Motivational theories applied in the workplace. Examples from Tescos.

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Within this assignment I will be looking at the various motivational theories that organisations may use in order to more their workforce more efficient. The organisation I will look at is Tesco as they now employ over 468,000 employees worldwide and have adopted various methods in order to give their employees increased knowledge, skills and job satisfaction by using training and relevant rewards and recognition schemes.

Motivation is very important within an organisation that relies heavily on their employees as this will determine how efficiently they work. Motivation can be given in many ways such as personal interest in the job they are doing or other factors such as rewards, other factors include recognition of hard work, a sense of achievement, responsibility within the workplace, opportunity of promotion and also a sense of challenge and enjoyment.

By motivating employees in this way they will be able to work harder and achieve a high quality of work in less time. If this is applied within Tesco, the same task will take a shorter period of time meaning a reduced labour cost for the business.

The first motivational theory I am going to look at is Taylor’s theory which suggests that employee’s main incentive to work is for money purposes only. Although Taylor’s theory is based upon a production line where workers are paid for each item that is produced which creates an incentive to work faster. Although this meant that work would be completed quicker, it may also lead to lower quality work. Some positive aspects of this theory include that people are able to work for longer periods, and workers feel rewarded for putting in more effort although negative features may include not being suitable to everyone as people may feel less secure in their job.

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This motivational theory has been adopted within Tesco in order to motivate their staff by offering incentives, these incentives are varied according to lifestyle and includes free shares, pension scheme, private healthcare and contract mobile phones. Tesco offer varied incentives so that every employee has something to work towards as there are different rewards for different people. Although one disadvantage of adopting this method within Tesco is that only the floor staff will benefit as it will relate to the amount of work they complete, whereas mangers do not have the same type of work and will miss out on ...

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