Motivation Theories and How It Affects Employees' Commitment and Performance at Work - Essay Example

 I. Introduction In any business enterprise, its employees are always considered as its most important asset. Their performance can spell a difference between a business’ failure or success especially in today’s very competitive environment (Guld 2007). Business organizations with a committed and motivated workforce does not only have higher productivity but also have an enhanced of being viable as a business entity in the long-run. Such, it is critical that businesses should motivate its workforce not only for them to commit and perform but also to keep them in the organisation. Keeping valuable employees motivated in an organisation is not only intended to make them commit and perform but also to keep them over the long haul (Frasch 2010). There are many implements used by business organisations to motivate their employees. The most common notion about motivation is to shower them with fat paychecks but this proved to be inadequate in keeping employees motivated (Herzberg 1987). As what organisational theorists have reported, committing employees to perform towards a common goal involves an interplay of various factors that involves not only remuneration, but also the social and psychological dimensions of work that keep employees productive. Several business organisations even went as far as integrating play with work not only to keep their employees committed and productive, but also to induce creativity in the workplace which proved to be beneficial to a company’s diversification drive such as the case of Google (Lovewell 2005). These various motivation theories shall be discussed in this paper and we will also tackle how these theories affect performance in today’s competitive environment. II. Motivation theories and examples The idea of the necessity to motivate employees to encourage commitment and performance among employees was first conceived by management classical theorists such as Taylor, Maslow, Mayo, McGregor, Vroom and Herzberg. While modern management and organisational theorists will argue that their concepts of motivating employees to commit and perform are inadequate, it cannot be denied that these classical theorists provided the basic building blocks of the know-how to motivate employees. From a simple idea of Taylor that adequate remuneration motivates employees, it later expanded to include the other dimension of human needs and aspects with the aim of fulfilling these needs that would enable employees to commit to the organisation better perform. Such, it would be necessary to cite and expound the ideas of these classical theorists for us to better understand the motivational implements used by modern organisation whose concepts can be traced back to the ideas of the classical theorists. The classical theorists of motivation a. Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management Taylor first conceived the idea that workers are mainly motivated solely by wage. He posited that management has to possess the control and knowledge of the methods of production so that it would have a greater control of achieving efficiency in an organisation that includes motivating its workforce (Jaffe 2008). For Taylor, the breaking up functions into small quantifiable tasks is necessary to make the time-piece rate pay possible that will encourage employees to work harder if they can see that they are being paid with more work (Taylor 1911). This theory assumed that employees are more motivated with more pay and confined motivation to solely addressing the economic needs of a business organisation’s employees. Old as it is, Taylors piece rate payment is still existent today especially in the factories where employees are being paid by the number of units or pieces they produced. b. Elton Mayo Mayo expanded Taylor’s idea of motivating employees by including their social needs that also has to be satisfied while at work (Sarachek 1968). For Elton Mayo, employees are not only motivated by satifying their economic needs but also their needs to interact with fellow employees. Perhaps it was Mayo who first conceived the relational aspect of the workplace when he instituted Human Relations which emphasized the humane treatment of people at work (Smith 1987). This Human Relations idea of Elton Mayo at work has been institutionalised by modern business organisations with the creation of a specific department, Employee Relations that caters specifically to employees need. c. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Of all the management theorist about motivation, perhaps Abraham Maslow is the most popular with his theory of hierarchy of needs. His theory of motivation is based on mechanical progression of transcendence where each stage of motivation has to be satisfied first before one can advance to the next level that also needs to be satisfied (Hoffman 1992). Abraham Maslow’s motivation model was contained in his book Motivation and Personality. He described the five basic human motivations which are placed in a hierarchical order which progresses when one is satisfied in the hierarchy (Kermally 2005). Of the hierarchy, Maslow was amazed with the positive human capacity to transcend with the phenomenon of self-actualization. He knew that this construct of his suffered from methodological flaws but is convinced of its intuitive validity. He hailed the last trait of self-actualization as the pinnacle of human characteristic’s highest inner traits such as our capacity to love, spirituality, to create and to have compassion. Although this was not empirically verified by Maslow himself, this theory of his about motivation still stands today (Goodman 1968). The five levels of motivation of Abraham Maslow are (Goodman); 1 Physiological need — the first level of motivation is the desire to satisfy physiological needs. These needs, which include hunger and personal comfort, are reflected in the work situation by such concepts as the desires for a dry, warm place of work, a comfortable body position on the job, a tolerable noise level in the work area, etc. This represents the first level of the hierarchy, the primary needs which must be satisfied before behavior can begin to react to higher needs. 