The process theories, on the other hand, focus on the actual process of motivation. They attempt identify the extrinsic forces determine the nature, intensity and duration of a person's work behaviour and productivity, and the actions required to influence them. The expectancy theory concludes that employees can only put effort to improve their performance when they perceive that their expectancy is achievable. “The choice of behaviour is base on the expectancy of the most favorable consequences” (Mullins 2002:436). E.g. the desire for promotion can lead to high performance only if the employee expects this will result in promotion. This theory extends to equity theory, which said employees’ behaviour would be influenced and adjusted according to their perception of equity and inequity. I.e. if individuals feel they are being rewarded unfairly for what they do, the result is more likely to be alienation or de-motivation (Rosenfeld & Wilson 1999:79). Another theory-goal theory attributes employees’ high performance and productivity to setting realistic specific goals. Goals guild employee’s actions, thus direct work behaviour.
Not one of these theories addresses all possible motivational issues, nor is a single theory necessarily valid in any particular context (Robbins, 1998). Further, they are not necessarily in competition with each another, and in fact, many of them are complementary. (See Figure 2)
2.2. Division of motivation—comparison between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
Literatures deal with the notion of motivation primarily in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, or physiological and social motives.
Intrinsic motivation is related to ‘psychological’ rewards such as job content, a sense of achievement, recognition, advancement, a feeling of competence, opportunity for growth and responsibility (Mullin 2002). Deci (1985) suggested that intrinsically motivated behaviors represent the prototype of self-determined activities: They are activities that people do naturally and spontaneously when they feel free to follow their inner interests. This indicates an impressive shift in attitudes towards work, from work as a means of survival to work as a means of enhancing self-development and self-expression, e.g. we go to work because it gives us a sense of accomplishment. The consequent needs of intrinsic motivation can be explained by Maslow’s hierarchy model. It is also supported by Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory. His theory points that employees are motivated by their own inherent need to succeed at a challenging task. The manager's job, then, is to provide opportunities for people to be motivated to achieve. Herzberg's survey of US workers clearly indicates that about 80 per cent of the factors in satisfying job opportunities come from the intrinsic elements of the job such as achievement, recognition, and the work itself (Herzberg, 1982:32). When we talk about inherent needs, we need to concern individual differences that affect the degree to which people will experience need satisfaction in different contexts. McClelland (1985) and others assessed individual differences in need strength and used that as the primary basis for predicting behavior. Therefore we need to use both characteristics of the social environment and individual differences to predict people's need satisfaction and, in turn, the quality of their experience and behavior.
Comparing with intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation is more related to ‘tangible’ rewards such as salary, security, promotion and work environment etc (Mullins 2002). External motivators include strategies and incentives, which are designed by the organization to motivate employees and influence their work behaviour. An employee could get improved motivation from the good relationship with his boss or recognition from his manager, thus result in high performance. But it is unlikely that management and employees will always agree on a reward system based on subjective issues such as 'good interpersonal relations', 'appreciation of work done', or a 'feeling of being in on things' (Mead, 1998) without any tangible reward system, e.g. monetary reward system. To employees in the organization, it is not only the material value of the reward, but also the boost in self-esteem that public recognition associated with monetary reward affords (Dawson and Dawson, 1990:80). This also holds true with the matter of job security. Security encompasses more than the employees' financial needs: it relates to their physical, emotional and familial well being (Leibman and Weinstein, 1990:50).
Clearly, employees need reassurances about job security, salary raises, promotions and the health and stability of their company. And they also place high value on sense of achievement and consequent full appreciation for work done.
3. What motivates employees in their job?
As we have discussed in above content, despite the individual different existed in the process of needs satisfying, employee behaviour can be influence and motivated by certain factors to achieve productive behaviours. To identify these factors that motivate employees is very important for organization to use this information to improve employee motivation, and thus improve employee performance and productivity. The following factors are some of the main points that can motivate employees in their jobs.
