Motivational Theories & Organizational Success - Essay Example

MOTIVATION Motivational theories & Organizational Success. ______________ ___________ _______________________ Motivational theories & Organizational Success. 1 Introduction 2 Essential life and blood of any resides in its human resources who represent a volatile pool of distinct feelings and emotions. These emotions and feelings work to critically determine the output, productivity and efficiency of work of the human resources while they are at their jobs. Management of any organization has the critical task of sufficiently enthusing, molding and shaping the human resources in order to get assurance that such human resources would work in consonance with organizational goals and objectives. Motivation theories provide ready and general constructs to analyze the behavior of human resources at work place. Using these constructs it is possible to analyze and reduce employee dissonance, adverse work relations and blurring of organizational objectives so as to target improved work environment. Thus this analysis can distinctly exhibit the possible solutions to motivational problems at work place. A person's motivation, job satisfaction and performance will be determined by the strength of his/her needs and expectations and the extent to which they are fulfilled. This paper would look at the possible ways in which various motivational theoretical constructs can be applied to work place situations for attaining organizational success. Understanding of such theoretical constructs by management would help improve policy towards employee response and motivation resulting in better output and achievement of organizational goals. 3 Applying Motivational Theories at Work 4 There are several motivational theories that have evolved over the past century and newer ones are still being evolved in rapidly altering organizational contexts. However foundations laid by some old theories have not only survived to this day but such theories continue to provide theoretical support to evolving newer motivational theories. Discussions of the nature of work has seen the distinct polarization of those who thought motivation was primarily a matter of money and those who thought motivation was related primarily to non-economic needs. Most popular among such old theories are behavioral theories of Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, Elton Mayo and Douglas McGregor. The chief features of these theories needs to be understood before applying thoughts on their practical implementation. 0 1 According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, there are five categories of needs viz. (1) physiological, (2) safety, (3) social, (4) esteem, and (5) self-actualization. They form a pyramid structure with the lowest and broadest physiological need at the base. Pyramid structure also illustrates the fact that breadth of needs, as we graduate up the pyramid, gets reduced indicating that the higher order needs get finely tuned and well defined and perhaps are fewer in number as well. In order to have fully satiated and motivated workers, each lower level needs to be satisfied before one can graduate to higher level needs. Maslow made a complementary hypothesis that physiological, safety, social, and esteem needs on satisfaction, ceased to motivate, while the self-actualization needs motivated an individual more and more as they got satisfied. Maslow's premise was that it is the growth choice that propels any individual toward self-actualization - that of individual growth or "filling one's potential."(Maslow, 1954).A worker wise need analysis following Maslow's construct verbatim is a tough task and may even result in manager forgetting main work related goals. However s discerning manager would do well to keep the construct in mind and attain its full understanding and approach all problematic situations with the requisite empathy that this constructs help attain. People are individuals and it is so arduous to meet everyone's needs at their required level. Moreover quite a few of such needs may be sourced outside the work place. Herzberg utilized Maslow's ideas as a foundation to build his own motivation-hygiene theory. According to him the hygiene elements relate to low level needs (physiological, safety, and social). For an individual, hygiene conditions include company policy and administration, control and supervision, relationships with peers and supervisors, work conditions, salary, status, and security (Markiewicz, 2002). Inadequate presence of hygiene factors can cause dissatisfaction or lack of motivation .Such hygiene factors account for 69% of the total factors which cause employee dissatisfaction or lack of motivation. The motivation conditions, which include achievement, the job itself, recognition, responsibilities, and personal growth, accounted for 81% of the factors which contributed to job satisfaction. The hygiene conditions were stated to be extrinsic factors while the motivation conditions were reckoned as intrinsic factors, and the only available method to sustain motivation toward organizational goals was through the achievement of intrinsic outcomes. 