Rebecca Hawkins: Middle Manager Analysis

Assignment 1: 8600 - 310 – Understanding How to Motivate People in the work place

Motivation is a key aspect in the organization or workplace, and it is imperative to know the basic theory application and methods dealing with any problems that usually unavoidable for the employee and will come up in any work environment. This is a mandatory skills for a leader or future manager to know how important on how to motivate his or her employee to work more efficient. Motivating employees is a big dilemma for managers. To produce a higher level of performance and productivity, manager’s today are obliged to pay more attention on this matter. Every employee needs different types of motivation. In this paper will elaborate three motivational methods that a

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.

want a new faith. In the case of Kelley, she saw the many flaws in the American labor system.

Each leadership style from the three supervisors affects the motivation of their respective subordinates in different ways. Carol’s style has created a group of motivated employees with Art and Bob’s groups left lacking motivation.

The motivational approach Mr. Ferrell is using is intrinsic reward. Because of the personal satisfaction, he has. He follows the rules of Right-Way super market which lead him to believe he is making an significant contribution to this organization (pg.296). Which he seems to think means he does not need to listen to his employees. Mr. Ferrell exhibits elements of scientific management. He sees Amy as more of a machine than a human being there to work not to suggest concepts for a business, he’s worked at longer. Whereas, I would use extrinsic rewards as a motivation. This ensures that an employee knows they are appreciated it can be as simple as telling them what a good job or in this case listening to an employee’s ideas.

“Motivating Employees” is a book about how employee motivation is driven by companies that invest and grow their employees. One of the most important traits of highly effective and successful companies is that employees are happy and have fun at work. Leadership is not assaulting your employees, but to lead your employees you need to motivate by using caring,

The biggest problem to a manager is managing employees. This is because employers often do not know how to handle their employees. An effective manager knows that motivation is a difficult skill to acquire. So over the years, many theorist have studied motivation in order to

Motivation according to Kelley (2014) is the ‘process through which managers build the desire to be productive and effective in their employees’. If an employee is motivated, they are more likely to be productive and generally staff turnover is low. The problem of worker motivation is that workers are not seen as humans, they have a lack of freedom at the workplace and lack of job fulfilment. Taylor and McGregor Theory X argue that there is not a problem with worker motivation, workers will be obedient because of fear of losing their job motivates them to do well. Whereas Maslow and McGregor’s Theory Y argues that there is a problem with worker motivation because of class conflict between the worker and the manager. The

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

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.

Managers who know how to motivate their employees will get the best out of their employees. Motivating employees can be from increase in pay to employee of the month to more training. Jack Welch created a rule for motivation. The rule was called 20-70-10. The employees are divided into these three group based on job performance. The 20 is top twenty (20) percent in the company. These employees are above average. The 70 is the middle percent. These employees have average job performance. They can move up to the top twenty or move down. The 10 is the lower percent and they are likely to be fire. Figuring out where employees stand in the company help

Ability Network’s upper management team has fostered an environment in which ineffective management thrives. In particular, this company struggles to successfully utilize its middle management and establish good working relationships between middle management and the employees they supervise. Twin Cities Business spoke of the importance of middle management in helping companies reach their goals, “Middle managers play pivotal roles. They lead front-line employees charged with performing important work that can help their companies reach their overarching goals (Fedor, 2014).” Employees at Ability Network do not understand the importance of middle management because of the poor job that has been done by this company to equip middle

helpful individual, and others viewed his work as being inconsistence and spotty at times. Rios is required to submit a formal performance evaluation on all of her workers, and Barlow’s performance appraisal was the most challenging yet she had to face. Lack of Motivation Barlow’s behavior at the TA can be simply defined as lack of motivation, and this can be further explained in depth by the use of expectancy theory. The expectancy model states, “People are motivated to work when they expect to achieve things they want from their jobs. A basic premise of the expectancy model is that employees are rational people. They think about what they have to do to be rewarded and how much the rewards mean to them before they perform their jobs.”

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,