Job empowerment is described by Daft and Noe (2001) as the "newest trend" in motivation, where the delegation of power or authority is given to subordinates in an organisation. The increase of employee power enhances motivation for task accomplishment as people are able to improve their own effectiveness as well as being able to use their creativity.
. In almost every organisation, employees are rewarded for the status of their job in the organisation (McShane & Travaglione, 2003, pg. 187). Job evaluation motivates employees as it presents them with the opportunity to compete for positions higher up the organisational hierarchy.
Job specialisation occurs from the division of labour where each job has subsets of the task required to complete the product or service. Job specialisation increases work efficiency as employees have fewer tasks to manage and therefore spend less time changing activities. (McShane and Travaglione, 2003)
2.
Money serving as a motivator can cause problems and may not be such a successful practice used for the workplace. Last but not least, people tend to identify themselves in terms of their ownership to money. Prince (1993) describes in his study that self-concept variables are related to two money attitude components. The self-concept of money envy has appeared to be connected with negative beliefs about other people and their money, about personal values which express norms of possessiveness. From the view of McShane and Travaglione (2003), men emphasise money in their self- identity more than women. This demonstrates the problematic nature of money itself, as it produces rifts and comparisons with ones' self- identity. Besides, the chance to earn more money may not be an effective motivator and financial incentive schemes are difficult to operate.
Job evaluation only motivates employees to increase their pay rate rather than trying to motivate them to step higher into the organisation for other benefits such as hierarchy. It was described by an American clothing retailer, Eddie Bauer, that "people knew they could change their pay by rewriting their job description, not by raising their productivity" (McShane and Travaglione, 2003, pg. 187). This demonstrates the unsuccessful nature of this practice that could eventually harm an organisation.
Although job specialisation tries to increase work efficiency, job performance is not necessarily improved. This is because the effects of job content are ignored through the specialisation process. The most problematic area of job specialisation is that it ignores the motivational potential of jobs.
Practices such as financial rewards and empowerment proved to have a great effect on the performance of employees and are successful enough for organisations to employ. However, practices such as job evaluation and specialisation appear to be less successful to use.
References:
Daft, R. L. & Noe, R. A., (2001), Organisational Behavior, South Western Publishing, USA.
Greenberg, J. & Baron, R.A. (1997), Behavior in Organizations (6th Ed.), Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall
Lawler III, E., (2003), "Reward Practices and Performance Management System Effectiveness", Organisation Dynamics, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 396-9.
McShane, S. and Travaglione, T. (2003), Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim, McGraw-Hill, North Ryde.
Prince, M. (1993), "Self-concept, money beliefs and values", Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 14, pp. 161-73.