5 6 Each of these theories contain concepts which are eminently consistent with human nature, however each theory faces limitations within organizational settings. Because lower order needs are generally satisfied in the workplace today, managers have to deal with how to provide esteem and self-actualization needs to their employees, and that can be a nebulous concept to a manager who demands results immediately. In order to do this the managerial layer has to be observant, patient and in full empathy with the workers. As Stolovitch and Keeps state," Another problem common to most work settings is the strong inclination of managers to avoid deep analysis of performance problems and to solve shallowly analyzed problems with training, even if the problem is not caused by a lack of knowledge (Stolovitch and Keeps, 1992). Also, research studies demonstrate that different workers are motivated by varying factors - which may be intrinsic or extrinsic to the employees or to the organization. Studies on employees' intrinsic and extrinsic job motivation among different segments of the working population show that while skilled and technical workers are motivated by the intrinsic rewards of their employment, lesser skilled workers in routine jobs were motivated by extrinsic factors such as incentives and bonuses. These ideas do not discount the work of Herzberg and Maslow, but these two theories did not quite make the skill distinctions in their conceptual statements. It is for the manager to ascertain varying skill levels and apply motivational techniques. This by itself is no mean a task. 7 8 Job enrichment efforts have proven to be moderately successful in improving performance and attitude amongst employees. The one thing that job enrichment cannot do, however, is to make any particular individual a better worker. This is a distinction that a worker must earn himself by his achievements and output. Though some studies have distinctly shown the effectiveness of schemes of job enrichment. These studies exhibited that by enhancing and changing a routine job through manipulation of their five implementing concepts (natural units of work, task combination, client relationships, feedback and vertical loading), improvements were achieved in productivity, quality, absenteeism, negative attitudes, the elimination of unnecessary controls, and in the role of the supervisor. These studies do provide evidence that job enrichment is an affective tool when paired with the theories of Herzberg and Maslow, but have limitations in the fact that job enrichment seeks to create an environment in which the needs of the employee are consistently met on an ongoing basis instead of having a natural feel environment in which an employee can "earn" the satisfaction of his or her needs. This may lead to complaisance and bureaucratic intensification of lotus eating attitude. 9 10 Another theory on human behavior, motivation, and management was developed in the late 1950's by Douglas McGregor. His theories X and Y were based on several assumptions made in respect of the organization and individuals that worked in such organizations. In short, in Theory X management organizes all elements of production, motivates and controls employee behavior to get to the objects of the organization, and without this intervention, employees are seen as indolent and indifferent to organizational needs. McGregor further assumes that managers believe that the average employee is by nature indolent and lazy, lacks ambition, is self-centered, and resistant to change. The "direction and control" style emanating from Theory X is unpopular in today's modern work place and has been so since last 45 years or so. This itself evidences that McGregor's assumptions regarding Theory X were inaccurate. Professional, creative, intelligent, highly educated and technical people simply do not respond favorably to the Theory X manager anymore (Insurance, 2002). The converse side of McGregor's coin carried his Theory Y. Theory Y gives out a contrasting description of an average worker. Workers are, by nature, not resistant to change and organization. The motivation, the potential for growth, the capacity for assumption of varying responsibilities and the willingness to mould activities/work to meet organization goals are all present in workers-perhaps in latent form. It is apparent that the management could not possibly implant them there. However it was the responsibility of management to make the workers realize these latent positive human characteristics for themselves. Management can also work to develop these hidden traits. The primary task of the management is to organize work conditions and operations so that workers can achieve their own goals best by directing their efforts toward organizational objectives (Heil et al, 2000). The Theory Y worker, also termed as the knowledgeable worker, not only accepts responsibility, but seeks it. The contrast between X and Y brings out the contentious issue as to who controls human behavior. Theory X espouses external control, and Theory Y has as its base self control and self direction. The main dilemma a manager faces in McGregor's construct is the unrealistic burden which Theory Y places on him viz.to fulfill his own personal goals and the goals of the organization while conceiving subordinates jobs' as helping them to achieve their mutual goals in their own manner. This is hugely complex task requiring not only heavy managerial inputs but also awesome psychological inputs. No wonder invariably employee analysis by superiors is shallow and scratches the surface only. Primary question is why management should be responsible for an employees personality and growth in a contractual situation asking 8 hours a day of work. Management must have some responsibilities to the emotional well being of their subordinates, but they cannot be responsible to the extent Theory Y proposes. 