules. My first goal was turning these unmotivated employees from workers who couldn’t wait until 5 PM on Friday into works who look forward to 8 AM on Monday. After some serious research I came up with a simple answer “HUMOR”. It’s been proved that laughter improves morale, alleviates stress, diffuses conflicts, builds team spirit and increases productivity. For example, I’ve decided to throw a success party after a demanding period. When goals are achieved, I will through Christmas and New Year’s parties. The purpose of my goals is to show workers that a job is not necessarily a salary but a friendly environment where we all should feel comfortable, at ease and happy being there.