On Employee Motivation - Research Proposal Example

Research Proposal on Employee Motivation Research Proposal on Employee Motivation I have assumed a new position in a whole seller company caller Diamond Direct LLC. The company has its headquarters in midtown Manhattan, which is located in New York. The company’s core business involves the supply of jewelry and diamond to leading retailers such as Walmart, Zales, JCPenney, Kay Jewelers, Sterling and many others. At the moment, the company has 75 employees and started operations in 2000. In the recent past, it has registered an immense growth in its business making high profits. The business deals with older entries strictly as well as processing. Due to its indulgence in processing, it also has day to day operations and has opened several factories in different regions. Some of these factories are located in China, India and Belgium. In order to ensure that the factories run effectively, the company relies on outsourcing to get experts who can handle the tasks. In addition, the company has buying offices in India and Antwep. Establishing offices in different regions ensures that the company has access to the significant diamond market in the globe. Since the company requires diamond as a raw material, it has to ensure that its offices are in close proximity to diamond markets (Doyle, 2005). The company also registers direct buying from Harry Winston Diamond Cooperation. Using both of these strategies, the company prides itself with the capacity to offer a continuous supply of diamonds meeting customer expectations in both quality and quantity because it has an unending supply to resources (Doyle, 2005). The company makes efforts of ensuring that artisans working in the factories in different regions are outstanding skills, hence can produce quality jewelry that meets the customer expectations in a modernized world such as the US market. An effective management of the factories ensures that, innovation is adopted as a central strategy of producing jewels that excites the buyers. In a bid to ensure business success, the company utilizes different strategies of gaining familiarity with the preferences of its customers. This is a good strategy because customer opinion is a critical determinant of the desired product. After my posting in the new position in the company, I took time to analyze the level of management and leadership styles applied in the organization (Fargus, 2000). One of the outstanding observations made was the fact that there was a remarkably poor communication between the employees as they performed their daily activities. The first week of my assignment involved a close monitoring of the internal operations of the company. From my observation, I recognized an existing problem because there were no mechanisms to ensure that the employees remained motivated. After a close analysis of the existing working relationships, it emerged that the employees did not exhibit interest in developing functioning working relationships. Notably, there was a high rate of dissatisfaction with the work exhibited by many employees. As a new employee of the company, my job responsibility is centered on ensuring that there is a remarkable production and that the company meets its production targets. As an individual, I am self-motivated, but there is an emerging worry that my level of motivation will fade because of the existing work environment in Diamond Direct LLC (Lauby, 2005). The organizational problem that arises out of this is the situation of how employees stay motivated in a company setting such as this one, a company that is strictly processing and paying employees by the hour for their work. It is very easy to lose motivation in a position that is very rigorous and monotonous to the point where the same process is completed day in and day out. So what keeps many of these people going and pursuing the same accomplishment of a file or process over and over, is it incentives? Is it the way management runs the company? Or could it be that some people have personalities that are fit for this sort of a position, and possibly have a very high aspect of motivation on the scale for this type of processing position (Moise, Dragolea, & Bălan, 2013). Another factor to consider is also the idea that everyone in the workplace is potentially not satisfied with what they are doing and they are not happy with the position, but why would they continue to work in a non-satisfying position? As described above, there is an evident organizational problem at DDLLC. The company does not have any established mechanisms for ensuring that its employees are continually motivated to register a higher performance. The employees are paid on the basis of the work accomplished on an hourly basis. The existing work environment does not present the employees with any diversity in tasks handled a factor that has led to the emergence of monotony because there is an established daily routine of the same processes. A close analysis of such a monotonous work environment raises certain questions (Rynes, Gerhart & Minette, 2004). One of the questions is, which mechanisms or approaches does the company use to motivate its employees to face the same daily tasks? One would consider whether the company offers any forms if incentives or whether the leaders have an outstanding management style. From a different perspective, one is compelled to question whether the employees working in this company have personalities that can adapt to the working environment. It would also be logical to consider whether the individual working in the company registers high levels of self-motivation. However, since there is an evident dissatisfaction with the work, one wonders why they have remained in their positions (Doyle, 2005). Lack of employee motivation is a common problem in many organizations. Some employers often think that the wages or the salary paid to employees is enough reason to make them work or increase their productivity. However, theories of the employee motivation have revealed otherwise. There is a salient need for organizations to establish strategies of motivating the employees in accordance with the existing motivational theories. This is the reason why DDLCC has a problem that needs to be addressed. If the company had any strategies of ensuring employee motivation, the employees would be satisfied with the work and would register a higher performance. However, as it is, there is immense dissatisfaction with work and this is likely to affect the productivity in the future (Doyle, 2005). My final proposal for this course project will mainly focus on the factor that affect and motivates DDLLC Employees internally and externally and how it compares to their job contentment within this workplace. The main question that I will focus on is what motivates employees in a work environment such as this. I am going to use this company Diamond Directly (DDLLC) as a funnel for gathering information on what motivates the employees to proceed with their workload and for information on how many of the employees are motivated by the company (Rynes, Gerhart & Minette, 2004). Internal and external motivation play a key role in an organization such as this one and benefiting the company by creating a paper that explains the certain ways employees are motivated to keep them continuously focused on attaining completion of their work will be greatly beneficial for the continued increase productivity of their workforce. I will also gather information on how management currently motivates their employees to continue to be highly productive, so that the company is functional and efficient as a whole. DDLLC can benefit greatly by reviewing and studying how motivated their employees are. In the position that DDLLC has on their process of what they do in a company as a whole, keeping employees motivated should allow for the production and effectiveness of every employee to increase (Moise, Dragolea, & Bălan, 2013). A research will be conducted which will serve a diagnostic approach of determining whether the company has any mechanism of motivating the employees and why job satisfaction is very low. The diagnostic research will be based on the numerous theories of motivation and their application in this specific study. After the research, the findings will be used to analyze the existing problem and be used in the definition of the solutions. Some preliminary solutions for the problem may include: Introduction of incentives Offering seminars to the employees to improve their skills Identification of suitable employees for further training as future heads of processing Introduction of team building activities Introduction of a new communication mechanism within the organization Introduction of an effective promotion criteria Offering employees new job responsibilities (Doyle, 2005). Preliminary Analysis of Leadership and Organizational Behavior Concepts Effective management in the modern world involves designing effective strategies of employee motivation. This is because research has revealed that lack of employee motivation may serve to affect productivity negatively. Therefore, leaders should adopt effective motivational theories as they venture into the provision of mechanisms of employee motivation. The level of motivation also determines job satisfaction and is a critical determinant of the willingness of the employees to continue working or the organization. Moreover, motivation ensures a favorable working environment exists which is critical in ensuring that employees are satisfied with their work. Communication is another factor which is of importance in any organization that intends to be an outstanding entity (Doyle, 2005). References Doyle, S. (2005). The managers pocket guide to motivating employees. Amherst, MA: HRD Press. Fargus, P. (2000). Measuring and improving employee motivation. London: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Lau, C. M., & Roopnarain, K. (2014). The effects of nonfinancial and financial measures on employee motivation to participate in target setting. The British Accounting Review, doi:10.1016/j.bar.2014.02.006 Lauby, S. J. (2005). Motivating employees. Alexandria, Va: ASTD Press. Moise Achim, I., Dragolea, L., & Bălan, G. (2013). The importance of employee motivation to increase organizational performance. Annales Universitatis Apulensis - Series Oeconomica, 15(2), 1. Rynes, S. L., Gerhart, B., & Minette, K. A. (2004). The importance of pay in employee motivation: discrepancies between what people say and what they do. Human Resource Management, 43(4), 381-394. Read More