11 12 Vroom's theory of motivation is an intrinsic theory. His expectancy-valence theory is a cognitive approach to explaining the causes of motivation, which in turn, influence the behavior of the individual. It makes no apriori assumptions about a worker's personality or needs but relies on three assumptions internal to a worker's motivation process. In nut shell, the expectancy theory of motivation states that employee motivation is high when a task is attractive in itself, and when the outcomes of the completed task are attractive to the employee (Vroom, 1964). However due to the complexities of the internal nature of the expectancy theory, it is a difficult approach to take as a manager. Similarly in F W Taylor's scientific management theories differences between workers were ignored. Workers were treated like inhuman machines causing conflict and resentment. It was often alleged that money is not the only motivator. Elton Maayo's human relations theory was primarily hit by the fact that his conclusions were drawn from small 'non-scientific' experiments and often workers and managers often have different goals; this will affect decisions. These goals can be conflicting. Mayo emphasized the importance of teamwork and wanted well knit and coordinated team building as a primary tool for attaining organizational goals. In order to ensure effective team building the mangers needed to take an active interest in the concerns of their workers. Obviously this called from the managers to resolve all those concerns that were forming impediments to team building and dysfunctionality at individual's workers level. One important method, according to Mayo, in team building was to involve the workers in the process of decision making. This would tend to address their self esteem needs and draw them away from the feeling that they are simple cogs in the incessant production system. Mayo's theory was, therefore, termed the theory of human relations. 13 14 A manager relying exclusively on any of these theories alone would be unable to find a lasting solution to motivational problems.Graham & Weiner (1996) report a continuing concern with "the theoretical overlap between constructs" as is the case with Maslow and Herzberg theories. Weiner (1990) advocated for more general models and have voiced concerns about the construct validity of a number of motivation variables. For no apparent reasons, very little motivational research is conducted in work settings; when conducted it is not disclosed for fears of business competition. This category of research would be directly useful to modern work place motivation. Research apart modern life styles have left more motivational complications for managers. These may arise from special employee circumstances of say family problems, including negative interactions, child noncompliance, high parental control, maternal depression, paternal antisocial behavior, marital conflict, problems with peers ,frequent negative feedback from peers and adults .peer rejection and resulting social isolation etc.These would tend to make lighting up motivation even more problematic. While it may be emphasized that human resources management people in any organization may deploy any one or combination of inventories based on one or more of the above motivation constructs, what is more important is the policy changes that are made possible by the analysis of the data thrown by such inventory administration. Specialist human resource staff can sense problem situations and can administer such inventories with specific focus. Such staff can also time such inventories at well defined intervals and thus generate good amount of data. Management should have requisite inclination to base HRM/HRD policies on such data analysis. Generic application of some of the motivational constructs can be illustrated in organizational settings by means of a work situation example. Work Situation illustration 15 In the situation at hand a recently promoted manager in a bank has the responsibility of ensuring work efficiently from 5 reporting employees. The work, primarily done on computer terminals, can be split in two distinct categories viz.routine-requiring the 5 employees to attend to customer queries on mortgages, insurance and bank accounts themselves. This work is fairly structured task. The bank has standard question templates on terminals. Employees are required to query the customer and fill in the required data in these templates. Based on this data the answer to customer question(s) appears on terminal screen. This is then passed on to the customer to ensure satisfactory service. Such tasks form up to 90% of the total work load of these 5 employees; on routine -These are customer queries which cannot be satisfied by the terminal based templates. They require additional knowledge about the banking products and often present such decision situations where creativity and correlation skills are required. It is an internal practice that such queries may be forwarded to the manager to deal. Normally such queries form about 10% of the total queries received by these 5 employees. 