Motivation in Business - Assignment Example

?Motivation Why is it important to have a highly motivated workforce in an organisation? What can be done to increase the motivation of employees, and their implementation from the perspective of a business consultant? Introduction Organisations have different goals. Corporations for instance have significant corporate goals that need to be achieved. What these organisations have in common is their ability to rely on the human resource. As a result, it is important for them to do something with their human resources in order to make them productive and contribute to the achievement of the very objectives they want to obtain. There are many reasons why it is important to have a highly motivated workforce and all of them have become integral parts of the bottom line, to give something positive for the organisation’s performance especially in a highly competitive environment. In this paper, the author tries to incorporate some reasons why it is important to have a highly motivated workforce in an organisation. From the perspective of a business consultant, some important moves in order to increase the motivation of employees and the implementation of these actions are discussed. The importance of motivation Motivation has varying definitions because there are different approaches that could explain it including instinct, drive, arousal, incentive, cognitive, and the hierarchy of needs (Feldman, 2003). At some point, it is more effective to combine all these approaches in order to explain what motivation is all about. For example, an individual’s effort to survive after an accident can be explained as an impact of his instinct to survive, then he would seek for medical help from the perspective of drive-reduction, and then his expectation that the doctors could help him can be justified using the cognitive perspective (Feldman, 2003). Applying the concept of motivation at work is important for the organisation to tap the maximum potential of its work force. Work motivation can be explained as energetic forces or psychological process that allows a person to interact with his environment that would entirely affect his choices, effort and persistence (Latham and Ernst, 2006). In an organisation, employees must be able to apply a highest form of energy, commitment and even creativity in their respective jobs so as to achieve maximum output. Although, for instance the lack of creativity may not simply imply lack of motivation because not all people are creative in nature or has the ability to be creative. Fortunately, employees can be motivated in order to achieve the expected energy, commitment and creativity. Energy It is important to motivate employees because motivation can actually provide them with the energy they need in order to perform their maximum function. From the point of view of Herzberg’s two factor theory, employee’s satisfaction at work can significantly provide them with substantially high energy in order to do what they are expected of (French et al., 2008). However, Herzberg just emphasised that employees should have the ability and opportunity prior to motivating them. The employees may be lacking a specific zeal to perform their tasks if they do not have sufficient know-how or ability on what they are supposed to do. Furthermore, it is the point of Herzberg that employers should be able to provide opportunities for their employees in order to be able to motivate them and create a powerful and strong driving force of energy within them to perform their obligations and specific tasking. On the other hand, from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, it is emphasised that the primary physiological needs such as food, water, and sex should be substantially fulfilled prior to the fulfilment of higher-order needs such as safety, social, esteem and self-actualisation (Robbins and Judge, 2009). It is therefore implied that the energy that might be produced within an individual in the process of motivating them specifically depends on the level of needs that have already been fulfilled. For example, it would not create much impact on an employee to motivate him with food if his physiological needs are already fulfilled. Thus, it is implied that an employer should be able to understand the level of needs of their employees in order to use it in the motivation process. Furthermore, if a specific need of a person cannot be entirely determined, a significant energy that is expected to be produced out of the entire motivational effort cannot be also guaranteed. In other words, employers are expected to evaluate the prevailing needs of their employees and it is important that a two-communication process should be instituted by the human resource department just for the sake of understanding the level of employee satisfaction in the workplace. This is the very thing agreed by Herzberg which specifically means how an employee should be treated at work. Commitment Another important point of motivation is to ensure employees’ commitment. People are motivated to do things within their interests (Bruce, 2006). The role therefore of an organisation is to constantly seek all these things that would be of significant interests to their employees just prior to giving their specific tasks and making them committed to perform them. At some point, the best way to fire an employee is not to hire them in the first place. Recruitment process therefore should ensure knowing the best interests of individuals so that the right person is designated for the job. Thus, in doing this, it would not be hard to motivate a person to achieve his or her maximum output in the organisation especially on concerns regarding on how to ensure high level of commitment for the job. Creativity Creativity has become an integral part in the innovation process of organisations that is why