Employee Motivation And Motivation Theory

Employee motivation is, or at least must be, one of the key issues for directors, managers and personnel managers. The leader must be able to find the sensitive strings of his subordinates, which can be motivated by influencing them to achieve high performance. The correct use of motivation encourages staff to make more efficient use of their knowledge, skills, and talents. In today's turbulent, often chaotic environment, commercial success depends on the employee's talent and effort. Despite the many existing theories and practices, some of the motivation of leaders today remains a mystical term. This is partly due to the fact that people are motivated by different things and techniques.

According to researcher Lindner (1998), motivated employees are needed in our rapidly changing workplaces to aid in the survival of organizations. Not only is it important to meet the needs of the consumer, it is equally important that to make sure that associates are taken care of and remain motivated. For this reason, Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly and Konopaske (2012) “states much of management’s time is spent addressing the motivation of their employees” (p. 125). According to the Encyclopedia of Small Business (2007), employee motivation is the level of energy, commitment, and creativity employees bring to their jobs; the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals (Lindner, 1988). Despite its obvious importance, employee motivation can be an elusive quest for managers due to the multiplicity of incentives that can influence employees to do their best work. The reality is that every employee has different ways to become motivated and the knowledge of how to motivate them is key to organizational success. It is imperative that employers get to know the personal needs and wants of their employees in order to establish tactics in which to motivate each of them. Once achieved, “managers are in a better position to encourage and reward employees to behave in effective ways” (Gibson et al, 2012, p.

Over the last several years, the issue of employee motivation inside the workplace has been increasingly brought to the forefront. The reason why is because, globalization has been having an effect on the ability of firms to compete (which is placing more pressure on them). To deal with these challenges, most organizations are relying on their employees. The results are that those employers who are able to use this resource will be able to make adjustments quickly. This is when the firm will be able to maintain their dominance in the marketplace.

The relationship between motivation and performance always make people think, doing the research, and wonder what is the real connection of these two behind the surface. Although a variety of motivations may affect performance, and performance may be contingent on a multitude f other factors, one of the more important factors affecting performance arguably is the motivation to perform well on the job (Kuvaas, 2006, p. 2). Moreover, the Human asset in the 21st century is considered the most important asset of any company (Hafiza, Shah, Jamsheed & Zaman, 2011). The staffs of any companies are key resources for company’s success as well as maintain competitive advantage.

In organizations all across the world you will find management working diligently to enhance or maintain productivity. There are many things that can affect productivity, some that are within our control and some that are not. Employee motivation is something that can directly affect an organizations production. It is no secret that un-motivated employees equates to un-productive workers, but how can we combat this? In order to better understand this concept we will look at the definition of employee motivation, some of the motivation theories and some motivation techniques that could be useful in our organizations.

When running a business, one would have to hire employees who perform well and product and or quality is of the same caliber. The key to an employee performance is motivation. The expression, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot force it to drink water, can be seen within the human race.

Human Resources is dependent on the success, happiness, and contentment of employees that keep the business on course. Motivation is one of the best ways to push employees forward while making sure everyone is in a comfortable position in their job. Motivational theories just attempt to explain what motivates or makes people act the way that they do. The goal of understanding these theories and their outcomes is to ensure a better performance from each employee, and to give each of those employees the best situation they can have in the workplace. Visionaries such as Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, and Henry A. Landsberger also brought forward new ways of management and ways to handle internal situations that changed the landscape of human resources as a whole. Motivational theories instituted in the workplace have a commonly positive effect on both employees and management, showing that it is important to strive for proven motivational practices.

