My employee lacks motivation. What do you do when an employee lacks motivation? It seems like they're going through the motions when doing his or her job. Managers often are left without answers or solutions; whereas, if they were skilled and coaching to challenges such as a lack of motivation the employee and team would have a better opportunity to perform better. On one hand a manager should be equipped to deal with the issue of motivation as well as the employee should realize they are responsible for their motivation. All too often we tend to put an employee's lack of motivation on the shoulders of the manager when in fact the manager only has so much control.

An unmotivated employee can bring down an entire sales team. A lack of motivation is usually accompanied by a bad attitude, low engagement, and little to no increase in progress. Coaching can help bring up motivation, therefore bringing up the rest of these factors. 

Here are a few tips to increase employee motivation:

Use positive language and reinforcement: Make sure to use lots of positive reinforcement and feedback when employees accomplish something. This makes them feel motivated and they will remember it when they go to complete their next project. 

Set small, attainable goals: Progress is the number one motivator, when employees have small goals and they achieve them, it motivates them to continue completing their goals. Once they start to build more and more motivation, you and your employee can sit down and start creating bigger goals. 

Use group, observational, or peer-to-peer coaching: Working and training with other employees can show your unmotivated employee how others are motivated and inspire them to be motivated as well.