Strengths and Weaknesses of Mcclelland’s Acquired Needs Theory and Expectancy Theory

According to Maslow’s Needs theory, based on the fact that a person is justified as long as he still has not reached a certain level of satisfaction, has a better understanding of the fact that human motivation leads to a broad spectrum of their needs we could say that in order to motivate people, the manager has to give employees the opportunity to meet the needs in a way that together lead to the organization's objectives.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The world is moving forward, so should everyone else, the organizations these days are spending more time thinking about motivating the employees than they would have a decade ago. New and improved motivational techniques are taking shape to improve work flow and reach the common or organizational goal at an earliest and at the closest efficient level possible. Motivation has stood out as the sole weapon against lethargy.

Business productivity has been a focus of many studies over the past few decades as businesses strive to continuously improve and become more efficient. One of the key concepts behind productivity is utilising one of the main resources, people, in the best ways possible. Organisations have to analyse employees‘ behaviour to be able to ensure that they are working effectively and this can be done through focusing on their motivation. Motivation aims to explore the reasoning behind people’s behaviour and the factors that affect them to stay committed and passionate about their job. There are many theories that investigate motivation, however, I will focus on Vroom‘s Expectancy Theory in this essay to critically evaluate the following statement: A job will only be motivating if it leads to rewards that the individual values.

As the economy continues to struggle, it becomes more and more difficult to find ways to continue to motivate employees. To motivate your staff, you must be a role model to the staff and pave the way for motivation. The result of productivity within the business is measured by the effort that a manager puts into the employees to improve their occupational performances. It it thought that motivation comes from within ourselves, although, motivation from an outside source can boost the work rate as well. In today’s workforce, a manager endures various challenges with motivating their employees that did not exist in the workforce fifty years ago. Each challenge that a manager experiences ties hand in hand with one another and are all equally important. The three challenges that I will be discussing in this paper include: lack of communication, diversity and personal issues.

This is a current and topical issue as motivation matters a great deal; Forsyth (2000 p. 2) states that motivation “increases efficiency, effectiveness and productivity” and allows organisations to meet their aims and objectives. Hageman (1992) suggests that motivation is the internal incentive that which brings out pleasure from work; happiness and efficiency are closely connected. This then makes employees desire to do what is required of them.

Motivation is the interior and exterior elements that arouse aspiration and drive in an individual to remain constantly involved as well as dedicated to a job, role or subject, or to create a determination to achieve an objective (Business Dictionary, 2013). The focal key concern of a business ought to be its people. They remain the individuals who support the operation and the idea of the business along with keeping the organization running. This research paper will offer a proposal of a business motivation plan, pinpoint dual approaches that motivate workers and recommend three means to

McClelland had another content theory. The learned need theory of motivation had to do with learning concepts. He saw that the learned needs are for achievement, for affiliation and the need for power, he saw all these needs as learned. All the theories aim to explain what motivation is and how it relates to the work place.

Nevertheless, McClellands theory of Needs can extend on Maslow’s (1943) theory, by highlighting the importance of belongingness to motivate individuals not exclusively for survival, but to

David McClelland and Notably Jonh Atkinson, his associates, had done his research basically focused on needs according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model, higher order (social and esteem) needs (Venugopalan, 2007). McClelland’s acquired needs theory defines that an individual’s specific needs are accordingly to one’s life experiences which needs are acquired over time (Ball, 2009). As Motivation is essential to almost any feature of life and this word is also often used in reference to work. Work is not necessary due to innately human activity, but not in new modern-day work arrangement, motivation plays as an important role to create global productivity and scalability which mean that motivation drive people to use their ability and capacity into work to produce qualification of work. Therefore, McClelland described motivational need in three different types:

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.

In the motivating of employees, there are certainly many theories, definitions, and ideas. Motivation is a continuous battle in the work place, and close attention must be paid to it in order to ensure productivity and performance. It is hard to look at one of these theories and say that one is the most accurate or represents the landscape the best, but I will apply my own ideas and experiences to the topic to better understand how motivation works from my perspective. In the second part of the paper, I will look at my own experience as an employee at Google and at an insurance company, to help understand the various theories in practice. I suffered from lack of motivation as an employee in my first two jobs for two different reasons that can be explored in further depth based on the readings.