One More Time How Do You Motivate Your Employees

Herzberg’s two factor theory of motivation at the workplace shows the difference between two factors of motivation. The two factors being satisfiers, which are the main causes for job satisfaction (motivation), from hygiene factors which are the main causes for job dissatisfaction (demotivation to stay in the job). Examples of motivating factors are achievement, recognition, responsibility and the work itself. Hygiene factors include: working conditions, salary, relationship with colleagues, supervision, etc. An organisation needs to influence satisfiers through performance management using range of tools such as: job descriptions, supervision, performance appraisals, continuous development/training, rewards and career development.

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.

Herzberg and his companions’ intention was to increase employees’ satisfaction at workplace in relation to work assigned to them and also to motivate employees regarding their assigned work. Job enrichment was presented by the American psychologist Frederick Herzberg in 1950s. The basic reason of this idea was to motivate employees by providing those opportunities of utilizing their abilities so that productivity and performance of the employees increase and positively impact the organizational environment and smoothing the way for achieving organizational goals. Job enrichment increases job depth, the degree to which employees can plan and control the work involved in their jobs (Eraut 2004; Kayes, Kayes et al. 2005).

The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate and review three journal articles by John Honore (2009), James Lindner (1998), and an article by Fred Herrera (2002). All three articles discussed the topic of employee motivation in the workplace. The authors examined several motivational theories and put forward their ideas on the concepts and application of motivational techniques. The authors’ work provides insight into the psychology of motivation and the different factors and theories that affect it. My conclusion is in line with the authors’, motivated employees are needed for the organisational survival and just like our constantly changing environment and each individual is different, motivational techniques need to be continuously explored and developed.

Health care organizations in recent decades have found they must do more with fewer resources, in particular fewer human resources. Economic instability in the United States coupled with governmental changes in health care reimbursement structures have compelled considerable reductions in force in health care organizations and in some instances elimination of services previously provided. In this economic environment, dedicated and motivated employees in health care facilities are the most valuable resources of the organization. However, for employees to be valuable to the organization they must be engaged in the goals,

According to Herzberg, individuals are not satisfied with lower-order needs at work, for example, those associated with minimum salary levels or safe and pleasant working conditions. Theses individuals look for the gratification of higher-level psychological needs such as achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the nature of the work itself. Motivation-hygiene theory, based on the presence of one set of job characteristics or incentives lead to worker satisfaction at work, while another and separate set of job characteristics lead to dissatisfaction at work. Moreover he found that job characteristics related to what an individual does is the nature of the work he performs, having the capacity to gratify such needs such as achievement, competency, status, personal worth, and self-realization, leading to satisfaction. However, the absence of such gratifying job characteristics does not lead to dissatisfaction. Instead, dissatisfaction results from unfavorable assessments of such job-related factors as company

Intrinsic factors, such as achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth seem to be related to job satisfaction. When respondents questioned felt good about their work, they tended to attribute those factors to themselves. On the other hand, when they were dissatisfied, they tended to cite extrinsic factors such as company policy, administration and supervision. Herzberg deduced from these experiments that the opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction, as was believed. He found that removing dissatisfying characteristics from a job does not necessarily make the job satisfying. He thus proposed a dual continuum, where the opposite of satisfaction would be no satisfaction and the opposite of dissatisfaction would be no dissatisfaction (Robbins,1993) According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation, organizations cannot begin to motivate employees until that which dissatisfies them has been removed. Hygiene Factors such as salary, working conditions and supervision are not motivators even when they are being met. Other types of hygiene factors include, company policy, poor interpersonal relations and job security. The meeting of lower-level needs of employees is not motivating, but can have a de motivating impact if not met. True motivation only kicks in when an employee’s higher-level needs are met (La Motta,

Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory- a theory that explores factors associated with satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the workplace (Bell et al., 2014).

357). Factors that add to employee dissatisfaction include: “company policy and administration, supervision, salary, interpersonal relations, and working conditions” (Starling, 2011, p. 357).

In the article “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?”, it explains all the aspects to getting your employees do you want them to do. The type of motivation that the article talks about is what Herzberg refers to as “KITA”. He describes this as “administer a kick in the pants”. KITA has three main forms which are, negative physical KITA, negative psychological KITA, and positive KITA.

Maslow’s study of the needs hierarchy led to Frederick Herzberg’s theory, Two-Factor Theory. Herzberg researched focused on employee’s attitudes and motivation. He determined that there are two factors of motivation. The first set (hygiene factors) relates to the employee's need for fair treatment in compensation, supervision, and working conditions (Dictionary of Human Resource Management, 2001). If these are not met, employees feel dissatisfied. Herzberg second set of needs, (motivator factors) identify personal growth and capacity development on the job, (promotion, achievement, responsibility, etc.) must be met for employees to experience job satisfaction. Distinguishing between these two sets of factors is important because it means that different factors are responsible for job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction (Dictionary of Human Resource Management, 2001). Herzberg believed that motivation increases when one combines pay (extrinsic factor) with a motivator such as challenging work (DuBrin, 2007). This theory has led people to understand that money will not always be the best motivation.

Herzberg’s (1993) ‘Motivation-Hygiene theory’ analyses job attitudes suggesting a two-step approach to understanding employee motivation and satisfaction;

In Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene theory led to development of extensive lists of these motivator and hygiene factor (Miller 2006). According to Miller (2006), the category of motivator factors is responsibility, achievement, recognition, challenging work and advancement in the organisation. The category of hygiene factors are physical working conditions, salary, benefits, company policy and the technical quality of supervision (Miller 2006). Herzberg believes that the absence of these factors will lead to unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Effective job performance is highly dependent on the adequacy and balance of both motivator and hygiene factors. A US retailer, Costco is known to be incredibly loyal, which can be keep profitability for the organisation (Leberecht 2010). Keeping the employees satisfied will make employees perform well and it results in higher profitability for the organisation in the long run (Leberecht 2010).

Motivation is discussed widely from different people especially in twenty century, because every organization wants to increase their profit and want to become famous in the world and try hard to satisfy their customers. Those organizations how want to increase customer satisfaction and to achieve their goals they send their employees to different seminars, for holidays and training because employees are the main profit of an organization. Some people said employees are not only the assets of an organization they are essential subscriber and effective factors for business production. Employees are not only motivated by money this concept is wrong motivation come from different approach by work levels, from senior to junior levels, in workplace. Motivation depend on manager it is the

According to Herzberg, the factors leading to job satisfaction are distinctly different from those that lead to job-dissatisfaction. Therefore, the managers who seek to eliminate factors that create job-dissatisfaction can bring about peace at the workplace but cannot motivate the employees. These factors are termed as hygiene factors comprising administration, supervision, working conditions, salary and wages etc. While absence of hygiene factors will lead to dissatisfaction, mere presence of these factors will not satisfy (i.e. motivate) the employees. In order to motivate the employees, managers must resort to ‘motivators’ (those factors that motivate the employees towards better performance) such as recognition, challenging assignment, responsibility, opportunities for growth and self-fulfillment etc.