HR Performance Issues and Motivation - Essay Example

HR Performance Issues and Motivation Introduction The current day business world is becoming highly competitive due to great technological innovations and the emergence of new market players. Price conscious consumers and the practice of internet-based marketing also contribute significantly to the competitiveness of the modern business environment. It would be difficult for firms to survive the stiff market competition unless they constantly improve employee performance and organizational productivity. As Senyucel (2009, p. 31) points out, a motivated employee would be satisfied with his job tasks and try his best to improve his work performance constantly. HR management literature has well documented the relationship between motivation, job satisfaction, and work performance. Using the theories of motivation, this paper will analyze the inextricable relationship between performance and motivation in the modern business environment. Performance and Motivation In order to clearly understand the relationship between employee performance and motivation, it is better to consider a real life situation. For instance, a sales executive (Jim) who has been working at a leading MNC for the last four years fails to meet his sales targets continuously despite periodical increases in his salary and incentives. Jim had acquired his post graduation degree from the Harvard Business School with the 10th rank holder status, and subsequently he was hired by this MNC through a campus interview. For the first three years, Jim performed outstandingly and received the ‘best performer of the year’ award two times from the sales manager. He was excited to work overtime and performed duties and responsibilities beyond his job requirements. Considering his caliber and short term achievements and the exemplary commitment to work the management doubled his salary incentives and allowed him free food and accommodation and a brand new company vehicle. In addition, the company agreed to pay his phone and electricity bills. In spite of those attractive offers, Jim’s performance began to decline by the end of the last year. Currently he is not interested to work overtime, and is frequently absent from the office. Jim failed to meet even his sales target for the last five months. Although the department manager talked to Jim in person several times to improve his performance, Jim still fails to meet his targets. Here the problem is that the sales manager did not promote Jim to a higher job position fearing that such a job promotion would negatively affect Jim’s job efficiency and thereby the overall performance of the sales department. However, Jim was expecting a job promotion and hence the sales manager’s decision really hurt Jim’s career development goals. In short, Jim is extremely frustrated of the manager’s decision to deny him a promotion, and this mental stress negatively impacts his job performance. Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs can be a potential framework to explain how the issue identified creates a performance problem for the organization. According to Maslow’s theoretical framework, different motivational factors vary significance, and they are arranged in a pyramid shape. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs include five well defined needs such as psychological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualisation needs (cited in Darby and Walsh, 1994, p.26). The first priority needs that are necessary for human survival including breathing, food, water, secretion, and sex constitute psychological needs. The safety and security needs or second priority needs include personal security, financial security, and the availability of quality healthcare services and other sufficient resources. Referring to Wood (2010), in the next level, love and belonging needs represent the elements that are inevitable to enjoy a successful social life, and they include friendship, family, and sexual intimacy. The self-esteem needs indicate that human beings have strong desire to feel respected once their psychological, safety, and love and belonging needs are met. In the words of Czinkota and Ronkainen (2012), the self-actualization needs in the Maslow’s hierarchy represent “the highest level in the hierarchy of needs and refer to the desire for personal growth and the ability to achieve one’s full potential” (p.187). Referring to this theoretical framework, it is clear that Jim’s performance decline is resulted from his self-actualization needs. Although Jim completed his studies from a reputed university with a high rank, and has long experience in the corporation, he is denied job promotion to safeguard the personal interests of the management. Jim is not satisfied with his current sales executive position because he has greater potential, and deserves a higher job status. In other words, the management’s selfishness prevents Jim from achieving the most he can, and ruins his career development. With this negative mindset, Jim can never perform as he did before, and therefore this issue would create great problems for the corporation. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs clearly indicate that it is not possible to keep a person motivated unless his hierarchical needs are met. From the viewpoint of this theory, it may not be possible to motivate Jim to perform his tasks efficiently and achieve better outcomes unless his self-actualization needs are met. Therefore the intervention plan must give specific focus to meeting the self-actualization needs of Jim. It is recommendable for the top management to provide Jim with an immediate job promotion to meet his desire for long term career development because any other strategy would not be potential enough to change his current behaviour. Undoubtedly a job promotion would motivate Jim psychologically, and hence he will be recharged to become what he had been a couple of years ago. If the management further delays his job promotion, the situation may end up in an efficient employee’s termination. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that Jim is not satisfied with his job tasks, and this issue adversely affects his job performance. Since Jim is denied a well deserved job promotion, he remains unmotivated, and this is the reason why he fails to derive job satisfaction. Clearly there is a strong bond between motivation and performance. Referring to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, Jim’s self-actualization needs are not met, and hence he is badly in need of an immediate job promotion to regain his work efficiency. Therefore, the management must be willing to place him in a higher job position to make use of the maximum potential of their previous best performer. References Czinkota, M & Ronkainen, I. (2012). International Marketing. US: Cengage Learning. Darby, M. L & Walsh, M. M. (1994). Dental hygiene theory and practice. US: W.B. Saunders. Senyucel, Z. (2009). Managing the Human Resource in the 21st century. London Business School. Wood, J. T. (2010). Interpersonal Communication: Everyday encounters. Wadsworth Cengage Leraning. Retrieved from http://www.cengagebrain.com/content/wood67647_0495567647_02.01_chapter01.pdf Read More