Motivation In The Workplace Essays

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.

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.

Motivation is a main point in which I am interested and in order to understand more about the topic I have based my review in 2 different sources: Forbes article “Motivation Mystery: How to Keep Employees Productive” and Daniel Pink Ted Talk “The Puzzle of Motivation”.

Work signifies an important aspect of human being’s life owing to the outcomes related with it, such as economic outcomes (salary, financial incentives), social status and fulfillment of needs. This had inspired organizational scholars to explore, what motivates one to work, leading to tremendous research on work motivation. Motivation theories can be classified through three predominant approaches (Chalofsky, 2003):

Sales assistants are able to climb the ladder of management without a degree. Primark always advertise these positions internally before they advertise externally. Employees can view the organisation as a hierarchical structure and aim to work their way up through the company. This is a motivation factor for all employees, even senior management within the Belfast store because Primark being a multinational company can offer positions at head offices or in another country. This is Maslow’s self actualisation factor and a ‘motivator’ factor of Hertzberg’s two factor theory.

The Equity Theory touches on the effects these situations have on the employee’s motivational level. In society today employees are constantly comparing how they are

In recent years, organizations have shown an interest in addressing the subject of employee attitude regarding their jobs and tasks. Many leaders believe that motivation is a key factor in keeping employees on a path to achievement in the workplace. Motivation as defined by Vroom (1964) is the force impelling an employee to perform a particular action. Theories of motivation started to be developed following World War II. Prior to this time, organizations had not shown any concern or interest in the increasing of employee’s productivity because social and economic conditions were such that the demand for a workforce had been less than the supply of people willing to find work.

There are numerous motivational theories that explain why people do what they do. When viewed collectively, these theories suggest people’s actions are driven by the following factors: economic, social, and self-construct. Economic factors include not only money, but health protection, security, wealth, physical safety, and purchasing power. Sales commissions fit most of these needs, but do not fully meet the needs for security and physical safety. When people think about and act upon what others think of them, they are being influenced by social factors. Most people will work harder for positive feedback and avoid performance that garners negative feedback. For example, some people are eager to conform to the norms of a sales team and are positively motivated by the performance of the entire team. Self-construct is the inner voice that drives an individual to perform and differs in every individual. Some people are driven in the pursuit of self-accomplishment, while others are driven by the need for power or acceptance. Each of these factors are combined in varying degrees in all individuals, whether salespeople or not.

"Work" is a positive thing for many people. To some people, it may be described as a place to escape from the kids, or even a time consumption thing for a single or retired person, but most importantly it is what we do in order to provide for our families and ourselves. Work is something that we all will experience at one time or another during our lives.

Personally I don’t think agree much with Maslow’s theory for the simple reason that as human beings we are the most complex species when it comes to behavior and breaking us down in five levels of motivation is simply unfair. We not only have numerous needs that need to be satisfied in an organization but

Motivation is what encourages us to act in a certain way and to achieve certain things in our everyday lives and is a major factor in deciding how we behave. Work motivation is especially important to managers in organizations. According to Kanfer et al (2008), work motivation is a psychological process that influences how employees allocate effort to their work. It also influences the direction, intensity and persistence of these actions. It is very important that managers motivate their employees in the workplace as having highly motivated employees can benefit the organization. Motivated employees are known to be happier at work and as a result will work harder and are less likely to leave their job. There are many different theories of motivation that managers can use to motivate employees. In this assignment I am going to discuss, in detail equity theory and goal- setting theory. I will examine the effectiveness of these theories, outline some problems associated with them an compare the theories.

Over the past few decades, managers have realized that the motivational capacity of most organizations has a significant impact on the productivity and on the profitability of a firm. Much of the old paradigms regarding management theories have focused extensively on a single way of developing worker productivity and motivation in the firm through the

We all need the motivation to get our work day started each day. According (Elbert& Griffin, 2015, p256) motivation is the set of forces that causes people to behave in certain way. However, people can be motivated in many ways and it can be in a positive or negative technique that influences on someone. In the business society we have to recognize the changes in a conduct and the motive why. There are four primary theories of motivation to encourage employees to come to work such as classical theory, early behavior theory, two-factor theory, and contemporary motivational theory.

The equity theory of motivation states that motivates employees if he or she is treated equally and demotivated if they are treated inequitably (Armstrong, 2007). This theory concerns employee’s perceptions of how he or she is treated in comparison to other employees. Employees who experience this theory attempts to eliminate discomfort and restore sense of fairness to the situation. Equity comparison usually occurs when managers distribute rewards, monetary incentives, or pay increases (Lombardi and Schermerhorn, Jr., 2007).

In an organization, motivation involves ensuring the employees perform highly to achieve the organization's desired goals. Several motivational theories have been advanced as to explain workers' attitudes towards motivation. One such theory is Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory (Bauer & Erdogan, 2015). He posits that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction. These include the advancement of an employee’s career. He believed that workers were no longer just satisfied with the minimum basic salary but aimed to achieve more. Herzberg also found there are certain factors in the company that causes dissatisfaction for the employee. These include supervision, company policies, salaries and work conditions. If a business wants to motivate its employees, it should focus on satisfaction factors (Bauer & Erdogan,