Professional employees are more difficult to motivate

The professional employees are different than your average employee. They are more difficult to
motivate. Because professionals don’t respond to the same stimuli that nonprofessionals do.

Professionals like engineers, accountants, lawyers, nurses, and software designers are different from
nonprofessionals. The have a strong and long term commitment to their field of expertise. Their loyalty
is more often to their employer. Typical rewards, like money and promotions are rarely effective in
encouraging professional to exert high levels of effort.

Professional see their allegiance to their profession, not to the organization that employs them. A nurse,
for instance, may work for Hospital but she reads nursing journals belongs to nursing associations,
attends nursing conferences, and hangs around with other nurses during her breaks at work. When
asked what she does for a living, she’s more apt to respond, “I am a registered nurse” then “I work at a
hospital”.

Money and promotions are typically low on the professional’s priority list.

Because

 They tend to be well paid already and they enjoy what they do.
 They are not typically anxious to give up their work to take on managerial responsibilities.
 They have invested a great deal of time and effort to develop their professional skills.
 They have got professional training, specialize skills to build their proficiencies.
 They also invest regularly in terms of reading, taking courses, attending conference, and the like
to keep their skills updated.
 They provide primary commitment to their profession rather than employer.

So this loyalty to their profession and less interest in typical organizational rewards makes motivating
professionals more challenging and complex. If they are dissatisfied will quite from the organization.

As an employer u must justified in deciding not to exert the effort to develop and keep professionals
but to support their activities and provide sensitivity training to reciprocate loyalty efforts you make