Motivation In The Workplace - Essay Example

? MOTIVATION IN THE WORKPLACE Task: Motivation in the workplace Introduction Motivation in the work place leads to higher productivity. In all organizations, managers can help in the realization of organization goals through the employees. For this to happen, it is essential to motivate the workforces. For managers to set effective motivation strategies, they need to understand that they cannot make the employees do anything. What they can do is to create the right settings that will motivate the workers. Motivated workforces are more productive since motivation infuses positive energy into the organizational tasks. Motivation is applicable to the open-system perspectives, the organizational learning perspectives; the high-performance work practices perspectives, and the stakeholder perspectives. The high-performance work practices perspective Workplace motivation is a very complex issue to many managers since the system of motivation is not constant, but it alters. The workforces’ motivation can be looked in two perspectives, which includes the internal and external motivators (Stein 2007). All the motivators are the practices, which can lead to high performances in a corporate. Some of the motivators entail the positive reinforcement, right ways to discipline the workers, fair treatment, workers’ needs satisfaction, setting of goals, restructuring jobs, and setting the best reward systems (Stein 2007). Fair treatment The leaders of organizations should ensure that all individuals are treated fairly and equally. Fair treatment will motivate employees to partake actively in the work place tasks, and this augments their performance (Podmoroff 2005). Fair treatment augments cooperation, which increases the outputs too. If the managers treat the workers fairly, it will increase their loyalty to the organization. Workers loyalty is very vital in any firm since it makes the workers committed to their tasks. For example, an organization is fair when an employer asks for a special consideration and he, or she is denied because another employee was denied some times back. In addition, fairness in a firm can be shown when an employee who always comes to work on time daily, is not treated the same as the one who comes to work when late every day (Podmoroff 2005). Setting organizational goals In all companies, the leaders should sett goal so that the performance of the workforce is escalated. The goals are vital since the workers will know what they need to produce and this can make them to devise new ways of production. Goals are effective in raising performance especially if they are difficult but easy to attain. Too difficult goals can demoralize the employees and this can make the performances suffer. In order to ensure that the workers are motivated by the goals and to increase their commitment, the managers should ensure that the workforces accept the goals. Goal setting is a useful way of motivating employees because the workers will work towards the set goals in a motivated way. For goal setting to be effective in motivating the workforce, the leaders should ensure that they regularly give feedbacks regarding the achievements. This is vital since the workers will be convinced that the goals they set are practicable. Additionally, the goals should be very specific and not vague or too general. For those workers who have realized their set goals, they should be recognized by rewarding them to further motivate them. The realization of goals implies that the workers’ performances have increased (Salvendy 2012, p.413). Positive reinforcement Positive reinforcement is the way a firm strengthens the desirable behaviours by rewarding them. If the corporate leaders praise the workforce for behaving in certain ways, there are high chances the workers will continue behaving in the same ways so that they can get more praises. Positive reinforcement is vital in increasing the firm’s performance. If behaving in certain ways can make the organization realize its goals faster, the leaders of the organization should ensure that such behaviours are sustainable in the firm. This is tenable through positive reinforcement, which helps in shaping the behaviours and enhancing the workers self-worth. For effective reinforcement, the corporate leaders should ensure they specify what the desirable behaviour constitutes. Augmented performances arise from the recognition of the workforces by the managers. Through positive reinforcement, firms can benefit in many ways. For example, it helps the organization in communication the desired conducts by linking the high performance with the incentives. For instance, if the employees complete their tasks on time without wasting resources, such behaviours can escalate production and hence rewarding the behaviour can make the workers continue conserving time and resources. Moreover, behaviours such as creativity should be reinforced positively by recognising the workers. Innovation is very important in organizations since workers find better ways of doing certain tasks in order to save time and to increase productivity. Without reinforcing creativity in the work places, the workers will relax, and this will result into failures in innovation (Cummings & Worley 2009). Employees’ involvement Making the works partake in the management of the organization can increase their commitment to the organization. It is this commitment, which will make them perform highly in their assigned tasks. It is vital to involve the workforces in the corporate practices like decision-making and the management. This will make them feel that they are part of the organization and their presence in the firm matter. If they participate in decision-making, they will invent ways of carrying out their tasks faster and in effective ways. Additionally their participation in decision-making can encourage