they constantly look for creative individuals especially in areas of advertising and product development. Reward system therefore played a significant role in motivating the employees to enhance or maximise their creativity (Mumford, 2011). There are three categories of rewards, which include wealth, power and prestige (Peoples and Bailey, 2008). These types of rewards could potentially be used to motivate employees and even improve their creativity at some certain level. Recommendation The following are some of the things to be done in order to improve motivation at the workplace from the perspective of a business consultant. Empowerment Based on the above discussion, empowerment is a substantial element that would help improve employee’s motivation at the work place. From the point of view of Herzberg’s theory, opportunity is necessary in order to motivate employees to perform their role. This opportunity could be in a form of training and treating employees well. For Herzberg, it is about the quality of human experience that would determine one’s motivation to do something. In other words, empowerment could bring something significant to the quality of human experience, as it would help improve the ability of the individuals to do something and even open them up to other substantial opportunities in the future. Creativity and innovation The hierarchy of needs theory by Maslow could possibly help produce a very effective reward system especially in ensuring creativity and innovation. As this theory suggests varying level of human needs, reward system could be essential strategy in improving employees’ motivation. On the other hand, humans are motivated by desires and it is important to meet these by ensuring some reward strategy system that would promote more opportunities to improve their drives toward something making them more creative in the process in order to achieve their basic drives. Furthermore, it is also important to look into great detail the human instinct as there are enough ideas that could be generated in here prior to the formulation of strategies towards creativity and innovation. Next, would be to look for employees’ expectation and it is in here where cognitive approach would substantially take place. This remarkably has a potential impact on improving employees’ creativity in the innovation process. Human expectation is a good source of information which would help companies devise a remarkably important move to motivate the employees further to the fullest. Learning and growth Learning and growth have substantial impacts on the improvement of the human ability. In the work place, improved learning on some essential tasks would determine the specific level of individual’s ability to perform his or her function. In other words, it is essential for a certain company to apply learning and growth strategy just to be able to improve the ability of the human resource. Herzberg’s theory emphasises that the human ability has a potential impact on the motivation process as he argued that it would be hard to motivate an individual on a certain job without the required ability for it. Although it is a fact, that even if individuals have the ability on certain job but if they do not have enough interest on it, they will not still do well on it. Thus, the goal therefore of learning and growth in this case is to be designed in such a way that an individual should be able to appreciate his ability or potential on certain areas, fields or things. Monetary incentive Perhaps, among the very popular form of strategic move that could help improve employees’ motivation is the monetary incentive. Based on the physiological needs of humans in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the need for food for instance could be definitely addressed by monetary incentive as it would equally do with other needs such as social status, security and others. Individuals need money to buy food and above all in order to live. Money has become strongly associated with survival. Thus, at some certain level of needs, monetary incentive has been proven to be effective in motivating people. These are just some of the probable moves that a business consultant could possibly suggest to the human resource department in order to increase the motivation of employees. There are many other important strategic moves that could be applied and that would be formulated based on the existing theories of motivation. Conclusion There are many reasons why motivation is important in an organisation. However, one thing is clear and it is the bottom line of how to maximise the full function of the human resource for the benefit of the entire organisation and its stakeholders. By understanding varying perspectives on the issue of motivation, a business consultant would be able to formulate strategies on how to motivate employees. Among these strategies would be in a form as empowerment, driving creativity and innovation, learning and growth formulation, monetary incentive and many others. References Bruce, A. (2006) How to Motivate Every Employee: 24 Proven Tactics to Spark Productivity in the Workplace. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional. Feldman, R. S. (2003) Essentials of Understanding Psychology. 5th ed. New Yok, NY: McGraw-Hill. French, R., Rayner, C., Rees, G., & Rumbles, S. (2008). Organizational Behaviour. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley. Latham, G. P., and Ernst, C. T. (2006) Key to motivating tomorrow’s workforce. Human Resource Management Review. Vol. 16 (2): 181-198. Peoples, J., and Bailey, G. (2008) Humanity: an introduction to cultural anthropology. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Mumford, M. D. (2011) Handbook of Organizational Creativity. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2009).Organizational Behavior. London: Prentice Hall. Read More