Money is No. 8!(employee relations techniques) (Brief Article) (Column)

• Author: WIESNER, PAT

SOMETIMES WE DON'T GET IT RIGHT WHEN WE TRY TO MOTIVATE PEOPLE

THE LAST TWO YEARS OF HIGH SCHOOL AND all through college, I worked in home construction in the town where I grew up. A friend of mine had a job as a carpenter's assistant and helped me get a job as a laborer. The first year I carried lumber, the second they gave me a hammer and nails, and I learned to be a pretty good hand and earned a lot more per hour than most of the other kids my age.

We worked for a builder named Fred Ingalls. Fred had a way of making work fun. For example, he would typically come to the job site after lunch, when my buddy and I were doing something like putting siding on a new house. Fred would start talking about some guys who used to work for him who were really good at siding, and the conversation would end with something like, "I'll bet that you guys can't finish the front of this house by 4 o'clock!" We would declare loudly that we were the best siding putter-on-ers he ever saw. We would take the bet. The stakes? A milkshake!

So two young kids, working by the hour, would proceed to do a day's work in two hours for a milkshake, because the milkshake came with lots of recognition and approval. We knew that Fred believed we were very good at our jobs, and that he would brag about us around the construction community. It was worth it.

Not long ago, I heard a presentation by Kraig Kramers, a management consultant, about a study that showed that when it comes to motivators, money was ranked eighth! So, what were one and two?

RECOGNITION and GROWTH POTENTIAL.

We live in a world that seems to regard money over everything else. "Show me the money!" easily leaps off the silver screen into our management mode of operation. We often make the mistake of thinking that money is everything. It's not. It's not even close -- it's eighth. We won't get much done without money, but it is so much better if it comes wrapped with other things.

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