What motivates your employees to come to work? To apply their talents to their jobs? To do better? To achieve more?

I can easily tell you what doesn't motivate. The latest workplace jargon. The popular psycho-babble buzzwords. Last year I wrote about "spirituality" at work. Spirituality. That word is fluffy enough. But just yesterday I received a flyer inviting me to a conference on business and consciousness. What? Consciousness? The flyer reads, "We believe consciousness is needed in the workplace." I should hope so. It helps if our employees are conscious. Especially to avoid workers comp claims.

How fed up are your employees with guru-inspired changes and paradigm shifts? Plenty. Why do we need, let alone use, words like paradigm? How fed up are your employees? Check out the game Buzzword Bingo on the web at www.buzzword bingo.com and similar sites. You can download or design your own Buzzword Bingo cards, with words and phrases in place of numbers. Words and phrases like time frame, skill set, leverage, paradigm shift, core competency, guesstimate, feedback. I'd add, at-this-point-in-time. Object of the game: As in bingo, the player checks off words and phrases as they are used by the boss and co-workers.

So, the first way to motivate employees is to keep consciousness, paradigm shifts and other jargon out of your workplace. Speak and write memos to your employees in plain, straight-forward English (or other language when you need to).

What else to do? Define exactly what it is you want to motivate your employees to do. Or what behavior you want to stop.

Last week an employer in New York City called and wanted some guidance on how to cut down on absenteeism. Very bad absenteeism, and poor performance when the employees do show up for work. As I was giving him some suggestions, he stopped me and said my ideas wouldn't work because these were contract employees. Employees coming from contracting agencies. So I said, "You're starting at the wrong end. You don't try to motivate the slough-off employees. You need to motivate the contracting agencies to send you motivated employees and to agree to imposing negative consequences on employees who screw up.

Next, consider carefully what you can use or do to motivate.

There are internal and external motivators or rewards. An internal motivator is something inside the employee that causes them to want to do better or causes them to want to continue working. An external motivator comes from outside the employee.

Examples: Work that matches what an employee most wants to do (a woman wanting to spend time with animals working as a veterinarian) is an internal motivator. Work that helps an employee achieve a career goal is an internal motivator. Giving an employee a bonus or a plaque is an external motivator.

External motivators are weaker, less effective, than internal motivators.

Money in the form of raises and bonuses is usually not a very good motivator. The more money a person is making (generally) the less will raises and bonuses motivate. Obviously there are exceptions. Money motivates low-paid workers more than it does highly paid workers. And money often is a motivator for outside sales people. Money, basically, is the way we keep score in the work or career game. People want money to satisfy their basic needs...and then they want more of it as a way of keeping score. As a way of measuring how much they are being appreciated...compared to others in the workplace or compared to friends. So it is a weak, and not a lasting, motivator.

What you want to do is create a work environment and culture that increases opportunities for internal motivation. Plus a work environment and culture that includes sufficient external motivators to satisfy employees' basic needs and their need to keep score.

So, what kind of work environment and culture?

Employees want to believe that their views and opinions count, that management listens to them. They want opportunities for personal and career growth. They want opportunities to do what they do best. They want work that matches their behavior style. (Example: a talkative extrovert wants outside sales work or public relations work, not production line work). They want appreciation from management when they do well.

What can you do to have this kind of work environment and culture? Some examples. You could have one of, or a combination of, the following: Open book management, Kaizen (continuous improvement), activity-based management (ABM) and activity-based costing (ABC), and a pay and reward system based on the gains you want (gainsharing). [I'm right on the edge of jargon here. If you've got less-buzzy-sounding words to use in place of continuous improvement and gainsharing, let me know.]

How might all this work together to create a workplace where employees (1) feel challenged to do their very best (the internal reward) and (2) know they will get rewarded with some kind of share of the gain (the external reward) for meeting the challenge?

You could use open book management, Kaizen, ABM (one or a combination) to set your gainsharing goals. One or more of these approaches would set the short-term and long-term goals that employees, teams, and the business or organization will gain. Then you tie pay and rewards to the gains made.