All businesses need motivational messages to attract, retain, and motivate their personnel, e.g., welcome them aboard; instill that family feeling; let them know how important they are to you and your business; let them know, in a subtle way, what the expectations are; enable them to be "operationally excellent"; etc.

For example, the following  basic messages are written such that they could be incorporated into an "employee handbook" - or could also be stand-alone items easily adaptable to other forms of presentation:

The Welcome Message: This template is set-up to do so with a personal signature as a section in an employee handbook; easily adaptable to another mechanism.

The You are the "Company's" Most Valuable Asset Message: This template defines that employees are the company's most valuable asset, and is set-up to do so as a section in an employee handbook, easily adaptable to another form of presentation.

The Personal Integrity Message: Integrity begins with the judgments and decisions that each of us make as individuals. How do we define personal integrity? This template defines personal integrity and is set-up to do so as a section in an employee handbook, easily adaptable to another mechanism. It serves as a lead-in to further / additional topics that dwell on values, principles, ethics, behaviors, etc.

Some of the outcomes that can result from publishing Employee Motivational Messages are:

1]Greatly improved attitude
2]Greatly improved business focus
3]Greatly improved customer focus
4]Enhances the professional perception of your business
5]Fosters a team oriented environment
6]Enhances employee morale
7]Helps attract and retain the best people

Regards,

tesmian

Hi tesmian and members,

Though you've outlined the draft of motivational messages very precisely but it's sad to state that often these stuff is not given any mention. The employee manuals & handbooks may consist of several issues stating leaves, working specifics, performance mgmt details, succession plan etc but there is hardly any mention of motivational messages for the employees. I'm sure while reading these messages, atleast our present members shall give it a good thought, after all thats the only way to consider people as the assets of the company.

Cheers

Bindu

The motivation function is one of the most important, yet probably the least understood, aspects of the human resource management process because human behavior is complex and difficult to understand. Trying to figure out what motivates various employees has long been a concern of behavioral scientists which have always been at work.

Regards,

TRACY

Motivation and Talent

Hydrogen and oxygen are distinctly different elements, but sometimes they combine to form water. Something similar is true for motivation and talent.

Motivation is what we LIKE to do naturally. Talent is what we DO well naturally. They can exist independently, but when they combine, they create something special. They create motivated talents.

People often are naturally good at something (talented), but it just doesn’t turn them on. For example, Heather is good with numbers, but she doesn’t go out of her way to find tasks calling for that talent. Most people have such talents. But then there are those talents that we really enjoy using. These are the motivated talents, and this is where the magic is.

We use motivated talents every chance we get. Most of the time we don’t even think about it. For example, Larry has a motivated talent for conversation, and he naturally engages both friends and strangers in dialog. He doesn’t consciously determine to do so; it just happens. It’s natural and unforced. He enjoys it, and he’s good at it. That’s the hallmark of a motivated talent.

Motivated talents tend to be irrepressible. They find expression. In fact, if you’ve ever tried to stifle a motivated talent (either yours or someone else’s) it probably felt like you were trying to hold two dozen ping pong balls under water at the same time. Motivated talents pop out, even if no one else is asking for them. And doesn’t that make sense? After all, it’s what we do well AND enjoy.

Well then, wouldn’t the ideal job be one where you can use your motivated talents daily and get paid for it? Absolutely! 

What are your natural motivations? Shouldn’t your boss know? You can let him/her know by giving them a copy of you Personal Appraisal.

Human motivation is a complex subject and we need to clearly understand it within the organizational context in question.

In a general sense and putting aside the semantic issue you can measure the following in your Organzation to get an idea about level of motivation:

- Staff turnover
- Voluntary leavers
- Sickness
- Days lost to industrial action
- Number of grievances
- Number of disciplinary actions.

These six you could measure on a time series basis thus establishing an average and standard deviation. 

You can plot these against industry averages to see how you compare.

In either case you can develop an 'early warning system' (commonly the metaphor of green, yellow and red traffic lights are used) if any of your indicators are outside the control points.

In addition you can:
- Carry out staff opinion surveys
- Customer surveys of their satisfaction with staff (and there is a direct causal link between staff satisfaction and customer satisfaction).
- Focus groups
- Staff consultation groups
- Trade Union consultation (although a minority of Trade Union officials tend to be self-serving individuals just trying to achieve their own agenda).
- Stress audit results.

Prof.Lakshman Madurasinghe