Ali joined CVS Caremark project at TCS-Noida in November after a successful stint at Aviva in TCS-Bangalore, where he had worked as a trainee. He had always wanted to go back to his hometown and live with his parents and when he got a transfer to Delhi he didn’t waste a single moment in saying yes to the new project and heading towards Delhi. Many of his friends were also moving out from Bangalore at the same time which only made his decision easier. He felt that Caremark offered better career prospects, as it was a new project and they were offered to work on the current technologies that were in demand in the market. Ali was sure he would excel in his new position at Caremark, just as he had done in his old job at

Motivation takes on many forms, even in the workplace. Employee satisfaction brought on by individualized motivation methods, produces a culture of growth and harmony. A residual benefit to intentionally and methodically motivating each employee, in the manner that generates the best productivity, is that it becomes a magnet for great customer experiences. Carol Sansone and Judith Harackiewicz (2000) summarize “Motivation thus energizes and guides behavior toward reaching a particular goal” (pg. 1). Employee satisfaction is often the foundation to a residual goal of customer satisfaction.

The human resource is vital for any organization, as it is important to manage organizational employee happiness. Motivation has long been seen as a positive indicator of job performance. What are some great ways to motivate an employee to increase job performance? A performance review can act as motive for an employee to improve his/her productivity. Therefore, when an employee sees his goals clearly defined and is measured against the set goals and objectives, he can be motivated to work harder (Mathew, Johnson). In this review, I will look at and explore the multiple arguments of the management research articles. So, the question I must ask is this: Is there a positive correlation between employee motivation and job performance?

To date, numerous studies have been conducted and formulated quite profound theories about motivation, how it can enrich any work environment existing economic activity, including the implicit costs of materials and not included as an element of human management approach organizations, in parallel, these works are based on present as individual study unit cut-practiced in a vacuum exposure as a collective dynamic mechanism, ie how different people - which have elements of different interest - could come to share the same motivational ingredient despite their individual differences, as well as people management strategy that could consolidate a scenario of genuine willingness to be motivated collectively.

In the contemporary business development, it is essential to manage not only the external resources but also the internal resources, such as human resources (Flamholtz, 2012). In the field of human resource management, employee motivation is an essential topic, which aim to enhance the working enthusiasm for the employees in order to gain the higher production (Jiang et al., 2012). Then, another complex theme, job satisfaction, is considered to be a factor that can force the employees retain or leave the company (Edmans, 2012). If the employees not satisfy with the company, it may lead to a large number of problems, including the inefficiency even high rate of turnover in the company (Jain, 2013). Therefore, whether the human capital can feel job satisfaction or not is an importance issue for the human resource development department in the company in order to enhance the inherent strength of the firm. For the purpose of reaching higher level of employee job satisfaction, an effective incentive mechanism can be useful (Ahmed and Islam, 2011).

As the organizations need to maximize workers performance it is challenge to achieve the overall objective of the organization to adopt motivational strategies to its employees. Investment in workers through motivational strategies are made today for future benefits for an organization.

Employees are one of the most important assets in the organisation (Hume, 1995; Shields, 2007), it is believed that a lot of organisations and employers wish to maximise employees’ effort on its work and therefore enhance organisational performance. According to Armstrong (2012:50), high-performance is accomplished by well-motivated people who are prepared to exercise discretionary effort. Therefore, it is critical for the organisation to find a pathway to motivate its employees. Some scholars state that employee motivation can be encouraged by offering appropriate rewards and establish systematic reward systems (Amstrong, 2012; Pratheepkanth, 2011 and Manzoor, 2011).

The social contract that existed in the United States during the mid-20th century that guaranteed people a lifetime of employment in exchange for hard work and organizational loyalty has essentially vanished. In an increasingly globalized marketplace, many companies of all sizes and types are struggling to remain profitable and competitive, and these trends have adversely affected employee job security and employee motivation in turn. Today's employment setting is characterized by the need for specialized skills and technological expertise and employees who possess these valuable attributes are termed "gold-collar" workers. These valuable employees can make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful enterprise, so keeping these employees motivated in the workplace has assumed new relevance and importance in recent years. Formulating optimal motivational approaches, though, requires more than just pay (which is consistently cited as a major influence on motivation) and benefits, but a host of other factors as well. To gain some fresh insights in this area, this paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature to develop a background and overview, as well as an analysis of those factors that have been shown to influence employee motivation. Finally, an assessment of current and future trends in employee motivation is followed by a summary of the