Topic: What is intrinsic motivation? With people so used to monetary rewards and other extrinsic motivation, how do managers use intrinsic motivation methods to motivate staff?
Introduction
Work motivation can be defined as the psychological forces within a person that determine an employee’s behavior in an organization, effort level, and persistence in the face of obstacles (Kanfer, 1990). In simple words, motivation determines why an employee acts a certain way.
Most managers agree that employee motivation can be subdivided into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Staw, 1976). Per Amabile (1993), an employee is said to be intrinsically motivated when they seek enjoyment, interest, satisfaction of curiosity, self-expression, or personal challenge in the work. While employees are extrinsically motivated when they engage in the work to obtain some goal that is apart from the work itself.
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For a long time, managers have been known to focus on the use of financial rewards aspect of extrinsic motivation to motivate their employees, but this method seems to be failing, as “only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work”, as per Gallup's study on 142 countries, (Crabtree, 2013).
This report aims to study how extrinsic motivation methods are less relevant and instead, managers must focus on intrinsic motivation methods. This is done by largely studying “The Google Way” of managing employees, and study the effectiveness of these
Motivation is derived from an internal force that provides an individual the opportunity to achieve their needs or goals. People are motivated by a variety of things and often have different motivating factors. Employers should be mindful of individual motivating factors when attempting to motivate staff to increase performance. While some people may be motivated by money, many are motivated by things like: recognition, promotion, and increased responsibility. Once an employer has identified motivating factors they are able to analyze a variety of motivational theories to design and implement a program that will motivate employees to go above and beyond what is expected of them.
Chapter 12 of our textbook is titled “Motivating Employees,” and it encompasses much of what was in Drive. An extrinsic reward is defined as the “payoff, such as money, a person receives from others for performing a particular task.” Extrinsic rewards are what drive the old economy and still influence management techniques within organizations today. These rewards have many benefits but are becoming more and more obsolete in the twenty-first century workforce. The textbook defines intrinsic rewards as the “satisfaction, such as a feeling of accomplishment, a person receives from performing the particular task itself.” Offering only extrinsic rewards is what Pink refers to as “carrots and sticks.” These rewards work well for routine tasks. However, these rewards often stifle creativity (as seen in the candlestick experiment). Modern jobs are increasingly relying on creativity and innovation. Managers can use this knowledge by acknowledging the importance of intrinsic rewards when dealing with employees engaged in more complex
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.
Dan Pink in Ted Talks gives insight on motivation in the workplace today. Mr. Pink speaks of motivation driven by intrinsic rewards. Intrinsic is an outcome that gives personal satisfaction or fulfillment when the task is done well. Autonomy, mastery and purpose are examples of intrinsic rewards that Mr. Pink states are the driving focus of motivation. His talk was focused on autonomy, the urge to direct our own lives. Mr. Pink reviewed companies that has implemented autonomy and it showed that job satisfaction as well as job retention was high. Studies showed that extrinsic rewards only worked when little cognitive ability is required to solve a task. Extrinsic is an award that is based on something tangible, physical or monetary. Since the
After watching Dan Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation video, I’m in agreement with him that intrinsic motivation is the best approach for rewarding employee's. According to chapter 13 in our textbook (section 13-1c), it goes into detail about intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards are rewards that you can receive for tasks that you have done, and extrinsic rewards are rewards that you can receive from others that been watching your performance. In the video, Dan Pink points out that intrinsic motivation is the best approach for the employers. I work at Glenn's Sporting Goods as a shipping and receiving clerk.
In the video “The Puzzle of Motivation,” Dan Pink explains different ways on how employees can perform better in organizations. For instance, he mentions that the reward-and-punishment way should be avoided in the workplace. Dan Pink believes that the reward-and-punishment approach leaves employees less space for creativity and decrease their chances to think sharp. He announces the “The Candle Problems” studies to support his claim on this approach and explains that inclining more close to intrinsic motivators can be a solution toward how to improve employees performance. Pink mentioned that extrinsic motivators did work well for ‘20th century tasks’ and that it is time to focus in the direction of intrinsic motivators for our modern businesses.
Generally, motivation is defined as “the intention of achieving a goal, leading to goal-directed behavior which is reflected at the end of a project” (Whittington and Evans, 2005). Motivation therefore is a perceived drive that can be enforced into an employee and can either make the employee achieve or not to achieve the organizational goals and attain personal goals as the end results (Young, 2009).
The success of any business depends on the productivity and satisfaction of its employees. Employees need to be motivated to work. Motivation can be defined as the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals. Motivation can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. For an individual to be motivated in a work situation there must be a need, which the individual would have to perceive a possibility of satisfying through some reward. Intrinsic motivation stems from motivations that are inherent and arise from performing the task of the job itself, which the individual gets a feeling of either positive or negative motivation as a result of
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.
Motivation in the workplace is one of the major concerns that managers face when trying to encourage their employees to work harder and do what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. According to Organizational Behavior by John R. Schermerhorn, James G. Hunt and Richard N. Osborn the definition of motivation is "the individual forces that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person's effort expended at work." They go on to say that "motivation is a key concern in firms across the globe." Through the years there have been several theories as to what motivates employees to do their best at work. In order to better understand these theories we will apply them to a fictitious organization that has the following
This is a current and topical issue as motivation matters a great deal; Forsyth (2000 p. 2) states that motivation “increases efficiency, effectiveness and productivity” and allows organisations to meet their aims and objectives. Hageman (1992) suggests that motivation is the internal incentive that which brings out pleasure from work; happiness and efficiency are closely connected. This then makes employees desire to do what is required of them.
We live in a society in which people are believed to be motivated by highly energizing and engaging rewards such as pay, job security, benefits and working conditions, all of which are extrinsic rewards. According to Daniel Pink’s book Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, he writes that these extrinsic rewards are in fact not the best ways in which to obtain and maintain motivation. Pink gives a new perspective on motivation in the workplace; it is argued that human motivation is largely intrinsic and that the aspects of this motivation can be divided into autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Based on the extrinsic reward motivation theory, low financial compensation can hinder motivation and performance in your profession,
Being rewarded and recognised for their work or contribution is what keeps an employee motivated to work towards achieving the organisational as well as personal goals. When the employees is motivated by rewards, they will have job satisfaction consequently increasing the productivity of the organisation. It necessitates the need of managers to pay more attention in understanding their employees and come up with suitable types of reward systems for the organisation so that the employees are intrinsically and extrinsically motivated all the time. The hypotheses that I put forward here is to support this statement that effective reward management is critical to
There are several reasons why a person goes to work. These reasons can be better explained as "work motivation". Work motivation can be defined as the inner forces that make us work and want to work harder to achieve personal or organizational goals (George & Jones, 2005). There are two different types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic.
One of the first authors that dealt with the sources of motivation was Frederick Taylor who focussed on the overall productivity of an organisation. He linked this productivity to the effort an employee puts into their work which in turn is dependent on monetary rewards (Taylor, 1911). This theory was established in the context of the industrial age and thus is outdated for today’s analysis but it still provides a basic assumption which is often referred to by other authors. The total neglecting of a worker’s intrinsic motivators is a starting point for discussion for authors that conducted research in that area after Taylor.