"Jag står bakom dig, jag stöttar dig, tror du på det så kör på det" : En kvalitativ studie om hur produktionsledare arbetar med att motivera och utveckla sina medarbetare inom stålindustrin

Motivation in working life can be meaningful to work with. If the organization conducts stable motivational work, it can affect employees' motivation, development, and productivity. The steel industry that this study intended to examine, showed us that production managers were invested in working with motivation toward employees. The steel company that’s examined is a large organization with several thousand employees, and it is important to take care of their workers, which can be important for organizations' visions and goals. By conducting an adequate motivation work and development of employees, it can generate that existing staff with the right skills remain but also that the steel industry becomes an attractive workplace to apply to if there are development opportunities and a great commitment of managers and management. The purpose of this study was to examine how the production managers work to motivate and develop their employees in steel production. To make it possible and answer the study's purpose and research questions, seven semi-structured interviews were made with production managers who work at the steel industry company. The empirical data did analyze using the theoretical frameworks to reach a result. The results show that production managers use the education that the organization offers to motivate the employees. Production managers also work a lot with social appreciation, support, and feedback to motivate employees. Furthermore, the results show that the opportunities that production managers see with their motivational work toward employees are that they can spend time together in the production, which makes it easier to support them, give them information and resources, motivate, give feedback, and praise. Motivational work allows employees to become more independent and confident in their work roles. In conclusion, it turned out that the challenges with the motivational work in the steel industry are that time is not enough and that feedback from senior management in connection with the development of production managers was insufficient. It is important as an organization to provide all employees with development areas and motivational work, which can have a great impact on job satisfaction but also an important part for everyone to feel good in the workplace