The Effects of rewards on employee motivation - Essay Example

As researches at the work level have shown, however, these needs for external rank or status are not the only needs which the worker brings to his work situation. Research has also shown the importance to the worker of the need to belong, to be liked, and to be an accepted member of a group. These member or internal rewards are thus highly prized by the worker (Reed 32). To become an accepted or high-ranking member of a work group, however, exacts its toll or cost: one must abide by its values and norms.

But by abiding by its values and norms, the member's needs for association, friendship, approval, and support are satisfied. His standing or rank in the eyes of his fellow workers also goes up (Schuler 78). "The components of the motivation function include motivation theories, appropriate job design, reward and incentive systems, compensation, and benefits" (DeCenzo and Robbins 51). The terms "external" as applied to the concept of needs or rewards refer primarily to the source, organizationally speaking, through which individual needs tend to be satisfied (Schuler 79).

The external needs include the need for economic rewards such as pay and job security. Through these economic rewards, of course, the individual satisfies many physical and biological needs which are elementary in human survival and adaptation. The external needs also include the need for status and to be engaged in interesting work; that is, to satisfy the desire to do work that tests competence and expresses some creative ability in individuals. In modern industry most of the needs included in the external category are associated with the larger organization and the management union structure (Reed 33).

Management generally decides what and how work is to be done. Armstrong and Murlis (2007) underlines that: "aim is to offer a value proposition and maximize the combined impact of a wide range of reward initiatives on motivation, commitment and job engagement" (12). Through the process of collective bargaining, an organization-wide pay structure is established, setting the level of pay for various tasks. Similarly, other economic policies are established which determine the conditions of work which are external to the individual and the small group of which he is a part.

At times, consequently, researchers call the external rewards "reward by management" (Reed 40; Lashaway-Bokina 225). Motivation is defined as a psychological force, analogous to a physical force in that it is a vector quantity possessing both magnitude and direction. Motivation is the amount of effort that one desires to expend in a given direction. The amount of effort one does expend to reach a goal is assumed, in the absence of the imposition of constraints on effort expenditure, to be in direct proportion to the amount of effort one desires to expend (Reed 40).

Alternatively stated, and again neglecting constraints, the amount of eff