Human Resources Incentive Schemes and Motivation.

Human Resources Incentive Schemes and Motivation

Introduction

Motivation

A business, as we know, needs land (a site), capital (factories, machinery, tools) and labour (workers) before it can produce anything. The most important of these factors is often quoted as being labour – the human resources that are needed for a business to be able to produce a good or service. Human resources (workers) need to be paid, to feel secure, to be valued, to be praised, to be promoted. Businesses that have workers who work not just for money but because they enjoy their work and feel valued are likely to be more efficient than other businesses. Absenteeism will be lower as will lateness and illness.

Motivation is the way in which workers can be encouraged to do a good job. Motivation is concerned with the strength and direction of behaviour. A well-motivated person is someone with clearly defined goals who takes action, which he or she expects, will achieve those goals. So motivation is much more than just pay. This means that to a business, motivation is:

finding ways to get workers to work harder or more efficiently by:

showing that they value workers
providing ways for workers to succeed
providing a structure for promotion.

Motivational Theories

There are several theories as to what its is that makes people work harder. The best known are those of Maslow, McGregor and Herzberg.

Maslow’s Theory

A. H. Maslow (1908-70) was an American psychologist who said that people worked in order to gain certain things. Firstly, they need to satisfy their survival needs; this means that they must either grow their own food or earn sufficient money to be able to buy the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter. Secondly, once these needs are met, people will want to be safe and secure. These two basic of needs are called the deficiency needs.

Once people feel safe, they then looks for friends and social activities; they want to be part of a group or family. People have social needs. Higher order needs can then be met. The first of these is for status – a certain standing in the community or what we might call a good reputation. People need to feel that they are respected both for who they are and for what they do. Finally there is what Maslow called self-actualisation needs. We might think of it better as ambition. People will set themselves targets and attempt to reach them. On the whole, such needs are never fully met as people generally want to be better off than they are; therefore set themselves further targets once they have achieved those originally set. This second group of needs is called growth needs.

This succession of different needs is called a “hierarchy of needs”. It is a hierarchy because each higher level can only be achieved if the level below is built first.

McGregor’s Theory

D. McGregor looked at the way that employers and employees traditionally viewed work – the employer paid the money, supervised the worker and gave instructions; the worker did the job; didn’t ask questions and took the money. This traditional way of working he called Theory X. This he balanced with Theory Y, which was that most people actually enjoyed working and would readily take on responsibility. A believer in Theory X or Theory Y would say:

McGregor believed that the Theory Y worker was the more typical example and that, if people were treated as if they were Theory Y type people, then business would be more efficient and better managed. He believed that people could be as well motivated by the sense of a job well done or by being given trust and responsibility as by money.

Herzberg’s Theory

F. Herzberg came to similar conclusions to Maslow and McGregor. He asked workers what motivated them and found out the main things a job well done, a feeling of ...