Motivation: an often-overlooked word in the workplace.

I know it has been a long time since I have written in this blog and I must apologise. I decided to take a break. I am now back from that hiatus. Honestly, I haven’t been buying makeup and have been sticking to those brands that I know work well for me. Also doesn’t help that I have been doing all that adult stuff and I have been on a tight budget!

I have also been breaking away from makeup and started to get back into nailart (see @kbeautynail to see what I have been up to). 

Anyway; back on topic. I made an executive decision to not only write about makeup but to broaden my horizons; baking adventures, nail arts and my contemplation of life and of course I will continue to write reviews. 

Due to the break, I also realised a key factor that was missing from my life: motivation.

Motivation is defined as “a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way”. It is a “desire or willingness to do something; enthusiasm” (I honestly just googled that).

Is it just me or is society lacking motivation, particularly at work? It feels like every day, I wake up feeling energized but when the time comes to get ready and head to work, the energy is drained a bit. Stepping foot into the building and it feels like the energy is just stripped. 

Why is that? I asked myself that question every single day. Digging deep and stripping bare my feelings, I have to say I honestly like my job (love is a strong word remember!). I find it a great challenge and I am continually learning every day. However, what is making me dread work? It isn’t my colleagues? No, they are pretty awesome but they are also feeling the same about work. What could it be that is affecting everyone? What could compel someone who like their job but don’t want to come to work?

Motivation? Misunderstandings? Pressure? Management?

There is a lot of factors however the one I want to concentrate on is motivation. I feel like it is the underlying factor; the one that is a root cause.

Motivation is what is missing. Now, why is motivation missing? There is an onus to be self-motivating at work, show initiative, meet targets, achieve more in the same amount of time etc. But what happens when you as a worker for a corporation, have reached your limit? In society, we have been taught, if you have been beaten down, to dust yourself off and try again. So naturally, at work, if we have been beaten down, we dust ourselves off and continue working, but this time trying harder to achieve outcomes. 

There is one major difference between society and the workplace. The world beats us down, we don’t have an exact hold on it. However, in the workplace, there is management. 

The dreaded big M word. Management. Management CAN do something. 

I see so many times, work pressures are passed down. I would be lying if it wasn’t understandable. Staff on the bottom of the hierarchy are pushed to reach targets and work a certain way by our superiors. Our superiors are being pushed by their superiors and so on and so on. However, shouldn’t the buck stop somewhere and performance requirements be filtered? Instead of passing on the pressure, where in the hierarchy should pressures be filtered and help build staff up to achieve the performance outcomes and not putting them down? As you know, staff with continued hostile environments will slowly lose motivation, be less inclined to show initiative and only put the bare minimum effort in to “fly under the radar”.

I must stress, by no means and I an expert on this topic. I just wanted to send this post out to the cosmos.

I am a firm believer that Management are meant to be leaders and not bosses. Management should be building and promoting staff, not putting the down. Management should induce encouragement and feeling of unity. Management should embody growth and development. Not only this, I also believe Management should be able to discipline trouble staff. I have seen Management who are not been given the support from their company when required when it comes to trouble staff. It creates an atmosphere that there is no consequence for wrong-doing. When I write wrong-doing I mean not following protocols such as methods which affects quality work for an example. 

I may have gotten a little side-tracked there. However, it does still come back to motivation. If people are not motivated, then the toxic environment will not go away.

Again, I have to stress, I am not an expert on this topic. Just writing my “musings” about how motivation seems to be lost in the workplace (see what I did there? ;)

What are your thoughts about motivation?

Until next time!

Stay beautiful, be you xoxo.