2 Safety need— the next level of motivation that man seeks to satisfy is that of safety. In relating this need to the work situation both personal safety and personal security concepts must be considered. The employee desires to be able to safely walk the aisles of the work area as well as to feel a measure of assurance against layoff. Subsidiary to these items is the interest in the fringe benefits such as a medical programme and disability programme. 3 Social need- The third level of motivation is social. In the work context this level includes the need to belong to the organization, to the work group, or to a local clique. This, also, includes the need to have friends at work, and to have social interrelationships with those around you. 4 Esteem need- The fourth level of this hierarchy is the esteem or ego needs. To satisfy this, a man must feel that other people respect him, that others think he is someone. Satisfaction of this need leads to self-confidence, strength, and a feeling of adequateness. 5 Self-Actualization need - This is the highest level of the hierarchy. The level represents the need to be what one potentially is. This desire may be realized by some workers in the work situation if their potentialities lie in that direction. In some workers self-actualization is solely an off-the-job satisfaction (1968:51-52). d. Frederick Herzberg Herzberg first asserted his argument about employee motivation by making a critique on management’s traditional understanding on how to motivate employees. In his assertion, he pointed out that extrinsic incentives such as fat paychecks, perks, plush offices and promotions or pay does not necessarily mean that people will work harder and smarter as put forth by Taylor. According to Herzberg, what it does however is stimulate people to endure the grind of work and will only likely to perform until they get the next promotion or pay raise. For Herzberg, what really makes people tick are “intrinsic rewards such as interesting, challenging work and the opportunity to achieve and grow into greater responsibility” (2003 pg. 49). In an organizational setting, this can be done through “job enrichment” whereby employees are provided with responsibilities where they have the opportunity to psychologically grow and have the fulfillment that they did a terrific job with an interesting work. This concept of Herzberg about motivation can be seen at work at Semco, a Brazilian company where employees are rotated among the various functions of the organization for diversity, increased functionality of employees and higher productivity due to higher learning curves resulting to a 600% increased in productivity (Semler 1993). Employees are empowered to make decisions with their work that employee job satisfaction with Semco is rated as one of the highest in Brazil with a long waiting list of prospective applicants who wants to join Semco (Semler 1993) e. Douglas McGregor’s Theory of X and Theory of Y (theory in his 1960 book 'The Human Side Of Enterprise'. ) McGregor’s Theory X and Y articulated the manager’s ambivalent point of view about their employees. In theory X, McGregor posited that employees dislike work that they must be coerced to perform. In the same vein, theory X assumes that employees do not like responsibilities and is more interested in job security has very little ambition. Theory Y is the positive aspect where McGregor put forth that employees like work in as much as they like play and are committed and self-motivated to achieve the organisation’s goal. Theory Y also believes that employees like responsibilities and is also driven to succeed just like their managers (Kopelman et al 2008). For the theory to achieve optimal peformance from its employees, a balance has to be struck between theory X and Y. Using these theories in their extremes can be disastrous to an organisation for too much emphasis on theory X can lead to resentment, intentional low output and other hostile behavior from employees. Too much permissiveness or excessiveness of theory Y is also not healthy for business because it will lead to an increased request for concessions from employees for a declining productivity. f. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory Victor Vroom’s Expectancy theory of motivation is more popularly known in modern management as “carrot and yardstick” motivation. This motivational theory posits that employees performance is based on assumption that employees elect a certain behavior in an organisation with the expectation of maximising pleasure and minimising pain (Sloof and Praag 2008). According to this theory, employees generally elect a course of action that will yield the greatest reward for the employee. If the expectancy of a certain employee is predisposed to a belief that a certain job can be done, the theory posits that such employee will be more motivated to work. If the job requires a high level of performance whose result can be gratifying to the employee, it is expected that the employee will put a premium on doing a good job and will thus act accordingly. In the same vein, if an employee believes that low performance will have negative