An Exploratory Study Of The Motivational Practices Used In Romanian Sme’S

Due to the progress of international business practices, nowadays, more and more companies are starting to understand that the real engine which pushes forward an organization towards its fundamental goal of maximizing its profit is the human resource, in a degree larger than the financial or material resources. This approach will make the managers focus more on the motivation of the human resource and will make them try to understand which are the best methods of leading your employees to line up with the company’s objectives and vision, thus increasing their own productivity and the company’s profitability. The present paper’s aim is to study which are the most common motivational practices used by the SME’s from Craiova and, at the same time, to assess the degree in which these practices are actually perceived by the employees as motivational factors. In order to fulfil this goal, we have used a 22 questions survey which was distributed among 100 employees from small and medium enterprises from Craiova. The survey tackled general motivation subjects such as the satisfaction with the current workplace and the current salary, the influence of the managers’ and colleagues’ attitude upon an individual’s productivity, what methods of motivation are used by the managers and how are these methods perceived by the employees. The results have shown us that, generally speaking, the managers of SME’s from Craiova tend to use old and outdated motivational methods, focused on financial incentives, instead of trying to motivate their employees through modern, non-financial stimulants.