creativity in the work place, and this will help in elevating their performances. Involving the workforces in the management of the firm, increases their self-worth and this will inturn increase their loyalty and commitment to the business (Cummings & Worley 2009). Rewarding performances Rewarding of performance increases the production in the work place. Rewarding employees motivates them to work extra hard and this will make a corporate realize its goals faster. For effective ways of rewarding the employees, the leaders should discuss with the workers on the ways they prefer being rewarded. The leaders should not assume that certain ways of rewarding could make the employees happy. Offering of performance bonuses can be effective ways of motivating the workers. Bonus can be given after individual or group perform remarkably. Individual based bonuses are given to those individuals who meet their targets while group based bonuses are given those who perform highly in groups (Conte & Landy 2010). Praising is a nonmonetary way of showing the workers that the organization recognises and appreciates their high performance. After setting targets, those workers who meet the targets should be praised to motivate them. Praising ought to occur verbally in front of other workers, or the managers can send notes to those employees who have performed better. However, praising in public is the appropriate mode since it gives the other workers a lesson. This is because when they seen one of the workers being praised, they will know the behaviours that the employers or the managers consider appropriate. Praising is vital since it increases the self-worth of the workers, and this will increate their commitments to their tasks, which will inturn raise their performances (Greene 2010). Training is also an effective way of motivating the workers. Currently what most workers consider valuable is to be rewarded with advancement opportunities in the firms (Murray & Rusignuolo 2010). Training of employees will make them have confidence while doing their work, and this will increase their commitment to their tasks. Training will also enable the firm to retain its employees; therefore, a firm cannot waste its resources in hiring new employees with certain qualification. The trained qualified workers will help the firm by introducing new ways that are more productive in the work place (Murray & Rusignuolo 2010). Satisfying employees’ needs The main sources of employees’ satisfactions are co-workers and the work environment. The leaders of a firm need to focus on creating environments and cultures, which can support and recognize the personalities of workers. A business can have modern programs to entice individuals to work in the firm’s best interest; however, if the leaders do not value the workers best interests, then all is naught. Valuing the interests of employees can make them be comfortable in the workplaces and thus, they will be able to carrying out their tasks effectively (ASRL, National Conferences, & Thompson 2005). Job enrichment Job enrichment is a way of motivating employees, and it involves work redesigning. Job enrichment enables the corporate leaders to address the monotony, lack of flexibility, and workers’ dissatisfaction resulting from repetitive nature of tasks. Job enrichment ensures there is job satisfaction through responsibility and autonomy. The enrichment motivates the workers since they ensure that scopes of jobs are widened in order to provide many varieties of tasks, which require self-sufficiency. This management technique adds more authority, accountability, degree of difficulty and specialization to individuals’ works. This ensures that factor, which increase motivation like responsibility, achievement and recognition are further developed. This method of motivating the workers is very effective since it augments the workforce job satisfaction; hence, they can experience motivation, which is positive (Pride, Hughes, & Kapoor 2012). The open-systems perspective Open System is used to develop the effective organization change strategies. From the open-system perspective, the workers behaviours and motivation are important. Open system motivates the workers since it encourages information sharing between team members. Additionally it motivates the workers and leaders to work together creatively. In the open system, workers are able to discuss their issues with the leaders and hence, decisions can be reached faster. If an organization wants to motivate workers to work in teams, it should use open system to ensure there is free exchange of views between teams (Grin 2011). The organisational learning perspective Individuals should embrace organizational learning since it helps in the development of the organization. From the organizational learning perspective, Practitioners are motivated to create learning cultures that foster employee learning. If an organization is confronted with performance issues, is vital to turn to the learning solutions to tackle the issues. Studies have proved that learning helps in escalating the performances in the organization. Hence, the individuals should be motivated to learn. Learning in an organization can benefit the workers and the whole organization (Gilley, Dean & Bierema 2001). Learning can motivate all the individuals in the firm to puts aside their self-interests in order to help in the realization of the corporate goals by working together. Learning upgrades the functioning of the team and it allows workers to meet and confer on the modes of improve the eminence of their work through the learning process. Learning motivates the workers to have confidence in new methods that being introduced in the firm. If managers are facing the employees’ resistance to change, learning through trainings can be the best way to make the workers accept the changes (Silverthone 2005, p.108) Providing incentives