Today, an important prerequisite for the development of modern society is paying special attention to personnel, that creates conditions for economic growth and competitiveness in conditions of maximum use of innovations and innovations for the individual employee and the enterprise as a whole, and also guarantees its economic security. To determine the aspects that are important for the manager to create motivated personnel is necessary first of all to determine what are the concepts such as motivation and stimulation of personnel may be used at the enterprise. The main objective of the study is to analyze the nature of personnel motivation and stimulation, determine characteristics and distinctive features of these concepts, their relationship with adjacent categories such as << need >>, << motive >> and << stimulus >> and establish the characteristics of their use in management and innovation activity improvement at the enterprise. The results of the analysis. The difference between motivation and stimulation is obvious, as the category of << motivation >> is advisable to define as a process, aimed at stimulating yourself or others to work to achieve individual and common goals of the enterprise, and the term << stimulation >> is defined as an external call to action, motive, push, stimulus, that has an impact on the senses, that is an external factor. Since the fundamental difference between the categories of << motivation >> and << stimulation >> may be that stimulation is a mean whereby the process of motivation can be used. The process of motivation is largely determined by the needs that trigger it. In addition, the needs are in the motives, which encourage people to action to meet the needs. The motive is a subjective phenomenon, which main purpose is awareness of actions that form the setting of targets that can induce the person to act as a result of nucleation the inducing factor from the outside. Incentives being the external motives, have a target orientation; motive is also a call to action, but it can be a basis for incentive in the form of compensation, promotion, administrative orders, etc., as well as personal reasons. However, scientific understanding on the development of forms and methods of personnel stimulation focused on the development of adequate skills needs of enterprise employee, his professional, business and personal characteristics, the interests harmonization of the employee and innovation strategies of the enterprise. The various theories study of personnel motivation by scientists in different times proves undeniable fact - enterprise development occurs under conditions of personnel who are motivated to achieve the goals facing the enterprise, and whose needs are satisfied through the application form and methods of stimulation. Adequate response to changes in the assessment of the employee's work begins only after determining its own assessment of these changes as significant. Conclusions and directions for future researches. An analysis of the author's research allows to conclude that in contrast to the concept of << motivation >>, the << stimulation >> refers to an external influence on an employee, the difference between them lies in attributing the category of << motivation >> to internal desire to do something, and the category of << stimulation >> is impossible to carry out without external influence. However, the common goal of motivation and stimulation is to achieve a certain result for the enterprise, an effective management and innovation activity improvement.