What Makes People Tick - 10 motivation factors in the workplace

I started embarking on a series of threads on motivation [see MICE and Maslow's]; then somehow got diverted.
I recently went to a management seminar provided by the Ken Blanchard's Group and went through an interesting exercise that was based on research from Dr. Ken Kovach:
We (all managers in the group) were provided with a list of 10 potential motivation factors in our jobs. We were asked to rank them according to what our top motivators were for ourselves.
Those factors were:
1. Interesting work
2. Full appreciation of work done
3. Feeling of being "in" on things
4. Job security
5. Good wages
6. Promotion and growth
7. Good working conditions
8. Personal loyalty to employees
9. Tactful disciplining
10. Help with personal problems

Despite some individual differences, when averaged across the group, the overall ranking was roughly the one provided above.

The second part of the exercise consisted in ranking those factors not based on what motivates us, but based on what we feel motivates people on our teams.
Individual results varied even more greatly, but when aggregated, the ranking looked something like this:
1. Good wages
2. Job security
3. Promotion and growth
4. Good working conditions
5. Interesting work
6. Personal loyalty to employees
7. Tactful disciplining
8. Full appreciation of work done
9. Help with personal problems
10. Feeling of being "in" on things

The differences were therefore quite significant from our own scale of motivation factors.

The striking bit was that we were all wrong: according to Dr. Kovach's research, employees do in fact -on average- rank these factors along the same order as do their supervisors, which is the same order as the one we provided for ourselves - i.e.
1. Interesting work
2. Full appreciation of work done
3. Feeling of being "in" on things
etc...

According to his research, managers do also consistently perceive the motivation scale of their reports with a different ranking than theirs - along the same line as the one we came up with for our own reports.

[You can read some more on this at http://www.kenblanchard.com/ignite/ignite_volume11_2004.html - skip to the "Managers Don’t Know What Motivates Employees" section]

The first thing to note here is that most people are motivated by:
1. doing interesting stuff
2. feeling recognized and appreciated
3. making an impact
There are variations between individuals, but it's probably a good idea when thinking of people on your team, to look into what's in it for them in terms of doing interesting stuff, feeling recognized and appreciated, and making an impact.

What this also says is that:
a. Most managers have little or no clue about what motivates their people
b. Managers tend to interpret employee motivations around more material and concrete issues (money, security, and promotion)

One interpretation is that most of what managers hear about from their reports is indeed related to compensation and promotion - "I deserve a pay raise" and "I should get a promotion". When probing more closely with people, it becomes clear that the sense of challenge, learning, accomplishment, and recognition are most often more important - at least once the basics are covered (i.e. once people don't feel totally under-compensated).

All this calls for more frequent one-on-one discussions with individuals on the team, where topics should be around performance, quality of assignments, and general motivation.

What's also interesting is to look into the ranking of these motivation factors along the levels of the Maslow Pyramid of needs - to recall:
. Physiological needs - biological needs, e.g. eat and drink
. Safety - shelter and protection
. Belonging - the need to be part of a group
. Esteem - the need for status, respect, regard, and identity
.“Self-actualization” - need for greatness and accomplishment

Hopefully, physiological needs are not very present in workplace motivation factors - if they are in yours, you probably have a larger problem.
Safety do appear (as in job security and in part "good wages") - these become most prominent when they're not being properly fulfilled - i.e. the least I'm paid, and the less my job is secure, the more these factors become important to me.
Belonging is not very present in the proposed factors - I do believe that it's in fact a great motivator, especially in engineering groups where team dynamics are extremely important and can be a great way to have a great team stick together and deliver. This is one of the big aspect of what Joel Spolsky describes as his Identity Management Method: "In general, Identity Management requires you to create a cohesive, jelled team that feels like a family, so that people have a sense of loyalty and commitment to their coworkers."
Esteem plays a big part in the proposed factors - especially with "Full appreciation of work done" coming in second place.
Lastly, “Self-actualization” seems to play the biggest part with "Interesting work" coming first place and "Promotion and growth" coming in 6th.