Employees Motivation and Performance - Essay Example

? Motivating Employees Motivating Employees Introduction Managers have to perform several functions in the organization they serve and one of these functions is to lead and direct the human resource of the organization. They lead human and direct human resources of an organization in order to help the organization in attainment of various organizational aims and objectives. In order to lead and direct the workforce, managers have to motivate employees as the individual level. In order to motivate employees, managers can use one of the several theories that can help in motivating the workforce including the Job Characteristics model. This model states that there are five different main elements of a job that can result in motivating employees, these five main elements include, skill variety, task identity, task significance along with independence and reaction being the two most important elements of a job (DAFT, 2011, p.421). Body The model of job characteristics states that employees are motivated to perform those jobs where they can use different sets of skills and the skills that are required for such a job must require an employee to use that are of higher level. For example: managers can motivate an entry level employee in Human Resource Department if the employee is allowed to work on tasks that require higher level skills such as screening of resumes, creating training and interviewing schedules and other skills. According to Bremner and fellow researchers, skill variety is one of the main job characteristics that led to making employees feel that their work was meaningful and this feeling employees are motivated as they feel that their skills are being used to perform are important for the job (Bremner, 2011, p.15). The job characteristic model asserts that employees are motivated to work on those tasks in which they feel that they are in control and due to their contribution a particular task was completed from the moment it started to the moment it ended. For example: a recruitment specialist will be motivated from hiring an employee in which he performed the duties of conducting job analysis and ended the task by hiring a suitable employee for a particular position. The employee would end up being de-motivated if he was only allowed to conduct job analysis and screen employees and selection of the employee was done by another employee. According to a literature search conducted by Rizwan and other researchers, there is a positive relationship between employee performance and job involvement (Rizwan, 2011, p.81). They state that the higher the level of an employee in a job, the higher is the performance level of the employee. A third element of a job emphasized upon by the model is the element of task significance and the model states that employees are motivated to work on those assignments that are significant for others who are within the organization as well as outside the organization. For example: managers can motivate employees by assigning them tasks that are of significant importance to the top level of the management as this will make employees feel that they are needed by the organization. According to Grant, employee performance as well as dedication of lifeguards was positively impacted due to the significance of their task for others (Grant, 2008, p.120). A fourth important component of a job that leads to employee motivation is the amount of freedom to make decisions regarding how a particular job should be performed. For example: a teacher who is handed over a curriculum and course outline to follow by the supervisor will be less motivated to perform his/her job as compared to a teacher who is allowed to design the curriculum as well as the outline to teach the students. According to Cordery and fellow researchers, employee team performance was degraded when they were faced with uncertain situations, but employee team performance became better due to higher level of autonomy even when they faced uncertain situations (Cordery, 2010, p.254). The researchers concluded that during uncertain situations, employees should be allowed to work on their own and they will be able to find ways to counter uncertain situations. The fifth and one of the two major elements of job satisfaction model is feedback. The model recognized feedback provided to employees as very essential to motivate employees. Feedback is a response provided by employers to employees in exchange for the work performed. Feedback helps in motivating workers as workers learn about the importance of their contribution through feedback and make necessary adjustments to their work if required. If no feedback is provided, workers might feel that their work was not important and they might never know whether they performed well or not. According to study conducted by Van Dijk, positive feedback leads to higher level of performance and those employees who are provided positive feedback even report the feeling of being motivated (Van Dijk, 2011, p.1100). There are several costs that are associated with having a workforce that is not motivated and these costs can be eliminated if managers keep a motivated workforce. When employees are not motivated to work, they tend to remain absent from work, they even do not exhibit dedication towards work and may even leave their job in search of better opportunities. If employees remain absent and leave their organizations, the productivity level of the organization may be hampered which in turn negatively impacts the sales and profit levels of the organization and the organization may face the issue of unsatisfied customers. Thus a motivated workforce is required that is less absent and unwilling to leave their work environment in order to attain higher level of profits and customer satisfaction. Conclusion There are several ways through which managers can motivate employees, managers can do so by following the job characteristics model which states that if employees are allowed to use higher level of skills, to control their work, to perform tasks that are significant for others, to work through their own creative thinking and are provided continuous feedback, the employees will be motivated to work hard. Having a motivated workforce has a positive impact on the customer satisfaction as well as profitability of an organization and these two objectives are very crucial for any organization’s growth. References Bremner, N. and Carriere, J. 2011. The Effects of Skill Variety, Task Significance, Task Identity and Autonomy on Occupational Burnout in a Hospital Setting and the Mediating Effect of Work Meaningfulness. [online] Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10393/19845 [Accessed: 6 Nov 2013]. Cordery, J. L., Morrison, D., Wright, B. M., & Wall, T. D. (2010). The impact of autonomy and task uncertainty on team performance: A longitudinal field study. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 31, 240-258. Daft, R. L. (2011). Understanding management. Mason, OH, South-Western Cengage Learning. Grant, Adam M. (2008). The significance of task significance: Job performance effects, relational mechanisms, and boundary conditions. The Journal of Applied Psychology. 93, 108-24. Rizwan, Muhammad, Khan, Dil Jan, & Saboor, Fawad. (2011). Relationship of Job involvement with Employee Performance: Moderating role of Attitude. The International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE). http://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/EJBM/article/view/603. Van Dijk, D., & Kluger, A. N. (2011). Task type as a moderator of positive/negative feedback effects on motivation and performance: A regulatory focus perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 32, 1084-1105. Read More