Human Behaviour and Employee Motivation - Essay Example

?Introduction: I have zeroed down 3-4 papers to discuss in lieu of the “ANCOL PVT Ltd” case study. Since the primary issue at Ancol, was employee motivation and commitment to the organization and its goals, my journal articles are based on employee motivation, relationships and work place structuring. “An Approach to Employee Motivation” by Edwin Wilde is the first reference. The paper has a comprehensive and well researched literature review on issues encountered at work place and ways in which employee motivation can help deal with them. The paper asserts on the importance of understanding human behavior to be able to understand why people behave the way they do and ways in which they can be helped. The paper is directly relevant to the case in which management of employee relations and commitment to the organization is the crux of all problems encountered at Ancol. (Wilde, 1985) The second paper is “Fostering an environment of employee contribution to increase commitment and motivation” by Geoffrey C Lloyd. This paper uses a case study to relay its point. It is in light of British Gas Company which succeeded after they implemented their chief executive’s suggestion. The paper emphasizes on various ways in which an environment of employee contribution can be cultivated in an organization. It lays focus on the importance of empowerment, speeding up of communication process between management and employees and offers advice to companies who are thinking of restructuring their organization. The paper is very relevant to Ancol. Even Ancol is struggling with encouraging work place productivity, curbing absteeniesm and establishing sound relations between management and employees. The paper will offer insight into ways of improving things at Ancol and has a rich literature that will give more room for critical thinking and analysis. (LIoyd, 1996) The third paper is “Work Structuring for employee motivation” by Lyndon Jones. This is an important paper which throws light on how managers can bring about improvements in their work environment. This is a very comprehensive account and deals with issues which are sharply aligned with those mentioned in the case in perspective. (Jones, 1996) The paper is a very useful one. Another paper is “How to encourage employee motivation” by Anthony Di Primo. This is a relatively small yet important paper that explains ways in which good healthy relationships can be fostered in a work place environment; on the kind of human resource policies that should be adopted. Analysis: Sims had been only recently appointed as the manager of the Sheparton plant of Ancol. This was a very important point in his career and he wanted to set things straight at Ancol by making effective use of his management expertise. When Sims entered Ancol, he realized that the management and employee relations were severely strained within the organization. There were some major tiffs between them and they were not eye to eye with respect to the organizational goals. Hence, the center of all his focus was improving ties between the management and employees. In this bid to improve ties between the management and the employees, he order the removal of time clocks from the plant. He felt that this gesture will bring about a new level of credibility and strengthen relations between the employees and the management at the site. The impact of this move was not completely productive. It did prove to be fruitful initially but did not have far reaching positive repercussions. The gesture was appreciated initially and many felt that was a positive effort by the plant manager. But the problems began cropping up two months later. Absteenism in the plant rose, productivity levels declined and other issues started emerging. This problem had to be tackled. Sims tried to solve the problem by giving additional responsibilities to supervisors of looking after emplolyee entrance and leaving problems and discussing it with them. but the supervisors had no prior experience at all this and did not have the necessary interpersonal skills to deal the matter with the sub ordinates. When employees retaliated further, the relations started detoriarating again. Ancol decided to add more supervisors to the team but this did not help problems too. More problems emerged, such as payroll department found it difficult to fine employees who were late; instead letters were sent to their personnel field. More tiffs arose as employees did not want those personnal records to be a permanent entity in the files. The number of issues and grievance doubled and nine months later Paul Sims, found that employee management relations had their lowest low. They weren’t this bad even he joined. As observed from the case, the crux of all problems at Ancol’s plant are the strained and severed ties between the employees and management. There is a conflict of interest, and they both don’t see eye to eye with the organization’s goal at large. Employees seem less motivated to work for the better and this can be seen from rising rates of Absteniesm at Ancol. There is a huge dearth of understanding of employees by the management at Ancol and vice versa. Elden Wilde explains in his paper, that the fundamentals of human behavior teach that there is a reason behind which people behave the way they do. Unless we don’t understand human behavior, we can expect to develop and integrated and effective environment at work places. He goes on to explain how ego and status are the two main driving forces behind the way people behave. Similar lack of respect for each other and over all understanding can be seen at Ancol. Another major problem at Ancol is the lack of work structuring. As explained by Lyndon Jones that work structuring comprises of three main stages: work environment; actual work and departmental structure. While the actual work may be rich enough for the employees the work environment and departmental structure are hazy and not up to the mark. Work environment at Ancol does not assert emphasis on the image of organization, of arrangement of shifts and of the image of unskilled workers. Recommendations: In the papers