LIMEN 2021 – Proceedings https://doi.org/10.31410/LIMEN.2021.177 Workplace Motivation – Case Study Engaging Students during a Pandemic Monica-Ariana Sim 1 Received: January 16, 2022 Anamaria-Mirabela Pop 2 Accepted: March 8, 2022 Published: May 5, 2022 Keywords: Workplace motivation; Students; Principles; Strategies; Pandemic Abstract: Professionals in all felds are to work even when societies go through crises (i.e., the current pandemic), natural disasters, or catastrophes. Studies conducted by specialists in diferent areas, indicate that numerous people are not willing to work under stressful conditions. In this paper, we want to fnd out what can motivate a person to work in abnormal conditions of stress, risk of illness, which motivational tools may be applicable with a di- rect view on students who remained online for more than 21 months. Humanity is facing one of the greatest challenges of this century: the COVID 19. People are going through a period of fearful insecurity and stress caus- ing many problems and even mental health issues, some of them probably hard to remediate. Education is among the most afected felds of activity. The purpose of the paper is to discover workplace motivation of teachers and students to respond and react to such unfortunate circumstances and to con- tinue their activity, thus avoiding long term blockages and drawbacks. Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non- Commercial 4.0 License (https://creative- commons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduc- tion and distribution of the work without further permission. 1. INTRODUCTION M otivation, the ‘force or infuence that causes someone to do something’ as defned by The Merriam-Webster dictionary or ‘the energizing of behaviour in pursuit of a goal’ (Simpson and Balsam, 2016, p.1) or ‘the drive’ (Pink, 2011) lies at the basis of our interaction with the world and with each other. The fascinating thing about motivation is that from a biological point of view, seen a four-programme framework (the four basic pillars being safety, status, sex and self-reliance) human beings act like animals, that is they all share motivation to obtain the basic needs, including food, water, reproduction and social interaction (Natterson-Horowitz, Bowers, 2019, pp 187). Life is about meeting these needs as a requirement for survival, but the diferentiation relies on the goals that particularize actions in each case. Therefore, motivation must be perceived both as an intrinsic and extrinsic power, a response to internal states and external environmental conditions. Basically, motivation is the outcome of an exchange of chemicals released by the brain (peptides, hormones, neurotransmitters, etc.), determining complex decisions to be made. In the past few years, there has been a great deal of research on the biology and psychology of motivation of people as they have had to deal with the physical and emotional stresses and rapid changes brought on by COVID-19. Academics and students have faced a sudden twist in their lives being forced to rapidly learn and adopt a new way of working or learning remotely. The greatest challenge for academics has been to keep students motivated, and help them adjust and fnally embrace the new mode of learning and deal with feelings of isolation due to a lack of physical interaction with peers and teachers. Motivation for learning infuences the educational process itself, and, implicitly, the results of this endeavour. Defcits in motivation can be devastating. Negative phrases and labels such as students are no longer interested in learning, do not like books, are not motivated to learn have 1 University of Oradea, 1 Universitatii, Oradea, Romania 2 University of Oradea, 1 Universitatii, Oradea, Romania