The answer is not simple. The answer is "sometimes" depending upon the circumstances.
The only people I have heard who say that money is not a motivator are people who have plenty of money.
Show me an individual who is having trouble feeding his family and putting a roof over their heads and I will bet he will say that money is a motivator for him.
Do bonuses motivate? Yes, for a while but within months the employee usually goes back to business as usual. If he was a self motivator before he will be that again. If he wasted a lot of time and did not work hard he will revert to that behavior also.
Do raises motivate? Yes, for a while.
Do promotions motivate? Yes but there are other factors here - new responsibilities, a different and perhaps more challenging assignment. The other factors may actually be more motivating than the additional money involved.
Will potential employees take any job if the money is enough? Some will.
Are there jobs I would not take no matter how much money someone offered me? Absolutely.
Certainly, Money is a Factor But There Are Other Important Factors to Be Considered
For example:
• the working conditions,
• how one is treated on the job,
• how interesting is the job
• how dull or repetitious is the job
• how dangerous is the job, etc.
Can You Motivate Employees Without Money Being Involved?
Yes, you can.
A highly desirable job can provide good employee motivation. Generally, being an elected local official in the USA does not pay very well. Some people take these jobs for the recognition and power. Some seek these jobs because they want to serve. Other jobs can be motivating for different reasons. Frequently, those jobs include a lot of job satisfaction.
Teachers - someone who has spent their life wanting to teach others will accept a teaching position when they could easily make more money doing other work. Teachers willingly put in many extra hours evenings and weekends grading papers and preparing lessons without worrying about the actual pay per hour for all of this extra work because they like to teach.
Other service oriented work are nursing, social work, fire fighting and police work. People are certainly not taking those positions for the pay but usually because they have a desire to help and/or serve others.
These are jobs that provide good job satisfaction which helps to offset the less than desirable pay. People engage themselves in jobs they like so there can be high employee engagement in these types of jobs.
Author Resource:
Lois Moncrief is the author of this article on Employee Motivation .
Find more information about Employee Productivity here.
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