The Importance of Motivation Essays

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.

Mitchell (1982, p.82) describes motivation as “the degree to which an individual wants and chooses to engage in certain specified behaviours”. Hence, in general, behaviour is determined by certain motives, thus, Vroom and Deci (1992, p.33) considered motivation “as the causes of our behaviour”. Moreover, according to Mullins (2013, p.245) motivation is concerned with question “why do people do what they do?”, because motivation is an inner driving force which leads to particular action to achieve some aim and fulfil some need. In other words, Chartered Management Institute (cited in Mullins, 2013, p.246) observes that, “the aim of management is to give people what they really want most from work”.

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

Rewards for the purpose of reinforcement are essential in my management plan. While it is acceptable to give external rewards some of the time, a majority of the rewards should be internal. Internal rewards foster intrinsic motivation, which I believe will serve to

Motivation most certainly plays a huge role in the workplace, therefore, it is imperative to understand fully the basic theories and methods, and of course how to apply these theories and methods to everyday workplace scenarios. These motivational skills and techniques will definitely play a key role for leaders and or managers, knowing how to motivate people in today’s workforce will provide job growth.

Motivation can be defined as the desire or inspiration to carry out specific tasks or to do something. Motivation is required when goals are being set and more so in their execution. In a work setting, motivation can be defined as a process through which individuals choose between alternative forms of behavior with the aim of achieving personal objectives. The goals sought by individuals can be extrinsic or relatively tangible such as monetary rewards and promotion, or intrinsic or intangible such as self esteem or job satisfaction (Armstrong, 2006). In learning, the desire to attain good grades is what motivates a student to study hard everyday as they prepare for the exam. On the other hand, for a teacher to put his best foot forward, he

Dan Pink in Ted Talks gives insight on motivation in the workplace today. Mr. Pink speaks of motivation driven by intrinsic rewards. Intrinsic is an outcome that gives personal satisfaction or fulfillment when the task is done well. Autonomy, mastery and purpose are examples of intrinsic rewards that Mr. Pink states are the driving focus of motivation. His talk was focused on autonomy, the urge to direct our own lives. Mr. Pink reviewed companies that has implemented autonomy and it showed that job satisfaction as well as job retention was high. Studies showed that extrinsic rewards only worked when little cognitive ability is required to solve a task. Extrinsic is an award that is based on something tangible, physical or monetary. Since the

The success of any business depends on the productivity and satisfaction of its employees. Employees need to be motivated to work. Motivation can be defined as the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals. Motivation can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. For an individual to be motivated in a work situation there must be a need, which the individual would have to perceive a possibility of satisfying through some reward. Intrinsic motivation stems from motivations that are inherent and arise from performing the task of the job itself, which the individual gets a feeling of either positive or negative motivation as a result of

In “Understanding Management”, there is a chapter on motivation that covers both extrinsic and intrinsic reward. The material does highlight the increasing trend of motivating people through appealing to those intrinsic needs and how it

Extrinsic/External Rewards are rewards given by another person, such as company bonuses, to motivate employees.

Motivation is one of the main key reasons people are so successful in life. Without the needs and motivation that people meet to achieve their goals businesses would be unsuccessful. Mangers need to follow the basic motivation steps so that way their employees are working at their full potential. Where does motivation start? It has high and low needs, which is where people start to motivate themselves by basic needs. There is no argument that people don’t just motivate themselves for nothing. There are many different rewards that are given to people everyday for working so hard. Two different rewards that people just like us earn on a daily basis for their dedication and give their business their full potential which are extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Why do companies offer extrinsic reward? Equity theory as the be addressed in the work place environment, which is a theory that states that people will be motivated when they perceive that they are being treated fairly. There are businesses that do overreward and underreward their employees. Expectancy theory is another main theory that businesses have to address, expectancy theory. Which is a theory that people will be driven to the extent to which people trust that there will be some type of reward after they put in all the effort.

Students want and need work that enables them to demonstrate and improve their sense of themselves as competent and successful human beings. This is the drive toward mastery. But success, while highly valued in our society, can be more or less motivational. People who are highly creative, for example, actually experience failure far more often than success. Biehler (p. 225) claims that studies show that when CAI used in conjunction with a teacher's lessons, is particularly beneficial for low-achieving and young students.

‘Motivation’ is derived from the Latin term ‘movere’ that means ‘to move’. Thus, motivation is a process that starts with a physiological or psychological deficiency or need that activates a behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal or incentive (Luthans). Broadly speaking, motivation is willingness to exert high levels of efforts towards organizational goals, conditioned by the efforts’ ability to satisfy some individual needs (Robbins). Need means some internal state that make certain outcomes appear attractive. An unsatisfied need creates tension that stimulates drives within the individual. These drives generate a search behaviour to find particular goals, that if attained,

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,