Motivation At Work Place For The Workplace

In any workplace, workers are no doubt the essential mainstay that holds any business or corporation together. Employees achieve important tasks to help the company’s long term vision and goals to be successful and efficient. A business can’t be successful without a proper management that is why it is important for employees to enjoy going to work and they also have maintain a positive attitude while being productive and completing tasks. Motivation is what gives a person the purpose to perform or behave in a certain way with the desire or willingness to gain something. There are two types of motivations, motivation that comes from a person and motivation that comes from materially goals. It is very necessary that employers keep their employees motivated and encourage them to perform above expectations.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs was introduced in the mid-1940’s by Abraham Maslow; it is one of the most popular theories of work motivation to this day. the theory was originally used specifically in a psychological setting, but was made more popular by Douglas McGregor in the late 1960’s and began to be used by not only psychologists but managers as well (Steers & Porter, 1983). The hierarchy is based on the fact that human beings have needs, Maslow took these needs and separated them into five categories: physiological needs, safety, belongingness or social needs,

Motivation refers to the psychological processes “that underline the direction, intensity, and persistence of behavior or thought (Fugate & Kinicki, p. 146).” Motivating your employees is very important and can be critical to accomplishing the mission or task at hand. “Direction pertains to what an individual is attending to at a given time, intensity represents the amount of effort being invested in the activity, and persistence represents for how long that activity is the focus of one’s attention (Fugate & Kinicki, p. 146).” Being able to instill motivation within the work place makes individual’s work that much harder to achieve the goal that the organization has set forth. According to Seppala, the best leaders are able to take a step back and maintain a human touch in the workplace by inspiring employees, being kind to them, and encouraging them to take care of themselves (Seppala, 2016). Although motivation comes in two forms, both extrinsically and intrinsically, the fact remains that motivation is the fuel that drives results and performances. On the opposite end of the spectrum, lack of motivation can cause a decrease in morale. People who are unmotivated to work can become complacent within the organization and just be content with having a steady job. In order to prevent this, it is with the utmost importance, that leaders and managers find a way to motivate their people. As a result, this would make job employees want to come to work, motivate

Motivation theory examines the process of motivation. According to Amstrong (2006), it explains why people at work behave in the way they do in terms of their efforts and the directions they are taking. It describes what organisations can do to encourage people to apply their efforts and abilities in ways that will further the achievement of the organisation’s goals as well as satisfying their own needs. It is also concerned with job satisfaction-

The subject of motivation has been an important component in both theoretical and applied literature. There are many reasons why the motivational theories have generated so much discussion. In an organization motivation has been considered an important factor because employee motivation is considered essential for an organization 's status within the business environment and the community. The two motivation theories selected for this paper is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg hygiene factors.

Motivation is the desire to behave in a particular way or the willingness to do something. Motivating within a workplace or an organization is defined as “psychological processes that cause the arousal, direction, and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal directed”. Organizations depend on their employees and managers to work towards their mission and goals. In order to achieve the common goals organizations incorporate motivational factors which promotes and meets the expectations as well as the needs of employees. Also, to promote learning and productivity, organizations initiate motivation among employees. Organizations face the dilemma of sustaining employees due to lack of motivation because employees wrestles to balance work life and their personal life. Organizations try to develop motivational strategies that help increase productivity and performance, and has a significant effect or impact on the management and on the employees. Google is one such organization which is known for its motivational factors of different forms. However, there are advantages and disadvantages of motivation. There are also ways in which attempts to motivation incorporated within an organization can go wrong. Therefore, organizations need to learn the importance of motivation and its effect on productivity. Organizations also need to sustain job satisfaction of employees by adjusting the job design and the job task.

This essay’s aim is to analyse and establish an understanding of various motivation theories and their possible application within organisations. Along with implementing, the information related to motivation, this essay would demonstrate the importance of motivation and it is necessary for organisations to motivate their employees effectively

In organization many question if the motivation techniques of yesterday are still good for today’s growing organization. Nelson (1996) states that most motivational techniques are essentially the same as in pervious years, people always want more but never seem to be satisfied with what they have. It is part of human nature to have a stable economy, high standard of living, and a low unemployment rate. It seems that it is not easy for an organization to motivate employees today. According to research the basic physical needs of the employees today does not have much impact in motivation, but there are other factors that have a tremendous impact. These are recognition, respect, involvement, advancement, and interesting and meaningful work (Nelson, 1996). Many employees believe that management is unable to motivate them simply because most managers do not have the techniques on how to start motivating them.

Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology is devoted to the study of employee behavior in the workplace and understanding the issues facing organizations and employees in today’s complex and ever changing environment. Motivation refers to the set of forces that influence people to choose various behaviors among several alternatives available to them. An organization depends on the ability of management to provide a positive, fostering and motivating environment for its employees in order to increase profits, productivity and lower turnover rates of its employees. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and compare six academic journal articles and explore the behavior, job, and need based theories of motivation that can aid management in motivating and understanding their employees. Finding that delicate balance to can sometimes be elusive so effectively learning how to motivate by understanding, controlling and influencing factors to manipulate behavior and choices that are available to employees can produce the desired outcome.

Motivated employees are important to an organization, because work motivation relates to the performance of employees and their behaviour towards the organization (Katzell & Thompson, 1990). “Managers see motivation as an integral part of the performance equation at all levels, while researchers see it as a fundamental building block in the development of useful theories of effective management practice (Steers, Mowday, & Shapiro, 2004, p. 379)”. In this study the role of work motivation of prospective employees played a central role, because in this study it was investigated if motivation to work for an organization was influenced by the ethical and philanthropic responsibilities.

In order to motivate a team that is committed to the objectives of the organisation, Palmer (1998) suggests that members of teams are given ample opportunities to obtain job satisfaction whilst at work. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943) is one of most used developmental models to achieve self-actualisation, it is based upon the motivation of individuals to satisfy specific groups of needs in order to progress to the next level (shown at figure 1).

Varying employee needs lead to different kinds of motivation. Different kinds of motivation influence employees’ job satisfaction. Employees’ motivation will be affected by factors such as occupation, gender, social culture and organisational structure. This study will attempt to explore the differences in motivation between core-workers and periphery workers, and whether these differences in motivators are distinctive. Previous researchers have directed most of their attention towards the questions like, why people behave as they do on the job and what can be done to influence employees’ work motivation? Several theories of work motivation have been formulated to identify factors that influence work behaviours and factors that contribute to the maintenance and termination of these behaviours (Maslow, 1954; Herzberg, 1966). Although motivation as a concept represents a highly complex phenomenon that affects, and is affected by a multitude of factors in the organisation (Kanungo, l994), it is accepted by most scholars and practitioners that thereisa positive relationship between motivation and job satisfaction, individual performance, and physical and mental health. They believe that behavioural influences, such as job satisfaction, have a very important impact on quality of service, organisational commitment and total organisational effectiveness (MacRobert, et al. 1993; Beall 1994; Joseph and Deshpande 1997; cited: Lewis et al.2001; Morgan et al. 1995).

Motivation is the desire or willingness to fulfil a goal. Within the working environment, it is essential that the company’s employees to possess / retain motivation in order to maintain optimal output. According to Maslow’s theory regarding the hierarchy of needs, it states “that human motives can be arranged in a hierarchy of priorities”. These priorities consist of Physiological, Safety, Belongingness, Esteem, Self –actualisation. This theory outlines that humans are ‘want’ beings, and once a need is fulfilled, the next need appears and demands to be satisfied. This process continues until the needs of self-actualisation, cannot be fully fulfilled, resulting in a halt of the generation of needs. In simple terms, Webfinance (2014) states “once a need is satisfied, it stops being a motivator of human beings”.

Motivation is one of the most discussed topics in the present era’s organisations, especially since renowned psychologists like Maslow and Herzberg are dedicating their efforts to understanding it. Companies are investing a significant amount of resources in improving productivity in order to maximise profits. One of these important resources is of human nature. In order to get the very best out of employees, some motivational approaches need to be used. But what is motivation and how do I successfully motivate? I will try to relate one of my personal experiences with a friend to some of the most influential motivational theories. After introducing my story and making a definition of motivation I will address the ideas of Taylor,

An example of motivation could be Park Resort. At the Isle of Wight Park Resort location, the caravan cleaners were happy and committed to their work. This was due to the fact that the manager had sacked unnecessary supervisors and had increased the wage of employees to £9 an hour. The cleaners were extremely happy at this location as they had more hours to work and additional wage. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has five stages, which are, physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualisation. Safety needs is something mentioned in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If employees are guaranteed financial security, this is a moral boost for them and therefore are motivated.