The most important external motivator in the company probably is money. Not only do management institutes their motivational strategies with preference to financial payouts, but employees also frequently interpret motivation in terms of monetary rewards. With respect to the Hierarchy of Needs Theory, pay is an important reward because it may satisfy several of the needs in the hierarchy. It provides employees with the means to purchase items which satisfy their physiological needs, and in addition, as a motivator, a good salary or wage package justifies a person's sense of self-esteem, indicates his/her value to the company and reflects his/her achievements. It is also a means of rating oneself against other people and in terms of previous achievements (Mead, 1998). Monetary incentives therefore, constitute standardized motivational procedures in the company
- Full appreciation for work done
Recognition of a job well done or full appreciation for work done is often among the top motivators of employee performance (Stuart, 1992:102), and involves feedback. One survey revealed that 27 percent of workers would quit their jobs to move to a company known for giving praise and recognition (Wall Street Journal, 1989). Being appreciated through praise helps employees develop a positive self-concept and it meets their needs for esteem, self-actualization, growth and achievement (Lussier, 1997:377). Therefore, employers should show appreciation and give employees credit for their work. Praise for a job well done is probably the most powerful, yet least costly and most underused, motivation tool.
As workforce reductions are becoming commonplace nowadays, job security is of increasing importance to employees. Employees' reactions to the lack of job security vary. Individuals may experience severe psychological reactions to job loss and/or the threat of job loss. Low self-esteem, low self-confidence, social isolation, anxiety and powerlessness may be results of possible psychological reactions. These reactions extend beyond actual job losers to their colleagues; also affect the organization morale. Because not only is work commitment weakened by job insecurity, but organizational effectiveness can deteriorate as well. Thus, outcomes of job insecurity are usually negative. To counteract such outcomes, companies often use reward strategies. Compensation strategies (i.e. severance packages and early retirement incentives), career development schemes, and outplacement techniques may accompany workforce reduction efforts. These are intended to arouse positive psychological states that encourage and sustain productive, rather than destructive behaviour.
- Promotion and growth in the organization
Promotion and growth in the organization are longstanding factors that motivate people to do their best work. According to Herzberg's Motivator-Hygiene Theory (Mullins 2002), the most successful method of motivating is to build challenge and opportunity for achievement into the job itself. Moreover, McClelland's Socially Acquired Needs theory suggests that people with high achievement needs are motivated by challenging tasks with clearly attainable objectives, timely feedback and more responsibility for innovative assignments. Thus, promotion and growth in the organization often are addressed through job redesign. The aim of job redesign is to enrich a job so that the employee is more motivated to do the work. Job redesign principles may be found in contemporary management strategies, including employee involvement and empowerment, which we will discuss the details in the following part.
On the business side many managers seem to follow the simple belief that "happy workers are productive ones". Workers who are more involved in their jobs display more work commitment and experience lower turnover (Jauch & Sekaran 1978). Workers who are more involved in job-related decisions and communications, receive reinforcement that they are competent in their jobs, and they respond by showing greater involvement and motivation (Sekaran 1989:349). Achieving job satisfaction can increase employees’ commitment and performance, therefore, job redesign strategy need to be carried out for this purpose by means of making employees believe that their work is being performed competently and that their work is having a positive impact on the company. Also, it is important for employees to feel that they control their own actions (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990:672).
4. How does organization positively motivate employees?
From above analysis, we have found that employees' behaviour, attitudes, conflicts and experiences are closely linked with motivating procedures (Herselman, 2000). People bring their own spark of motivation with them to work; the challenge to business is to find ways to fan this spark into a flame that will benefit both employees and organization.
The idea is that goal setting produces high performance. The basic premise of goal setting theory is that an employee's conscious intentions (goals) are primary determinants of task-related motivation since goals direct their thoughts and actions (Locke, 1968). Therefore, individual performance results from an interaction between goal difficulty and goal commitment, with the highest level of individual performance occurring when individuals are highly committed to difficult goals (Tubbs, 1993).
Goals can be set as organizational goal or departmental goal within certain period of time. The content of goals can be about output plan, schedule plan, sales plan or budget plan, etc.
- Achieving job satisfaction
Job empowerment and team working
Job empowerment enables employees to participate decision-making process and experience autonomy across and down the hierarchy. Although in real business, it’s easier to have an empowerment policy than to actually implement it (Rosenfeld & Wilson 1999:101), it’s said that empowerment prorammes can lead to “motivated staff, quality customer service and improved profits” (Jamison 1999:20) by means of job satisfaction.
