How Can Employees Be Motivated to Perform Better at the Workplace - Research Paper Example

Sociology Research Paper S A M P L E Q U E S T I O N N A I R E This questionnaire is a part of a research project to assess what motivates employees and improves their performance on the job. Please complete the questionnaire below by circling the response you consider to be the most appropriate: Please use the ranking system below: *1 – Strongly Disagree, *2 – Disagree *3 – Not Sure *4 – Agree *5-Strongly Agree Your age? *1 Below 25 *2 Between 25-35 *3 Between 35-45 *4 Above 45 Your gender? *1 Male *2 Female Your ethnicity? *1 White Caucasian *2 African American *3 Asian or Pacific Islander *4 Hispanic origin *5 Eskimo *6 Arab/Muslim *7 Other 1. My Company has a good benefits package for employees * 5 *4 *3 *2 *1 2. The management involves employees in decision making * 5 *4 *3 *2 *1 3. The Company has a pay scheme comparable to other Companies * 5 *4 *3 *2 *1 4. The Company offers pension and insurance plans * 5 *4 *3 *2 *1 5. The Company has an effective leadership team * 5 *4 *3 *2 *1 6. My Company workplace is an environment where people of diverse backgrounds can succeed. * 5 *4 *3 *2 *1 OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS 1. How long have you been with this organization? (If your answer to the above question is less than a year, please stop right here – do not answer any further questions) 2. Is there a scheme at your Company for recognition of good work by employees? 3. Are you satisfied overall with the Company’s attitude towards employees? 4. What strategies is your Company using to motivate employees? 5. What strategy would you suggest as to motivate the employees? The research question I am examining is How can employees be motivated to perform better at the workplace? Although there are several motivation theories, I propose to specifically explore motivation from an employee perspective rather than from the perspective of what employers can do to improve motivation. I use a pragmatic paradigm of enquiry because it rejects the scientific method as a means of understanding the truth of the world. It places the research problem at the centre of focus and applies all the possible approaches to an understanding of the research problem.(Creswell, 2003:11). In this case, the research problem centers on employees, to find out what they consider to be motivating factors which would make them perform better at the workplace. Since the question of motivation involves a subjective element in terms of the assessments that must be made, qualitative methods may be more relevant in this case. Qualitative methods lend themselves well to those studies where a special understanding of the issues is sought to be achieved (Troachim, 2001). The preferred method in qualitative studies is semi structured interviews and/or survey questionnaires to obtain primary data. The survey questionnaires is a favored tool of many of those engaged in research; it uses closed end questions and it can often provide a cheap, fast and effective way of collecting data in a structured and manageable form” (Wilkinson and Birmingham 2003). This method is also cost effective because it enables a researcher to reach out to and collect responses from a large number of participants within a short time frame. The survey questionnaire I have prepared is in a Likert style format and assigns a numerical ranked at five different levels, where the respondent will tick one of five answers, such as “Strongly Disagree”, “Disagree”, “Not sure”, “Agree”, and “Strongly Agree”, in order to measure the level of importance accorded by the respondent to each particular question. For each dependent variable the response provided by the participant will provide an idea of the degree of importance that he/she attaches to it. By averaging out the responses from all the participants, it will be possible to obtain an overall score of how significant a particular variable is from the perspective of the research question proposed in this study. Since I have also sought data on respondent’s age, ethnicity and gender, this helps in further classification of the responses to determine any differences in individual groups. I have included a contingency question before moving on to the open ended section of my questionnaire, which allows respondents to provide a free flowing response. My contingency question asks them how long they have worked at this company – the reasoning being that if they have only been with their Company a short while, they will not be in a position to offer an informed opinion on what factors could motivate employees in that specific Company. The open ended questions which I have included allow me to collect detailed and exhaustive information from participants, which can help to provide insight into the research problem. Although this would require more time and effort, it helps me to gather comprehensive data on the subject. I propose to conduct interviews with the participants and ask to first fill out the closed end questions, then discuss with them their comments on the open ended questions. I first tested this survey questionnaire by administering it to one person in order to gain a preliminary idea about the kind of responses I am likely to get. I informed my interviewee about the purpose of the study, which is to determine motivating factors at the workplace. One of the significant quotes that I was able to collect from my interviewee is provided below as follows: “I feel that my Company’s attitude towards employees could do with some radical improvements. They don’t pay any attention to ideas offered by employees, nor do they provide any opportunities for them to come up with ideas. I mean, check out the case of IKEA and their folding furniture, it was an idea generated by one of their employees, wasn’t it? We have lots of useful ideas that could really improve the way business is done, you know? But does management have the time or inclination to listen to us and take our ideas into consideration? No – and that’s one thing which actually DE-motivates me and many others I work with.” If comments of this nature are corroborated in the responses offered by others, it could be a significant finding, because it suggests that in most corporations, management does not take the time or effort to consult with employees and invite them to put forward their ideas and/or suggestions for improvement. It appears likely that such behavior by management in inviting suggestions from employees would appeal to the intrinsic needs employees may feel for recognition at the workplace. Consulting with employees would enhance their sense of self worth and their feeling that they are also contributing to the firm in some way. This may help to motivate them in performing better at the workplace. Based upon the kind of responses that I was able to get on the single interview I conducted, some of the other issues I would like to address in my study include pay issues and how they contribute to motivation. I would also like to explore whether employees feel that there is a good diversity policy in place at their organization and whether they are motivated by or find it difficult to work with people of other races. I would also like to explore to what extent employees’ performance and motivated is affected by the kind of leadership in the organization. This study also offers me the facility of adopting an ethnographic approach, which allows a researcher to follow respondents over a longer time frame. For instance, I could use this same questionnaire over a longer period and administer it every other year to the same respondents. Assuming that the employees stay with the same organization, this would allow me to assess whether their ideas on motivation have changed over the time period and if so, why? I would include additional open ended questions if adopting an ethnographic approach and be more flexible in my line of questioning, depending upon the insights thrown up in the data collection process. The focus of my study is exploring motivation from an employee perspective; hence it would be very useful to explore what changes have occurred of any and what is the reason for those changes. Adopting an ethnographic approach would also help me to determine if job hopping has occurred – or whether an employee has been fired and is no longer with the organization and if so, what were the reasons for leaving the firm? Is the employee better motivated at the new workplace if he or she has resigned their job? This study and the questionnaire I have designed allows me to explore various aspects of the problem of motivation. Responses from the closed end questions can be statistically analyzed using measures such as median and average values, correlations and ANOVA tests. This would allow for an analysis to be made on how many respondents feel that one particular variable motivates them as opposed to another and it would also be possible to determine how such responses are distributed among the two sexes and in terms of the ethnicity and age of the person. This would help to uncover any gender, age or race discrimination issues at the workplace which could be interfering with the motivation f the employees. The results of the open ended questions would require careful coding of responses to detect trends inherent in the data. I will divide the responses and prepare cards to jot down specific aspects of a particular response. This can then be matched with responses given by other participants in order to discover what kinds of trends can be uncovered. I propose to use Narralizer software to perform the content analysis of the data collected through the study, because this software divides data into units, sorts them and reorganizes them in a new meaningful order. This would help me in detecting trends which may not otherwise be apparent, especially in the collection and analysis of ethnographic data. References: * Creswell, J.W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks: Sage. * Trochim, William, 2001. “The Research Methods Knowledge base” (2nd Edn) Atomic Dog Publishing * Wilkinson, David and Birmingham, Peter, 2003. “Using research instruments: A Guide for researchers”, Routledge Read More