The peculiarities of motivation formation of employees of industrial enterprises to innovation activity have been investigated. The approach to assessing employees’ motivation to innovation activity with the use of the Harrington function has been offered. The concept of motivational acceleration of innovations and motivational inertia of innovations has been proposed. Motivational acceleration refers to the period of time in years during which the investment process which is carried out by motivated employees will soon go into the profitability zone compared to the process implemented by non-motivated employees. Motivational inertia of innovation is defined as an additional period of profit-making from the innovation process as compared to the process carried out by non-motivated employees.