How do you motivate employees

How do you motivate a minimum wage employee today?

They barely show up to work. They're lazy. And when they do show up, they spend half the day on their phones. 

I'm tired of today's kids. We're in trouble as a society.

You either have a problem with your hiring process or your management process. 

There's never been a time in history where kids were respected. 

They are always going to do things differently from their parents and because of it, they will be seen as wrongly done.

You either hired a poor fit for your company or you treated the right person poorly and demotivated them.

You don't understand. Kids will quit on the spot. They don't care. They will leave you for 25 cents more somewhere else.

Let's do the math. 25 cents over a year is roughly $500 before taxes, if the job is fulltime. After taxes, the pay raise is closer to $350. Understanding the fear of the unknown, very few people make a change to an unknown company for very little increase in pay.

They leave for some other reason. They don't like the management style. There's someone in the organization who's pushed them to leave. They don't like the hours. They don't like the job.

They may leave for a better paying job if they don't feel fairly paid. But it won't be for 25 cents. 

Back to my question. How do you motivate them?

It starts with belief. You can't motivate someone who doesn't want to be motivated. You have to find people who believe in the same things the organization believes in. When you get a group of people believing in the same things, greatness can be achieved. Groups working on a common goal, in the same direction will motivate themselves. 

Worry less about motivating your employees. Worry more about identifying what your company believes in. Worry more about finding people who believe in those same values. Worry more about holding everyone accountable to those beliefs. And worry more about celebrating achievements according to those beliefs.

Never lose sight of the values of the organization. Putting them up on a wall and forgetting about them creates nothing. 

Motivation comes from leadership. Are you leading your team from your values position or are you expecting everyone to just do their jobs?

When you don't live and breathe your corporate values, an underlying assumption gets created. That assumption becomes default. 

Each individual's values supersede that of the group.