16 17 Problem has arisen as the manager has started receiving such forwarded queries much in excess of the 10% trend and she subsequently discovered that quite a few of them were in fact routine queries which could have been attended to by the 5 member line staff. It is apparent that some line member is trying to pass on his/her work to the 'new unwary manager'. This is not only intruding upon the time and job responsibilities of the manager but also resulting in customer dissatisfaction as not only customer has to wait more to get routine answers but also several non routine queries wait longer as manager is busy in answering routine queries. There apparently is a major motivational problem amongst line staff which needs immediate resolution otherwise the situation may snowball with a multiplier effect. 18 19 Manager has to realize that motivation comes from within. It is an inner drive that causes a person to do something or act in a certain way. It is a complex inspirational energy which is highly desirable in the workplace, equally desired by both managers and workers alike. However this inspirational energy is missing in portion or full in present situation. Motivated employees will put in extra effort when needed, without being asked. Instead here employees are trying to pass on the effort required of them to management layer. In order to resolve this manager can use any of the above stated four motivation theories. These theories are Maslow's hierarchy, Herzberg's Two-factor Theory, McGregor's Theory X and Y, and mayo's human relation construct. Explained below is the manner in which such constructs can be useful. 20 21 In the given situation, as per Maslow's hierarchy, the manager has to first identify the employee(s) responsible for maximum numbers of erroneous references to her. She must then look at personal profiles of such identifies employees and fit them in the above theoretical construct. She has to then find out at what need level is unfulfilled and to what extent. She can then plan specific steps to fill them in. 22 23 Situation at hand reflects a Theory X style of management with clear description of jobs in watertight manner. The repetitive and routine jobs have demotivated certain employees sufficiently enough to make them pass such jobs to manager. Employees are banking upon the premise that the manager is new and will take time to recognize job descriptions. Manager must realize that latent desire here appears to be to handle creative and knowledge based queries normally attended by her. To make her pass on such jobs to them some employees are trying to crowd her time. Manager could devise a motivational system where in she could formally announce in staff meetings that efficient routine workers who not only answer maximum routine queries but also have minimum passing on errors in a time period would undergo specialized knowledge based training in any of the product viz.insurance, mortgage or accounts. On successful completion of such training they would be given specific responsibilities to answer creative and knowledge based queries in the product area they trained for. This would be a specific shift from Theory X to theory Y style of management and ensure complete employee participation. This would also help meet organizational goal of satisfying customer queries to maximum possible extent. In addition manager would have delegated more specific type of queries to line staff and would be free to attend more to her tasks. In contrast Theory X solutions would have been limited to identification of erring employee(s)-imposing monetary penalty on him/her and to control their routine activities with an iron hand. 24 25 Similarly some of the hygiene factors seem to be amiss in the job situation as far as the subordinate(s) responsible for passing on routine queries to manager are concerned. Manager must look into such person's job situation and try to complement identified deficiency. This must be attended to before the motivation plan suggested above is implemented. It is quite possible that if routine job at hand is made challenging and rewarding by setting a small time reward system based on turnover that the manager is able to set things right and that she may not have to go in for training and higher responsibility plan suggested above. In order to pinpoint hygiene deficiency she can use Maslow's three lower order needs for detailed and helpful breakup. She can then move up to use positive factors relating to training for up graded job(job enrichment),actual delegation of creative queries(challenges) and better incentives (more pay on hygiene factor of salary) etc. 26 27 References Graham, S. and Weiner, B. Theories and Principles of Motivation, in Berliner, D. and Calfee, R. C. (Eds.) Handbook of educational psychology. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. (1996). Heil ,Gary, Stephens, Deborah C., Bennis ,Warren G. Douglas McGregor, Revisited: Managing the Human Side of the Enterprise. John Wiley & Sons. (2000). 28 Markiewicz, Dan. Been There Done That Yes, You Can Improve Job Satisfaction. Industrial Safety & Hygiene News: Vol. 36, No. 12; pg. 16. Dec. 2002. 29 Maslow, A.H. Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954. 30 31 "Motivation: the X Factor." Insurance Day 14 Nov. 2002: Section News. 32 Stolovitch, H. D. and Keeps, E. J. The handbook of human performance technology, San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers. (1992) Vroom, V. Work and motivation. New York: Wiley. (1964). Weiner, B. History of motivational research in education. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 616-622. (1990). 33 34 Read More