repercussion, the said employee will avoid such unpleasant experience by performing well. This motivational theory explains why rewards and incentives are given to employees who meets targets which is a common practice in motivating sales people even in todays’business organisations. This theory also explains why underperformers in organisations are being penalised. III. Motivational implements at work These motivational theories are being implemented in the workplace in various forms and methods to keep the employees motivated to commit and perform. These motivational theories are being concretised in various forms and policy in the workplace whose main principle drivers can be traced back to these classical theorists of motivation. Among these popular motivational tools and implements used in modern business organisations are; a. Provision for employee benefits Benefits are the traditional tools that business enterprises use to keep their employees. Benefits such as “providing health insurance, life insurance and a retirement-savings can be said to be based on Taylor’s principle of motivating employees of paying or rewarding employees to motivate and keep them. This mode of pay is effective as shown by a study conducted by Gresham who reported that "one-third of employees say that benefits are important to their decision, up from 24% in the past two years." Further, he says, "over 40% of pre-retirees and workers with young families see benefits as an important criterion in a job search and retention" (2006:50). b. Incentive through high profile socialisation Motivating employees do not have to incur cost as put forth by Mayo to contradict Taylor’s sole emphasis on pay as a motivator. For Mayo, employees can already be motivated by addressing their social needs and this does not have to cost anything. Modern business organisations still utiised this concept in the form of work life balance to motivate employees through socialisation (Milligan 1999). This motivational theory is practiced in Huntington Medical Hospital where they were able to device an incentive whereby employees can have a breakfast with the hospital’s President if they have performed well. This ingenuity served two purposes, first it facilitates an open communication with the management and employees; second, it strengthens the working relation among employees that the employee is more motivated to work (Ralph and Ortega 2006). c. Fun at work This concept of fun at work is a derivative of McGregor’s Theory Y where it posits that employees love work as much as play. In the case of Google, they took this theory further by encouraging play at work which yielded positive results. Google believes that through play, it is able to create a flexible environment that encourages challenge through a fun and stimulating working environment (Lovewell, 2005). True enough, this concept of play and encouraged creativity has sprouted several products and services that Google was able to launch ranging from online advertising services applications, such as Gmail, Google Map to Google Plus (Lovewell 2005). These core principle of fun at play in Google created an innovative work environment that even Fortune magazine and CNN acknowledges that Google in the fourth best company to work for in 2009 (CNN 2009). d. Positive working environment Random act of kindness can also motivate employees to commit to the organization through emotional attachment. Simple note of appreciation that a great job has been done has a tremendous effect to an employee to be attached to the organization that could translate to performance (Guld, 2007). This motivational concept of treating employees well is reminiscent of Mayo’s theory of motivation of treating employees well to motivate them. IV. Conclusion Motivational theories can be summarized as “pay them well and treat them well” (Capowski 1998). Paying them well can be easy as it only involves paying them and addressing their economic needs. This can take form in various ways such as giving benefits, bonus, bonus, perks or anything of value that appeals to the employees’ economic sensitivity. But paying alone is not enough to motivate employees to commit and perform better. Herzberg articulated the inadequacy of pay as a motivator that “it does not make employees to work harder and smarter”. Rather, it only motivates them to endure the grind of work for the sake of pay. “Treating employees well” to motivate them can be a challenge. “Treating employees well” does not only mean being nice to them but also involves an in depth understanding of the employees’ needs and tendencies that would enable them to commit to the organization’s objective and perform better to achieve such goals. This includes the social aspect as put forth by Mayo, job fulfillment as theorized by Herzberg and a delicate balancing act when to give and withhold as proposed by McGregor’s Theory X and Y. The intricacy of addressing the “treating them well” dimension in motivating employees can be gleaned by the several examples that companies have to employ just to keep their workforce committed and productive. The need of keeping employees motivated is not just s business fad or a mere business prerogative that management can fancy. Rather, motivating employees to commit to the organization’s objective and work with a high level of performance to the realization of such goal is a business imperative that employees should endeavor to maintain to ensure the organizations viability in today’s very competitive environment. Bibliography 1 Capowski, Genevieve (1998). Recruitment and retention 101. HR Focus 75(8): 16 2 CNNMoney (2009). 100 Best companies to work for. Online. 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