Motivational Strategies in Business

Employees are motivated by success when that success translates into material reward for them, according to online business resource Entrepreneur.com. By the same token, employees are motivated not to fail if they feel that failure takes anything away from their success. A good example of this is the concept of a quarterly sales bonus. If the sales bonus is $1,000, then the sales associates that generate 100 percent of their goal get the full bonus. Motivation comes into play when there is an additional bonus paid for performance over 100 percent. For example, if a sales associate reaches 120 percent of her goal then she would get a $1,500 bonus instead of just $1,000. On the other hand, if an employee only makes 80 percent of her quota then she gets no bonus at all. Since there is a significant positive reward, then the negative punishment is seen as acceptable and the whole positive and negative reinforcement strategy offers significant motivation.