that I chose, various ways have been explained to counter such problems, to motivate employees and to foster a healthy working environment. It is suggested, that work environment should be the primary focus of the HR. this is because it is the work environment and whether or not the individual is looked upon as one’s own that determines how the individual will react and reciprocate to a situation. Thus it is important to ensure that employees are satisfied at work. The big five factor model is related to the level of job satisfaction experienced by employees at work. Generally, satisfied employees are more likely to continue being positive and to avoid absence than the dies-satisfied ones. Preliminary research conducted by psychologists indicated that neuroticism had a negative correlation with job satisfaction whereas conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness are all positively co-related with job-experience. On the other hand, open-nests to experience do not have any effect on job satisfaction. The big five model can be used to avoid work place deviance at work. Work place deviance takes place when an employee seeks to pursue a course of action that threatens the overall well being of the individual or the organization. Work place deviance has a relation with the big five personality model too. Interpersonal deviance has been projected to be negatively correlated with agreeableness while organizational deviance negatively with conscientiousness. Another major factor is the employee perception of the place he is working in. If the employees have a positive perception about the work place, then the work outcome is likely to be more productive. Thus according to research conducted, personality is a very important moderating and motivating factor to drive productivity home from the employees. Companies, using this model can truly benefit from it, if they implement it from fully. It will give them an idea, of the kind of work atmosphere conducive to each employee, what is he striving for, and in what best way can they make the most out of their human resources. Employees need to be given an opportunity to self express themselves, to be able to conduct their affairs as individuals, be given adequate security , the expected level of income and enough job empowerment. At the same time time, the management must maintain and stick to the formal organization structure that it keeps, ensure that the control system in place is effective and over see everything carefully. In order to ensure commitment and motivation of the employees to the organization, management also needs to come up with various ways to motivate the employees. Motivation has been explained by many as the primary force that accompanies every action of an individual. The impact of an individual’s needs and desires influence the stride his behavior takes. Motivation depends on one’s emotions and achievement related goals that he has set for. However motivation can be negative as well. Achievement motivation can be expressed as one’s need for the attainment of success and that fervor to make it big. How one goes about it will vary from person to person but they are driven to do so by both external and internal reasons. High motivation will lead to driving ambitions and eventually more productive results for instance. Herzberg’s theory said that there are certain factors in an organization that directly motivate employees to work harder. These are the motivational factors. Various other factors should also be kept in perspective in the organization. Absence of these factors will de-motivate the employees. But these factors will not motivate the employees to work harder. These factors are hygiene factors. Motivating factors include the following: To what extent is the job interesting? Does it offer any incentives for recognition? Does it reward? What kind of empowerment does it offer? There are various other factors that surround the job. These are as follows: How reasonable is the pay? Is it a safe working environment? Ancol needs to consider all these factors. The content and the function of the job itself should be made challenging and motivation should be done through a variety of methods. Communication in the work environment should be well managed. Herzberg’s theory has been kept into perspective by managers. Improvements have been brought about in work places especially where hygiene is concerned. Employees are provided with meal coupons, free medical and health services, clean and silent work station etc. (Coatsee, 2003) Equity Theory of employee motivation tells the relationship between how fairly an employee thinks he is treated and how hard he is motivated to work. The idea behind Equity Theory is that employees, in order to balance what they put in to their jobs and what they get from them, will unconsciously assign values to each of their various contributions. Equity theory stresses on the fact that, the most highly motivated employee is the one who thinks his rewards and contributions are equal. If he gets the feeling he is working and being rewarded the way his peers are being rewarded, then he will judge that he is being treated fairly. This doesn’t mean that managers should treat all employees identically, because every worker does not measure his contributions in the same way. For example, flexible working hours might motivate a working mother more than a pay raise will. Similarly an across-the-board wage increase may delight most employees but the highest producers may become less motivated if they perceive that they are not being rewarded for their ambition. Research on Equity Theory and employee motivation has demonstrated that, usually, over-rewarded employees will produce more and than will under-rewarded, less motivated employees. Works Cited Jones, L. (1996). Work structuring for employee motivation. Education and Training . LIoyd, G. C. (1996). Fostering an environment of employee contribution to increase commitment and motivation. Empowerment In Organizations . Wilde, E. (1985). An Approach to Employee Motivation. Work Study . Linstead, S., Boje, D & O’Shea, A. 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