Its Day 6 of the 30 blog posts in 30 days challenge, its Sunday and has been busy anyway – so what’s new, lol. 

Recently, my 8 year old son has taught me that there are different levels of motivation with different outcomes.

For example, in the last year he has committed to and learnt how to ride his bike without training wheels and to tie laces properly, once offered the right motivation.  Once offered the right reward, he quickly and with great dedication, committed himself to the task and achieved it more quickly than I expected.  He can also be motivated to do smaller things using smaller rewards.

Motivation poster

Uploaded to Flickr by solidariat on March 10, 2009

Got me thinking about what motivates library staff to do the work they do. The money is nice but you would be better off working in another sector or another industry if it was just about the money. Being local is a big motivator for family people and having family friendly work policies – which works well in a public library employing mums who work locally.

But much as they are motivating, more often than not they only motivate you to turn up and clock in on time and do what you have to do. There are many library staff out there, who put in the extra time without extra pay and who go beyond the call of duty in their daily work. What’s their motivation? (can I bottle it please?)

For me, my motivation is the love of the job. I absolutely love what I do. I enjoy the work, the people, the challenges, the satisfaction I get and of course being local and getting paid don’t hurt either.

But what motivates other library staff? Can I find out what motivates the dedicated ones and help ensure that motivation continues? Can I find out what may motivate other less dedicated library staff, in order to help them fall in love with their jobs? Do I have the right or responsibility to do that or is it something that is or should be out of my control?  Or am I asking too much, expecting that more people can love their job as much as I do?