Event Details
October 2026 Chapter Meeting - The Demotivation Problem: What Science Says HR Leaders Need to Change.
| Date: | October 15, 2026, 11:30am – 1:00pm |
| Location: | Duane L. Fager Education & Innovation Center 701 SW 31st St Topeka 66611 *Across the street from CoreFirst Bank and Trust Headquarters, on the south side |
| Price: | $20 for SHRM Topeka Members | $25 for Non-Members |
| Event Type: | Meeting |
| iCal link | Add to Calendar |
HR professionals are being asked to do the impossible: sustain engagement, reduce turnover, and build culture in organizations still operating on leadership assumptions that no longer hold. The problem isn't your employees. It's the systems, behaviors, and management habits we haven't been willing to challenge.
In this session, Dr. Katie Ervin combines her doctoral research in workplace motivation with her LEADERs framework to give HR leaders a new lens. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory and real organizational data, Dr. Katie makes the case that demotivation, not lack of motivation, is the root cause of disengagement. And she puts the responsibility squarely where it belongs: on leadership culture.
This isn't a session about generational stereotypes. It's about understanding what newer generations of workers are exposing that has always been true about human psychology, and why HR leaders are uniquely positioned to drive the pivot. Bold, research-backed, and immediately actionable.
Learning outcomes:
- Distinguish between motivation and demotivation as organizational problems, and identify which one HR can actually influence.
- Apply the Catalyst Workplace Model (Competence, Relatedness and Autonomy) to audit culture for engagement barriers.
- Recognize how generational expectations are surfacing systemic leadership failures, and reframe this as an opportunity rather than a threat.
- Identify at least two concrete actions HR leaders can take to shift their organizations from incentive-based to environment-based engagement strategies.