Those employees who are motivated to learn can perform better than those who are not motivated. The workers are motivated to learn because they know they will get incentives after learning. Some of the incentives are the raising of pay and job advancement. For instance, an engineer will not learn unless he knows how the learning will improve his performance in order to get the incentives. The contingency of the incentive can be made on various factors such as the completion of a training course, demonstration of new skills and the increase in the job performance after training. Most of the corporate in the United States used skill-based pay as a method of incentives. Skill-based pay motivates employees to partake in training that upgrades certain skills (Gill 2010). Interest Organizations should try to make the learning programs interesting. Interesting programs can motivate the workforce to learn. A training program can be interesting if the trainers are good presenters. For instance, trainers can make the topics interesting by making them relevant to the workers’ lives. Poor presenters can make the training sessions be boring and hence it will not be effective (Aamodt 2012). Feedback Provision of feedbacks can also motivate the workers. Without the provision of feedbacks, it can be hard to judge if behaviour is correct. For example if an employee performs poorly, he will not improve the next time he does the task if the leaders to do not provide him with feedback, on what made him perform poorly. Positive feedback should also be given to make the workers to continue with the correct behaviour (Aamodt 2012, P. 309). The stakeholder perspective After a firm has identified its stakeholders, it should retain them by motivating them. All stakeholders involved in the shaping of an organisation should be motivated to work towards the improvement of the firm. Good relationship with stakeholders Mostly the company’s major stakeholders are the consumers and the community. Such stakeholders can be motivated to purchase more goods from a firm, if there is a good relationship between the firm and the stakeholders. The good relationship will make the clientele dedicated to the organization and hence the firm cannot loose them. The consumers’ loyalty can motivate them to market the firm to other consumer, and this will increase the corporate output. An additional mode that such stakeholders can be motivated is evident when a firm offers lower costs for their products. If corporate offers its products at lower prices compared to other firms, its consumers will be motivated to buy more products from the firm (Coles, Wequin, OECD et 2007). Greater transparency Greater transparencies of an organization make the stakeholders to trust a firm. Great transparency can be tenable if the firm gives reports and records regularly to show the activities that took place within a certain period. This will enable the stakeholders to know what is happening in the organisation. As such, they will be enthusiastic to work with the organization in with the intent of improving performance (Coles, Wequin, OECD et al., 2007). Responding to the needs of stakeholders effectively Additionally, the stakeholders can be motivated by a corporate if it responds to their needs effectively. Stakeholders can only be loyal to an organization if they benefit from it. Therefore, if a firm is reliable in delivering the stakeholders benefits, the stakeholders can be motivated since they will view the firm as being caring (Neville, Bell & Bulent 2005). Involving stakeholders Involving the stakeholders in the decision making of the firm will make them to see that they are being valued in the firm. This will motivate them to come up with solutions to the organization problems. The stakeholders can also give ideas, which will help in increasing the performance in the work place (Neville, Bell & Bulent 2005). Conclusion Motivation in the work place is very vital. Through motivation, workers can be loyal to the firm. Loyalty drives the workers to do extra work, and this increases the performances of the corporate. Motivation is applicable to the work place performance, organization learning, open-system and the stakeholders’ perspectives. Motivation can be tenable by rewarding the workers, involving them in the management practices and satisfying their needs. Stakeholders can be motivated by involving them in decision-making and the greater transparency of a firm. High performance in the firm can result from organizational learning. Workers need motivation in order to learn from the training programs. Some of the practices that can motivate them to learn entail offering of incentives, using interesting trainers and giving feedbacks of the performance after training. List of references Aamodt, G 2012, Industrial/Organizational Psychology: An Applied Approach. Wadsworth Pub Co. ACRL, National Conference & Thompson, A, 2005, Currents and convergence: Navigating the rivers of change, Association of College and Research Libraries, Chicago. Cummings, T, & Worley, 2009, Organization development & change, South-Western/Cengage Learning, Australia. Gill, S, 2010, Developing a learning culture in nonprofit organizations, SAGE, Thousand Oaks. Gilley, J, Dean, P, & Bierema, L, 2001, Philosophy and practice of organizational learning, performance, and change, Mass: Perseus Pub, Cambridge. GRIN, 2011, Motivation-Research paper, GRIN Verlag. New York. Greene, J, 2010, Rewarding Performance: Guiding Principles, Custom Strategies, Taylor & Francis, New York. Landy, F, & Conte, 2010, Work in the 21st century: An introduction to industrial and organizational psychology, Wiley, Hoboken. Murray, E.(. & Rusignuolo, R. 2010, "Rewarding Outstanding Performance: Dont Break the Bank", Franchising World, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 80-81. 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