Motivaing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Motivaing - Essay Example This means that most furniture is not assembled by IKEA and the customer goes home to assemble it for themselves. There is a certain fulfillment in taking part in the creation of something. IKEA’s goal to mobilize customers â€Å"to do easily certain things they have never done before. Put another way, IKEA invents value by enabling customers’ own value-creating activities† (Normann & Ramirez, 1993). The appeal of â€Å"do-it-yourself† furniture has attracted troops of customers to IKEA, in all their branches the world over, necessitating the employment of highly skilled workers to meet their needs. These workers need to be trained to meet customers in accordance to IKEA’s values and with the competence expected of the company. Training people involves motivating them to perform at their best. How does IKEA do that? Alexander Kjerulf (n.d.) relates how in 2004, IKEA in Denmark took the initiative to give their entire checkout staff a 25% raise. IKEA has more of them than any other group and it meant a sizeable increase in total monthly overhead expenses. However, it was a business decision that made the checkout staff happy, and happy employees create results such as the following: (Kjerulf, n.d.) Although IKEA incurred a humongous expense with the implementation of the raise, it paid itself within six months. Analyzing why this worked for IKEA, Kjerulf gives three reasons. The first is that the raise obviously gave the staff a significant improvement in their standard of living. The recipients were the least paid in the company, so a 25% raise made a huge difference in terms of their quality of life. Secondly, the salary increase gave people recognition. IKEA acknowledged that they were the most important group of employees since they are the only employees customers are likely to talk to at the end of the sale because customers help themselves with the products anyway. This