THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE

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.

Good leaders have a passion for the work they do and feel it is important. Sharing that passion and enthusiasm with employees can help to motivate employees to become more productive. Praising

Motivation has become a term as ubiquitous as it is undefinable. What exactly is motivation and how is it used to achieve a desired result? In many circumstances, individuals are motivated by different aspects at different times in their lives. Compounding this issue further are the environmental factors embedded in an individuals motivation. Depending on an individual's background, he or she may be motivated differently than others of similar socio economic circumstances. As such, it is quite difficult to appraise the merits of a single motivational characteristic or theory. This difficulty has given rise to numerous theories of motivation throughout history, each with its own distinct value. The problem with many of these theories is that they are imperfect by nature and do not encompass all possible options of behavior. This document will focus primarily on the achievement motivation theory established by Harackiewicz, Barron, Carter, Lehto, & Elliot in 1997 and how it can and cannot be used effectively within workplace situations.

Motivation is important to keep the employees committed towards their job responsibilities and dedicated towards the corporate wide objectives of their organization. It is one of the core functions performed by the Human Resource Department of an organization. There are different management techniques which can be used by organizations to motivate their employees. These techniques include monetary or financial rewards and non-monetary or non-financial rewards. Monetary rewards are the extrinsic factors of motivation. These rewards include salary, bonuses, periodic or performance based increments, cash rewards, discounted product or service packages, and other financial benefits. On the other hand, non-monetary rewards include all those intrinsic factors that do not involve money; for example performance appraisal, promotion to higher job positions, greater responsibilities, job rotation, etc. Both these types of rewards are given by organizations to motivate their employees and keep them committed towards their job responsibilities. The Literature is full of the researches carried out on different motivational factors and techniques which organizations from all over the world use in different situations. The purpose of this paper is to critically review some recent research studies which compare different motivational techniques and discuss their usefulness and efficacy for the business organizations.

Motivation is defined as the drive within a person to achieve a goal. The challenge that supervisors and employers have is how to help their employees to develop the drive to complete a goal within themselves. Numerous studies and experiments have been done on how best to motivate employees. Theories have developed around the results of these studies, each is tailored to the circumstances of the time, place, and people that participated in the study so they do not apply directly to every situation.

Effective leading requires managers to motivate other team members. In order to motivate these team members, managers must communicate effectively and ensure that employees feel that they play an important role in the achievement of results for the organisation. When a manager is an effective leader, their team members will become enthusiastic about putting effort into the tasks involved in achieving organizational objectives.

Peter Drucker the famous 20th century management consultant may have described motivation best saying, “We know nothing about motivation – all we can do is write books about it”. Motivation is a commonly used buzzword thrown around in daily conversations without much meaning behind it. Motivation defined by Jason Colquitt and company in Organizational Behavior is as follows “a set of energetic forces that originates both within and outside an employee, initiates work-related effort, and determines its direction, intensity, and persistence” (Colquitt, LePine and Wesson ).

Motivation is the capability to change behavior. Motivation is a drive that holds one to act because human behavior is directed toward some goal. Motivation is a personal act. It is therefore about people's expectations and their needs, goals, behaviors, giving information about their performances. Therefore, in order to fully comprehend the motivation process, it is necessary to examine such factors as the reasons for compelling people to behave in a certain way, the personal goals and the possibilities of maintaining their behavior. (The content theories deal with “what” motivates people, whereas the process theories deal with, “How” motivation occurs. )

Motivation is the willingness to exert high levels of effort towards a goal, provided the effort made also satisfied some individual need. (Keenan K., 1995, e.g. 60)

Eisenhower’s statement “Motivation is getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” (Achim, Dragolea, & Balan, 2013) Motivation is art; it is also a power that affects people actions. Indeed not every human being can motivate, but also every human being can be motivated. In performing such a process in a company; it is favorable for the company to know the possibilities and ways of reasoning that would work for each employee according to their targets and parts of interests; then the company would easily desire more and more from those whom they managed to motivate, moreover this process will always work in the benefit of both companies and employees. Motivation is one of the most important things that the human resources department in any company must show a great concern, because through motivation the company could earn more profit, gain a better reputation, and finally satisfy their own

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.

A manager’s objective must be to help construct an organization with employees that motivate and inspire each other. Employees’ motivation are important. Motivation affects employee’s performance, which affects the company’s overall success. It leads to greater work performance. Motivation is important because it creates the drive for employees to perform their responsibilities and achieve their organizational goals. “It is the psychological catalyst employees and owners require to reach the goal” (McKay, 2014). In order for managers to create a strategic motivational plan, managers need to have a better understanding of what motivates their employees.

An employee performance appraisal can act as motivation for an employee to improve his productivity. When an employee sees his goals clearly defined and is measured against the set goals and objectives, a need can be identified about the future strategies of employee motivation. In this review, I will look at and explore the multiple arguments of the management research articles. So, the question I must ask: is there a positive correlation between employee motivation and job performance?

The social contract that existed in the United States during the mid-20th century that guaranteed people a lifetime of employment in exchange for hard work and organizational loyalty has essentially vanished. In an increasingly globalized marketplace, many companies of all sizes and types are struggling to remain profitable and competitive, and these trends have adversely affected employee job security and employee motivation in turn. Today's employment setting is characterized by the need for specialized skills and technological expertise and employees who possess these valuable attributes are termed "gold-collar" workers. These valuable employees can make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful enterprise, so keeping these employees motivated in the workplace has assumed new relevance and importance in recent years. Formulating optimal motivational approaches, though, requires more than just pay (which is consistently cited as a major influence on motivation) and benefits, but a host of other factors as well. To gain some fresh insights in this area, this paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature to develop a background and overview, as well as an analysis of those factors that have been shown to influence employee motivation. Finally, an assessment of current and future trends in employee motivation is followed by a summary of the