In a down economy, when available jobs are few and far between and the pressure to cut costs is high, organizations might find it hard to resist the temptation to make savings that directly affect their employees.  Managers become keener to ignore the challenge of motivating their workforce as they start to operate on the assumption that a difficult market provides enough incentive and there is no need for extra effort on their part.  Not until harder times for employers, when an accelerating economy generates increasing competition for talent and commitment, does the idea of stimulating the right kind of attitude among the workforce reemerge as a pressing issue.  It is easy to understand how these natural tendencies are shaped by forces that dominate the business landscape of the moment.  Clearly, it takes courage to confront them.  This courage would come from dedicated executive development training. 

As Professor Steven L. Bladder of New York's Stern School of Business argues in his paper “How to inspire motivation,” key players in companies cannot afford to disregard the ongoing effort of stimulating their employees beyond what is expected of them, using a complex set of tools.

Traditionally, economic incentives have been seen as a source of motivation strong enough to retain talent and provide the basis for lasting cooperation.  While it is impossible to challenge the role of raising a salary, paying out bonuses or offering promotions, all of which are known to give employees a strong boost, they are unlikely to foster the kind of deep relationship for which Professor Bladder makes a compelling case.  What he and his colleague in the research project, Tom R. Tyler, see as central to building a sustainable employer-employee relationship is workers' social identity, or how they engage at work, on a number of levels, in group membership and how this multidimensional involvement produces their sense of individual self.  With stronger and better defined social identity, employees are more eager to commit to extra activity, more enthusiastic to go the extra mile. 

The executive development training industry has compelling reasons to pay more attention to such complex motivational tools and find ways to impart them in everyday business practice.  Even with economic incentives, a seemingly sharp instrument in most cases, some additional consideration is necessary on the part of employers in terms of what impact they are designed to exert on the company structure and on individual social identities.  Creating an environment of uncertainty and danger, rather than appreciation and bonding, in relation to financial impulses, is bound to hurt this impact.  And higher paychecks aside, organizations should be encouraged to invest in their employees' work-related social identity by means of safeguarding fair internal procedures that strengthen a sense of belonging and make it possible to relate in positive ways to corporate activity.  The Stern School of Business researcher points out that every attempt at establishing social identity and motivating a workforce through it need to be openly acknowledged and communicated, another matter worth mentioning in the context of executive development training.