“Motivating Human Force” by Marcy George-kokkinaki

Throughout economic history, there have been three eras:

The agrarian era, during which man considered land as the primary source of wealth.

The industrial era, during which man heavily invested in inventions and technology in order to gain wealth, and

Presently, the knowledge era, during which emphasis on human recourses has been placed, as the best way of generating profit from material sources and capital.

After a series of conceptions on the paradigm of organisational strategy, the latest paradigm is the management of human, rather than financial, capital as the new scarce resource. Human capital is not only about knowledge and skills, but also about “social capital” (relationships) and “emotional capital” (motivation, inner strength management and emotions).

The three components of human capital work together in a dynamic, interrelated system that must be treated holistically by managers and leaders.

Management practices have had a significant effect on individual behavior and personal growth within the work environment. Autocracy treats employees as infants, whereas participative management expects and supports employees’ maturity process. 

In order to achieve workforce alignment with the Brand Promise, it is necessary to motivate people. Motivation, according to the Oxford Dictionary (2003), is defined as stimulating the interest of a person in an activity, or causing a person to act in a particular way. In order to achieve effective Motivation, a reliable analysis of employee motivators is required.

Modern corporations are quite familiar with the concept of internal branding. Promoting the brand to human forces, and familiarising them about product values, is increasingly popular among corporate giants such as BP, IBM, Nike, Sears, Miller Brewing (Mitchell, 2002), BASF (Buss, 2002), Southwest (D’Innocenzo, 2002), Cisco, Ernst & Young, Standard Register (Boone, 2000), etc. These companies share the common realisation that committed, well trained and informed workforce will become empowered and capable of delivering the brand promise. (Aurand, T.W., Gorchels, L., Bishop, T.R., 2005)

Empowering and motivating the workforce is a determinant factor as to the success and effectiveness of Internal Marketing. Corporations need to motivate personnel, initially at an individual level, and further unite the different trends and personalities into a well-functioning, operational team.