Abstract: The purpose of this paper was to recognize the influences that effect employee motivation by observing the relationship between organizational effectiveness and employee motivation. This study was performed in order to measure the employees’ current satisfaction of motivational influences and incentives in the company, as well as to use that information to conclude which factors and incentives could be altered, applied, or abolished. Employee motivation seeks to look at how best employees can be motivated in order to achieve high performance and to be more productive in the future within a company or organization’s culture. The study was accompanied by issuing a questionnaire to all employees working at Victoria Secrets in the Midwest region. The employees that participated were both full-time and part-time, from all different departments (manager, sales associate, cashier, and stocker) and have been working at the company for varied periods of time. The questionnaire created was split into four different parts and the data derived from the questionnaire was analyzed and was presented in this report in four criteria’s: communication in the workplace, the income of employees, long-term incentives, and non-financial incentives.
Introduction: Employee motivation can often be an intangible journey for companies and managers due to the assortment of incentives that can influence employees to do their best work. Short-term monetary incentives are often seen as required
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.
As a manager the three motivational methods that should be used would be to provide monetary incentives, employee recognition, and training incentives. Monetary incentives are one method that can be used by a leader or a manager in his or her workplace, these incentives is to reward an employee for his or her outrageous work-related performance. These incentives may include such as profit-sharing within the company, stock options, performance bonuses, and scheduled bonuses. These different types of monetary incentives can increase the motivation of its workers and can lead to more productive, less absenteeism, and may improve one’s quality of service. Monetary incentives when awarded to one employee may also be a morale booster can also encourage other workers to improve his or her work performance, and maintain a healthy, friendly, positive work environment. A healthy workplace is a product of a successful and productive work environment. Working in this kind of economy, monetary incentives is the excellent method to use. However, these incentives may persuade others and may not to some; the result will be the same, increased quality work
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.
The findings of two main studies was obtained from the Academy of Management Journal. The consists of two different cultural regions of the world. The studies were conducted in Hong Kong and China. The topics that were covered within this study was retaining and motivating employees and how the compensation preferences differed between regions. According to our course studies, rewarding for performance such as pay and other intrinsic or extrinsic rewards can have a positive impact on serval things within an organization. Some positive impact may include: attraction of employees, retention of employees, and job satisfaction of employees. This article describes findings from a study in which people have different motivations in the
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,
There are as many different methods of motivating employees today as there are companies operating in the global business environment. Still, some strategies are prevalent across all organizations striving to improve employee motivation. The best employee motivation efforts will focus on what the employees deem to be important. It may be that employees within the same department of the same organization will have different motivators. Many organizations today find that flexibility in job design and reward systems has resulted in employees ' increased longevity with the company, improved productivity, and better morale.
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
When it comes to motivating employees, sometimes it’s a bigger task than it seems to be. Many companies need their employees to be motivated for many reasons, it could be to provide the best work for the company, or it could be to keep a senior level employee with the organization. Having a first hand look at how giving incentive pay to employees can increase motivation and work output, I believe this is key to providing a workplace that someone not only wants to be a part of, but looks forward to coming to. Incentive Pay can be broken down into three parts, why a company would give incentive pay in the first place, options for individual incentives, and the different group options. Incentive pay encourages hard work, and hard work brings success to all companies.
This paper will address why employee motivation, recognition and rewards keeps employees working effectively and efficiently. Employee motivation is very important to a company’s production and quality of work, It is important for management and companies to recognize employees’ hard work and have an incentive program to show appreciation.
To motivate employees to work towards reaching organizational goals, managers frequently depend on some form of enticement. Beyond monetary compensation, awards and additional types of acknowledgment can be given, and the ability to choose a work schedule is a possibility. A reasonable pay system, which would be an incentive for individuals and groups to achieve organizational goals, is a hardship manager’s face (Jones & George, 2011). Within the company that I work for, every quarter awards are presented to Customer Service Agents who have maintained a 95 percent or above quality score. Monetary awards are given out as well as time off coupons.
Keeping employees motivated in addition to creating incentives and/or additional ways for employees to receive more compensation will create better performance overall within an organization. Contrary if company B gives their employees incentives to perform, without any motivational tactics they probably will not have as many top performances as company A, in addition the company may only seek short term rewards verses have long term success. Lack of motivation for employees within an organization, can cause long term damage for the company’s success. Different things motivate everyone; therefore there should be a system in place to keep employees motivated for the long term success of the company. In the MBM textbook under the concept of incentives, compensation, and motivation, there are a couple of different views of how it should be applied within an organization. We will discuss The Social Role of Profit, Personal Profit and Losses, and the way Market-Based Management view how incentives, compensation, and motivation should be applied and the things that effectively drive employees’ actions while at work.
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.
Typically one thinks of regular raises as a great motivator of employees. In fact it is understood that the absence of raises can lower morale and affect job performance. Often due to economic downturns, however, companies may go for years without the ability to provide raises, making it imperative that the company find other ways to motivate employees. While raises may motivate employees, the amount of money one makes is not the only driver of motivation. However, raises can be an effective means if the employees are able to recognize that the raise represents a reward for good performance. Even when raises and bonuses are available, more often than not, they are not enough to motivate employees for long periods of time, such as the whole year. After a few short months, the impact of a raise can fade which will reduce the motivation associated with the raise (Blank, n.p.). Employees continually need to feel that their efforts and job performance are noticed and appreciated (Nornberg, 2014). Similar to children, who need instant gratification, some employees can be less motivated by rewards that are too far in the future. Employers may be able to more effectively motivate their employees for good performance and positive behavior if they engage in giving frequent rewards, such as paid time off or gifts (Blank).
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.
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