The Most Common Motivational Management Theories

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

Motivational Theories are important to management today because employers and managers need to know what drives the employees to perform at their best, and why. As Hersey explains, “If we are to understand, predict, and influence behavior, we must know what our employees really want from their jobs. Only then can we appeal to their strongest motivations and increase the probability of meeting both professional and organizational goals”

* Principle that performance on a task is best when arousal level is appropriate to the difficulty of the task:

Internal motivation includes thoughts and emotions (e.g. perform the same task over and over again vs. at being given a wide range of project types).

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.

According to DuBrin, “…motivation is an energizing force that stimulates arousal, direction, and persistence of behavior” (2004, p. 121). It is the force inside the individual and process which allows us to get others to put forth effort. There are many motivational theories that can be used to motivate others (DuBrin, 2004).

Over the past years different theories on motivation have been developed. These theories reach different conclusions on what motivate employees in their workplace. Job satisfaction, motivation, and reward systems are included in one area of organizational theory. A review of the classical literature on motivation reveals four major theory areas:

Motivation can be defined in many ways. In the oxford dictionary Motivation is explained as a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way. There are so many ways of motivating people as I have discovered by all the motivation theories that have been thought by people all over the world. Some of the theories are very different to each other as lots of people have different opinions. For manager it is so important they understand how motivation works as they want to get the best work out of their employees. If the managers can’t motivate their employees there work commitment will not be great and this could have very bad effects for the business. The two theories that I will discuss are the reversal theory and the vrooms

Stress and conflict in the workplace can cause major emotional and physical damage to the facility and workers. In the past, there have been reports of tragedies caused by disgruntled workers who may have clocked in with a gun in hand. We are going to look into ‘three motivational theories including the relationship of stress and conflict in relation to individual motivations.’

Motivation is therefore the force that transforms and uplifts people to be productive and perform in their jobs. Maximising an employee's motivation is necessary and vital to successfully accomplish the organisation's objectives and targets. However this is a considerable challenge to any organisation's managers, due to the complexity of motivation and the fact that there is no ready made

Organizations can use various motivational theories for inspiring their employees. According to the Hertzberg 's theory, employers should start by concentrating on sanitization features such as wage and employment security, before concentrating on influential issues such as exciting work and fully grateful that the work completed. In contrast, Adams ' equity theory states that management must focus on subjects that may be thought to be imbalances, such as wage and full appreciation of work completed, before concentrating on job security. The Vroom 's theory proposes that management must focus on the reward system, employee attempt in accomplishing the goals and objectives of the organization. As mentioned by the Motivation in the Real World by Gellerman (1992), the most successful motivation techniques in companies in the United States are: “selectivity in hiring, generous pay and benefit programs, and encouragement of long-term employment.” Additional tactics are flexible implementation of procedures, rules and regulations, and a sensible policy of placing employee motivation is a priority (Beck, 2004).

A common place that we see the need to apply motivation is in the work place. In the work force, we can see motivation play a key role in leadership success. A person unable to grasp motivation and apply it will not become or stay a leader. It is critical that anyone seeking to lead or

Motivation in the workplace has been a frequently discussed subject for at least a century. Whether an employee is doing paperwork behind a desk, helping to put together a car on a conveyor belt, or trying to make a sale, motivation is essential in their job. The reason behind this is simple enough- the more motivated an employee is the more work they tend to get done. However, it can be a struggle for managers to keep their workers motivated. This struggle has led to the development of numerous motivational theories, all aiming to help managers keep their employees motivation high. Among these theories, three stand out among the rest as the most relevant theories for the modern workplace- McClelland’s acquired needs theory, Locke’s and Latham’s goal setting theory, and Vroom’s expectancy theory.

Motivation is something that can be considered to be comprised of someone’s level of hard work persistence and the directions which their efforts are turned towards (Brooks, 2003), It is really important that any organisation keep their staff motivated, which is not an easy task. The organisations that are able to keep their staff highly motivated, they are most likely to be able to achieve their goals and objectives(Mullin,2005). But then again it is important that workers within an organisation are able to motivate themselves through an understanding of their own needs.

There are countless books, seminars, and videos on the subject of motivation, particularly with regard to motivating employees. As businesses continue to try to find ways to squeeze more and more productivity out of a shrinking number of workers, motivating those employees is a critical factor in the business' success. Being in a management position is not easy, and not always fun. The position comes with much responsibility and can prove very stressful. Holding a management position often means you are put in charge of large numbers of people, all with different attitudes, moods and dispositions; whose performance you are held accountable for. That is the bad news. The good news is even if things are not