What you’ll learn to do: explain the importance of employee motivation in an organization

Motivation is one of the most frequently researched topics in management. One reason for its popularity is that only about 33 percent of US employees are engaged and thriving in their work. Gallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost US businesses $483 billion to $605 billion each year in lost productivity.^[1]. Clearly, this suggests a problem. The good news is that a considerable amount of research now provides us with solid insights into how to improve motivation.

In this section, we will take a closer look at why motivation is so important in an organization, and we’ll talk about the two major types of motivation.