Self-managed team-working approach relates to job empowerment, and is widespread and increasingly popular in USA (Mullins 2002). Individual members of the group have higher levels of job satisfaction (Cordery & Smith 1991:464), because they get greater autonomy and responsibility for the work of team. Also, members of team can work out best means to achieve goals by team effort, and member can improve skills and knowledge by learning from each other during working. Autonomous working groups can be means to enhance productivity, flexibility and work satisfaction.
- Job redesign
Kelly (1992) concluded that when job redesign leads to perceptions of improved job content, employees generally experience higher levels of job satisfaction. Job redesign includes job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment. Among them, job rotation helps remove boredom and creates company’s flexible working arrangement policy that could permit workers greater freedom and control over the scheduling, which help achieve job enrichment, thus provide employees greater autonomy and authority over their work.
- Providing opportunities of training and education
Training can be viewed as a management practice that can be controlled or managed to elicit organizational commitment. Many employees have come to view training as a “right of membership” (Scott & Meyer 1991) and as a benefit of employment (Ashenfelter & Lalonder 1998). Organization, which encourages learning and provide opportunities of train and education to employees, can stimulate employee’s efforts to improve skill and knowledge for promotion and development, which plays an important role in helping to maintain employee satisfaction and commitment in an organization. E.g., TCS, ‘the Best Company to Work for in America’, place so much importance on employees training and continues it throughout an employee’s career. The benefit of this policy is that TCS successfully improved the organization commitment constantly.
Reward system can be divided as tangible (monetary) and intangible (recognition) reward system.
Artificially expressing appreciation to employees is important for supervisors to shape desired behaviour of employees. Praise for a job well done is probably the most powerful, yet least costly and most underused, motivation tool. Examples of positive reinforcement in this context may include workplace visits by top executives to high-performance employees, personal handwritten notes of thanks accompanying paychecks, and telephone calls by top executives to employees at home (Steele 1992:96).
Financial reward system usually is been regarded as straightforward criteria that measures employees performance, thus is considered as one of effective means to motivate employees to improve performance and achieve productivity. When setting the financial reward system, the principle of equity should be taken into consideration, because people compare the effort and corresponding rewards with others. If they feel the ratio is unfair, they may respond by making less effort.
- Improving Working environment — interpersonal relationships and organizational culture
Good relationship with colleagues and supervisors can create positive work environment, thus motivate employees of desirable behavior in order to ensure the security of the job. Many people prefer to work in organization with harmonious work environment rather than in stressful and rigid environment, even the salary of latter firm is higher.
there is considerable variability in the values and goals held in different cultures, some of the avenues to basic need satisfaction may differ widely from culture to culture. A successful cultural oriented corporate strategy should focus on forging a corporate culture that can lead employees to experience relatedness and autonomy.
5. Critical discussion: negative effect of improper motivation
An important point that can not be neglected during the process of motivating employees is that improper ways of motivating can result in demotivators, such as lack of appreciation, heavy work, low pay, poor communication, long hours and boring job. They may lead to decreased responsibility and low self-esteem, which may directly bring negative impact on work. Moreover, managers motivate employees in improper way can also result in demotivating.
Some reward systems adopt “carrot and stick” policy. The drawback of punishment is that it indicates what not to do-but does not indicate what should be done. Moreover, motivating by threat of punishment breeds fear and resentment, which are likely to be expressed in behaviour that runs contrary to company goals.
In some cases, promotion may have negative impact on individuals. If an individual is skillful and happy in his position, a promotion of another position which is unfamiliar and unsuitable to his work style may cause stress and boredom to the employee. Therefore, management needs to understand individuals’ needs before managers choose ways to motivate employees.
Conclusion
In this essay, we mainly discussed about the driving forces of employee behaviour in work. The motivation that determines behaviour includes needs and expectancy, which are to be satisfied from both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The motivation theories argued that employee behaviour is not only just reflection of individual differences, it also can be influenced and even altered by external incentives from organization. We attempted the main factors that can motivate employees in their jobs to support this standpoint. As complementary, we also briefly mentioned the ways that managers can use to motivate employees for achieving high performance and productivity.
Motivation has been described as "one of the most pivotal concerns of modern organizational research" (Baron 1991: 1). Employers must understand what motivates employees, such an understanding is essential to improve productivity and, ultimately, to ensuring the success of the company. Therefore, to motivate subordinates in right way is vital for every manager in order to influence and improve employees’ behaviour.
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