What Motivates Employees According to over 40 Years of Motivation Surveys

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, according to the text, “A set of energetic forces that originate within and outside an employee that initiates work-related effort and determines its direction, intensity and persistence.” (Colquitt) When one hears the word “motivation”, one automatically thinks of an individual’s reasoning behind a certain task or performance. In terms of job motivation, it is what pushes or encourages a person to not only perform the work tasks, but to also be successful in the position and within the company. Motivation includes factors like “what do you do? How hard do you do it? How long do you do it?” The question of motivation has been a topic of discussion for decades. Many might think that money or, financial gains, play a huge role in motivation for an employee; however, motivation may differ drastically from person to person. Various underlying elements affect an employee’s motivation. There are several theories that are able to partially summarize aspects that account for high motivation.

A question often asked by first-line supervisors and managers is “How do we motivate our employees?” Effectively motivating employees to achieve a desired outcome is one of the most important functions as a supervisor or manager. There is evidence to show organizations are facing challenges retaining employees due to limited opportunities for advancement and the current competitive labor market. It does not appear things will get any better in the future. The loss of employees represents a loss of skills, knowledge, and experiences and can create a significant economic impact and cost to corporations as well as impacting the needs of customers. Managers who can motivate employees assist the organization by

Salaries play an important role especially in the first two stages of the hierarchy; we all need money to survive. Another theory is the Alderfer's ERG Theory; Alderfer has modified Maslow's hierarchy and has shortened the five needs into three, existence, needs, relatedness needs and growth needs, existence needs: refer to basic survival needs that everyone needs to satisfy. Relatedness needs: relate to interpersonal contact, social and emotional acceptance, status and caring. Growth needs: are development and sense of self worth. Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation Herzberg's theory of motivation is quite different than the other motivational theories. Herzberg stated that there were only to kinds of factors in any job, hygiene and motivation, the motivation hygiene model is based on the idea that one set determines dissatisfaction (hygiene) and the other set determines positive satisfaction (motivational theory). The hygiene set contains the company policy, administration, working conditions and job security. According to Herzberg’s findings he suggests that if these conditions were unsatisfactory they would most certainly be heading towards physiological or psychological withdrawal from the job. These conditions must be met for an individual to be motivated in work, however, other conditions and factors must be met, this proves that in order for an employee to perform his or her work in an

Social needs acquired by such employees include love, acceptance and belonging. They must feel accepted and a sense of worthiness before they can work up to fulfilling other, more difficult needs. The esteem level on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is the need for appreciation and respect. After the other levels of needs have been fulfilled, the esteem needs begin to play a prominent role in motivating behaviour. Theory Y employees will be motivated to gain respect in their organisation by achieving company objectives and by showing management their skills and abilities. The top need desired by such employees is self-actualisation. Maslow himself said;

Motivational programs provided to employees can prove to be very useful tools to increase motivation from the employees, reduce employee turnover and help to maintain skilled and talented personnel. Strategies used to influence employee loyalty can be intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is explained as one's personal incentive to engage in an activity for a feeling of personal satisfaction and accomplishment without expectation of external rewards or recognition. Whereas, extrinsic motivation is defined as using external incentives such as prizes, money or rewards to motivate an individual to complete a task or engage in an activity.

Motivation is the key to the success to any organization. “Human relation thinkers see the terms motivation and behavior as closely related because human behavior occurs as a result of motivation” (Razik & Swanson, 2010, p. 108). Motivating people to work harder, give of themselves 100%, encouraging the employees to not only work harder, but smarter to develop ways of doing things better can be one of the hardest jobs of an organization (Razik & Swanson, 2010). In this essay I will describe several motivational theories Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,

Ali joined CVS Caremark project at TCS-Noida in November after a successful stint at Aviva in TCS-Bangalore, where he had worked as a trainee. He had always wanted to go back to his hometown and live with his parents and when he got a transfer to Delhi he didn’t waste a single moment in saying yes to the new project and heading towards Delhi. Many of his friends were also moving out from Bangalore at the same time which only made his decision easier. He felt that Caremark offered better career prospects, as it was a new project and they were offered to work on the current technologies that were in demand in the market. Ali was sure he would excel in his new position at Caremark, just as he had done in his old job at

Motivation refers to the psychological processes “that underline the direction, intensity, and persistence of behavior or thought (Fugate & Kinicki, p. 146).” Motivating your employees is very important and can be critical to accomplishing the mission or task at hand. “Direction pertains to what an individual is attending to at a given time, intensity represents the amount of effort being invested in the activity, and persistence represents for how long that activity is the focus of one’s attention (Fugate & Kinicki, p. 146).” Being able to instill motivation within the work place makes individual’s work that much harder to achieve the goal that the organization has set forth. According to Seppala, the best leaders are able to take a step back and maintain a human touch in the workplace by inspiring employees, being kind to them, and encouraging them to take care of themselves (Seppala, 2016). Although motivation comes in two forms, both extrinsically and intrinsically, the fact remains that motivation is the fuel that drives results and performances. On the opposite end of the spectrum, lack of motivation can cause a decrease in morale. People who are unmotivated to work can become complacent within the organization and just be content with having a steady job. In order to prevent this, it is with the utmost importance, that leaders and managers find a way to motivate their people. As a result, this would make job employees want to come to work, motivate

Motivation acts a force to energize and direct behavior in the workplace (Myers 329) so that employees perform tasks to a high degree. It is motivation that retains employees in a company because improper motivation acts as a deterrent to productivity and joy. Whether physiological, emotional, or incentive based, motivation affects our lives everyday and induces our natural drive to thrive and succeed. Many psychological theories explain the different ways employees may become motivated, such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s two factor theory, and theory Y, based on how appealing a stimuli may be to an employee’s needs.

As people mature observe, needs such as: assessment and self-realization to become more important. From the analysis of the survey data of Herzberg we conclude that man has two different types of needs, which are essentially independent of each other, and that influence behavior in different ways.

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.

Bauer and Erdrogen (2009) define motivation as “the desire to achieve a goal or a certain performance level, leading to goal–directed behavior” (p.97). McConnell (2006) argues that true motivation is self motivation. Today, health care organizations place a lot of emphasis on production and performance. However, motivating employees is a common challenge faced by health care managers and Bauer and Erdrogen (2009) state it is also one of the factors that greatly affect performance. McConnell (2006) states that managers cannot motivate employee; however, they can provide an environment that encourages employees to motivate themselves. Most employees are motivated; however, health care managers are constantly trying various efforts in their

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation”. His hypothesis stated that within every human being there exists a hierarchy of five needs. These needs are physiological: hunger, thirst and shelter; safety: security and protection from physical and emotional harm; social: affection, acceptance and friendship; esteem: self-respect, recognition, autonomy, and achievement; and self-actualization: the drive to grow and become something, achieving potential and self-fulfillment (Maslow, 1954). Maslow is still relevant to managers today. In order to motivate someone a manager must understand what level of hierarchy the person is on and focus on satisfying that level and those above it. The manager must also account for an individual’s intensity, direction and persistence since this also affects how a person attains their goals (Robbins & Judge, 2007).

Employee motivation is important for organizations to produce the desired results needed and function effectively. In this essay we review rewards and recognition, trust, and employee development, as motivational issues that are challenging Cummins Western Canada today. These challenges are affecting the environment, the performance, and the culture of the organization. Looking at some motivation theories, we will analyze the issues identified and provide some ideas for improvement to this challenge.