Desire to Act - Essay Example

?Part A It is clear from the case that the staff at Cappuccino Roma is highly de-motivated and dissatisfied. This is due to the activities of its owners Karen and Simon who had paid very less attention in addressing the problems of the staff at the cafe and has failed to motivate them regularly. It could be taken instance from the case that they even lacked communication with the staff. The process of motivation in an individual or an employee’s life is like the following: Motivation consists of interacting as well as interdependent elements of three types, namely: Needs, Drives and Incentives. Needs are the basis for the drives which is in turn seeking the attainment of certain set of incentives. A physiological or a psychological imbalance in a human leads to the creation of need for something. For e.g. need for water when a person is thirsty. However, a psychological need can also arise without any known deficiency as well as imbalance. For e.g. a person having a strong need for progress may move from success to success. Similarly in the case, employees of the cafe had certain needs which make them derive to achieve an incentive. However, with no interactions from the owners and no further incentive employees are highly de-motivated. Drivers or motives prompt individuals to attain their goals and satisfy their needs. A physiological drive is a condition which causes a person to work in a particular direction. Both physiological and psychological drives push an individual towards achieving a certain goal or accomplishing a certain task. For e.g. need for food and water is transformed into the drives of hunger and thirst. Anything that can motivate a need and decrease the intensity of drive is called an incentive. When a person obtains the incentive, the strength of the drive is reduced and physiological or psychological balance is restored. The owners of the cafe do not understand individualized problem of their employees. This is the root cause of all the motivational problems at the cafe. For e.g. in the case study it can be seen that the owner Simon had employed his own younger sister Penny Philips in the cafe. She had just completed her French Degree and wants to travel for finding a job as a translator. Now even her problems are not addressed by the owners even though one of them is her brother. This is the level of negligence that had been given to the cafe by Simon and Karen. Another reason for de-motivation of employees in the cafe is that by working they are just fulfilling their Physiological needs and there any other need is not being fulfilled. The theory of hierarchy of needs by Maslow is often displayed in the form of pyramid. The most basic needs are shown at the lowest level of the pyramid whereas comparatively complex needs have been located at the top of pyramid. Needs that are at the bottom of pyramid are classified as basic physical requirements which include the need of water, sleep, food and warmth. As long as the needs of lower level are not met, the hierarchy does not move to the higher level, and once there lower level needs are met, people tend to move towards the next level in the needs hierarchy, which are known for safety and security. Humans have the common need to be respected and having self-esteem as well as self respect. This need is also known as belonging need. The esteem of a human presents his normal human desire that needs to be accepted as well as valued by others. Different people have need of engaging themselves for gaining recognition and having an activity or set of activities that gives the person a near sense of contribution, of feeling accepted as well as self-valued, both in a profession and hobby. Now in the cafe these needs of employees are not being fulfilled which is acting as a de-motivating factor for them. Part 2 The owners will have to motivate its employees to stay in the job including finding a replacement for Penny. Simon and Karen needs to make this cafe a learning organization for its employees. Organizations constantly endeavor to make their employees synchronize their behavior to enable them to keep pace with their subordinates, peers and superiors. Organizations can put to use learning theories to train the employees and polish their skills. Learning theories help managers construe people’s acquisition of certain behaviors and skills. In the organizational context, learning theories have many implications. Some of these are: The theories state that active participation of the employees in the learning process will speed up the employees learning process. Repetition of concepts, procedures or desired behavior before the employees makes assimilation faster. Employees pick up fast if the training equips them with essential skills of the job. Learning is enhanced when employees get a clear and accurate feedback on their performance. All employees should not be rewarded in the same way. The organization should ensure that the rewards are proportionate to the employee’s input. This induces learning in the employees and they begin to understand the correlation between their inputs and rewards. Employees’ option must be sought before deciding on the rewards. Managers must observe the ways the rewardees utilize the rewards. Choice of rewards should be made clear so that employees have a clear idea as to what aspect of their behavior can fetch them a reward. Organizations should clearly define the specific behavioral objective of the level of performance the employees should strive to achieve in order to obtain a reward. The benchmark for performance should be challenging to employees but possible to reach. The organization can reinforce desirable behavior in employees by rewarding them with something that is of value to them. Rewards should be given for excellence in performance or when employees are close to achieving a target. The organization should reward an employee immediately when he exhibits a desirable behavior. The behavior that needs modification should be specified to the employees at the time of punishment. In today’s world, employee satisfaction and retention have become issues of high importance. Employees who are satisfied are more productive, innovative and show high levels of enthusiasm and commitment to their organization. A high staff attrition rate and absenteeism levels can affect the financial performance of the company because outsourcing, recruitment and retraining may give rise to heavy costs for the organization. However, only a handful or organizations understand the true implications of keeping their employees satisfied. Applying Fredrick Herzberg’s theory of motivation to real life is not an easy task. First hygiene factors have to be considered in order to create an environment in which the employee satisfaction and motivation are possible. The most important hygiene factors are: Administrative policies of the organization Presence of able supervisors Fair Pay Good Interpersonal relations Conducive working conditions The important motivators in an organization are: The work itself Clear achievable goals Giving adequate responsibility to employees Career Growth Appreciation of good work The most important principles or learning are reinforcement and punishment. It is a generally agreed that reinforcement is better approaches for making people learn desirable behaviors. Therefore it is considered to be the most important principle of learning organizations. Reinforce means to strengthen and the term reinforcement refers to a stimulus which strengthens the probability of a particular response being repeated. Appreciating the good work of an employee and rewarding promotions it raises are examples of commonly used rein forcers in organizations. Reinforcements can be either positive or negative. Positive reinforcement increases the chances that a particular behavior would be repeated because it results in a desirable consequence. Negative reinforcement also increases a particular behavior being repeated, but it does so in a different ways. In negative reinforcement, the individual repeats a behavior not because he wants but because he wants to avoid a negative consequence. The main purpose of reinforces is to strengthen a particular behavior. Another method of managing behavior involves the use of punishments. Punishments are sometimes wrongly considered to be the opposite of reinforcement. A punishment can be defined as an action that weakens a particular behavior and reduces its frequency. It usually involves withdrawing a desirable consequence or applying in an undesirable one. For e.g. a manager who has a poor performance record could be punished through curtailment of some of its organizational privileges. References Employee Motivation - Theory and Practice. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2011, from www.accel-team.com: http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/ Gawel, J. E. (1997). Herzberg's theory of motivation and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Retrieved May 4, 2011, from pareonline.net: http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=5&n=11 Maslow's Theory of Motivation - Hierarchy of Needs. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2011, from www.envisionsoftware.com: http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Maslows_Needs_Hierarchy.html Motivation Theory. (2005). Retrieved May 4, 2011, from ezinearticles.com: http://ezinearticles.com/?Motivation-Theory&id=410700 Motivatonal Theories. (2005). Retrieved May 4, 2011, from changingminds.org: http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/a_motivation.htm Shah, K. S. (2007). Theories of Motivation. Retrieved May 4, 2011, from www.laynetworks.com: http://www.laynetworks.com/Theories-of-Motivation.html Read More