Motivation in Work Place - Essay Example

? Motivation in Work Place of the of the This report will try to throw some light on contemporary regarding motivation of workers in the workplace. In modern business world, managers are facing challenges regarding motivating workers in workplace, because, in an organization with diversified workforce, employees come from different demographic orientation and cultural background hence their needs and value system are different, hence it is a challenge for the organizations to identify a reason which motivate all the employees in equal manner. In such context, the study will identify contemporary issues that are faced by managers to motivate workers in the first part of the study. In the second part, the study will analyze real life business cases where managers have successfully motivated workers in the workplace. In the last part the study has recommend managerial skills that are needed to motivate employees in effective manner. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Contemporary Management Issue 4 Response of Managers 6 Management Skills 8 Reference 10 Introduction Wood, Wallance, Zeffane, Schermerhorn, Hunt & Osborn (1994) have defined organization as collection of people who are working together to achieve common objective. It is generally believed that performance of employees can directly influence the overall performance of the organization hence it is not possible for an organization to survive without the performance of a motivated human resource pool. In such context, employees are viewed as valuable asset for organization. According to Buelens, Broeck, Vanderheyden, Kreitner, & Kinicki (2006), reasons behind the motivation for employees to perform well in the workplace is a relative and complex issue, because, in a organization with diversified workforce, employees come from different demographic orientation and cultural background hence their needs and value system are different, in such context, it is a challenge for the organizations to identify a reason which motivate all the employees in equal manner. On the other hand, McKee (2012) has pointed out that macro-environmental situation can create challenge for managers while motivating employees. According to Hofstede (2001), cultural orientation of employees decides the value system of employees which directly influence their motivation level to perform a specific work in workplace. For example, employees in USA get motivated by recognition, financial reward, workplace challenge, success etc whereas employees of Taiwan emphasize more on work-life balance and interpersonal relationships (Su, 2006). It is evident from the theoretical argument of research scholars that managers of modern organization face challenge to motivate all the employees in equal magnitude to perform well, hence the study has decided to investigate contemporary management issues regarding employee motivation in the workplace and find how managers are responding to those issues. Identifying the management skills for managers which will help them to motivate employees in efficient manner will also be the key purpose of this report. Contemporary Management Issue Research scholars such as Kinicki and Kreitner (2007) and Chen and Francesco (2003) have stated that linking employee satisfaction to employee motivation is one of the contemporary challenges that face modern managers. According to Koys (2001), diversified nature of the workforce has created challenge for managers to maintain a satisfied workforce who are motivated enough to perform in effective manner. Another contemporary challenges manager’s face is to develop an organizational culture which can keep employees motivated. Third contemporary issues manager to face is to link culture of innovation as a source for motivation for employees in the workplace. Three contemporary issues for managers can be summarized in the following manner. Contemporary Issue 1- Creating an organizational policy can help an employee to be satisfied and motivated in the workplace. Contemporary Issue 2- Developing an organizational culture which can create intrinsic motivation among employees. Contemporary Issue 3- Using the concept of innovation culture for motivating employees in sustainable manner. Kinicki and Kreitner (2007) have proposed the value attainment model in order to link job satisfaction as motivational drive for employees to perform well. According to them, job satisfaction comes from fulfillment of social and personal expectation which is created through personal value system of employees. For example, Chatzky (2005) has found that, more than 50% of employees in the manufacturing sector prefer flexible work agreement as satisfaction booster instead of salary hike by $5,000. Such research result is stating that managers need to think about flexible work agreements such as compressed work week, part-time, flexi time et as a performance booster which cannot successfully employee satisfaction and employee motivation altogether. Lin (2007) has stated that, motivation of employee is driven by two factors such as intrinsic and extrinsic factors. According to Ryan and Deci (2000), employees get intrinsically motivated when they get rewards that can satisfy their moral and personal expectations. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation deals with rewards that are non-altruistic and financial in nature. Frey (2002) has stated that, it is easy for managers to influence extrinsic motivation of employees by providing them financial rewards but such types of motivational drive are temporary in nature. On the other hand, managers face actual challenge to create intrinsic motivation for employees which cannot be measured in monetary term. According to Frey (2002), intrinsic motivation is created from the work and workplace culture itself. Hence it is a challenge for managers to develop an organizational culture and competitive work environment which can motivate employees intrinsically. Research scholars such as Voronov (2008) have stated that, organizational learning is an important factor to bring innovation in the organization and keep employees motivated in the long run. Various research scholars have argued that organizations need to create an environment of knowledge sharing, which will not only increase innovation potential for the organization but also create new challenges for employees. In such context, it is a challenge for managers to bring innovation in the workplace and align interest of employees with the innovation process. Response of Managers According to McKee (2012), macro-environmental threats such as economic recession, financial scandals, and disasters have posed challenges in front of managers to use their leadership skills to sail their company smoothly during turbulent environmental conditions. Managers need to make everyday work meaningful to workers, for example, in 1963, Victor Frankl wrote that he searched for the meaning in the daily work while he was in Nazi concentration camp in order to get motivated despite the surrounding environment being full of death, cry and inhumanity (McKee, 2012). In the next section, the study will cite real life examples where managers have responded successfully to contemporary challenges regarding employee motivation in the workplace. Case 1 (Contemporary Issue 1) Managers of Bavarian Motor Works or (BMW) have designed flexible work agreement for the 70,000 workers in 6 German manufacturing plants in order to help workers to maintain work life balance properly. The company has reduced the number of agency workers up to 8 percent in order to decrease the work pressure on employees and keep them motivated while working in the work place. Workers of the company have signed annualized hours contracts with the company, according to this contract workers get paid for the over time in terms of profit sharing (Henning, 2012). However, the managers of the company is still working on flexi-work agreement norms in order to make it more effective to motivate workers without creating negative impact on production output. Case 2 (Contemporary Issue 2) Probably the best example in the block is the organizational culture of Google. Fortunate magazine has referred Google as best organization to work for; there are reasons behind such ambitious claims. For example managers in Google have created a working environment which can help workers to get motivated automatically, there is a website named as "Google Ideas" where workers can submit their ideas and recommendation regarding product development or any issues pertinent to improvement of organizational culture. Managers carefully examine the potentiality of suggestions made by employees and use the potential ideas by actively engaging employees who gave the suggestion while developing new products. Products like Google News, Froogle, Gmail and Google+ were created in the above mentioned process. It is evident from the above example that managers of Google have emphasized on creating intrinsic motivation for workers by reshaping its work culture (Chatterjee, 2012). Case 3 (Contemporary Issue 3) In the last case study, the will pick the organization structure of W.L Gore & Associates, which is a renowned American manufacturing firm. The organizational structure W.L Gore & Associates is known as ‘Lattice Management Structure’. Managers of the company have created an environment of knowledge sharing in order to help workers to actively participate in the innovation process. Managers of the company call workers as associate and these associates are empowered to take their decisions during contingent periods. Vertical organizational structure has been replaced by interlinked lattice structure, where there are no supervisors who can supervise the work of associates. Associates are encouraged to communicate with other team members in order to share knowledge freely in order to bring innovation. Lattice management structure has not only helped the managers to motivate employees through aligning their interest with knowledge sharing process but also helped W.L Gore & Associates to achieve significant innovation in product development (Pride, Hughes, & Kapoor, 2011). Management Skills Motivational theorists have given various theories which can help managers to understand the cognitive reasoning behind the worker motivation in the workplace. According to Bartol and Martin (1998), using motivational theories like cognitive theory, needs theory and reinforcement theory can help managers to motivate workers in the workplace. The study will use modified version of Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, the modified model is known as ERG theory. According to ERG model, managers need to work on following verticals in order to motivate workers in the workplace. Verticals Characteristics Managerial Skills Recommendation Existence (E) Psychological factors such as working environment and nature of the work Managers need to develop co-ordination skills in order to integrate all the organizational elements under the umbrella of a knowledge sharing and innovation driven organizational culture. Relatedness (R) Organizational culture and dimension of relationship between workers in the workplace Managers need to develop democratic leadership skills in order to listen to problems of every employee and help employees to gel up with the existing organizational culture. Growth (G) Career opportunities, personal development of workers in the Managers need to communicate the career opportunity in the organization to an employee in clear and concise manner. In some cases, managers should act as mentor for young employees who have the potential to handle higher job responsibility in future. To end this discussion the study will cite the example of Bonaventure Agata (CSL Behring Senior Director of Global Commercial Development), who has dedicated his life to healthcare. According to Bonaventure, managers and leaders need to be honest to their subordinates and make sure that subordinates actually believe that their leader truly understand their problems (McKee, 2012). Hence modern managers need to be engaged with their workers in order to motivate them. Reference Bartol, K. M., & Martin, D. C. (1998). Management. (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Buelens, M., Broeck, H. V. D., Vanderheyden, K., Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A. (2006). Organisational behaviour. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill. Chatterjee, S. (2012). Top 5 reasons why google is the best company to work for. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/top-5-reasons-why-google-best-company-work-553844. Chatzky, J. (2005). The ten commandments of financial happiness: Feel richer with what you’ve got. New York, NY: Penguin Group. Frey, B. (2002). How does pay influence motivation? in Frey, B. and Osterloh, M. (Eds), Successful Management by Motivation. New York, NY: Springer. Henning, D. (2012). Germany: Union agrees to flexible working at BMW. Retrieved from http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/10/bmwo-o15.html. Hofstede, G. (2001). 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