The Ways of Employee Motivation in Toyota Company - Case Study Example

How to motivate employees Employees are the most valued assets of every organization. When employees are motivated and happy, they are most likely to be very productive in their duties. The greatest way of creating an enabling environment for people to be motivated is by creating a sense of ownership for everyone within the organization. In other words, ensure that all the people within the organization are thinking like entrepreneurs since if they feel that they do not have control over their personal spaces, they are most likely to wait for u to solve every other problem and expect daily directions from you. As a manager, the best way of motivating employees include the following strategies 1. Set the goals. During the start of each project, you must make sure that your junior staff understands your objectives and limitations for every job. Provide them with substantial leeway in creating the timeline for achieving those objectives. By doing that, the subordinates are in a position to choose their deadlines and become accountable for achieving them. 2. Create correct metrics. During the implementation of both qualitative and quantitative criteria, you ought to have an extensive discussion with your team about which job is most important. As a leader, you must let your followers understand what metrics you regard them as more critical than in others order to make decisions on what compromises are they willing to make when making major choices. 3. Provide necessary resources In case your employees do not have the required resources to accomplish their duties, you should understand that there will be some delays in its accomplishment. If there is existence of any budget restraints, as a manager you have to know how much impact this will have in the successful accomplishment of the entire project and decrease restrictions of some tasks, or make a final decision if the project 4. Monitor without making any suffocation Only because you are not hovering physically over your worker's desk does not necessarily mean that you are not micromanaging. Micromanagement is much more understated in reality. Rather than micromanaging, you can check the status of a job or a project by making suggestions and meeting at middle points. Nonetheless, you should bear in mind that your team must be open to accomplish the reviewed goals in the best way possible. 5. Tolerate mistakes. As a manager, if you need your staff to take chances, you must be willing to forgive them anytime they make genuine mistakes. On the contrary, you must not accept any mistake caused by sloppiness or laziness though you have to compromise a well-meant mistake. Once you become successful at making your staffs appreciate that they are part of the company, they will start making choices as though they are spending their money. Furthermore, employees will quickly adapt to changes that might arise along the way. Employee motivation in Toyota Company Hiring a qualified employee is not an easy task more so, making them work more happily and efficiently, being passionate in making contributions to organizational goals becomes even more difficult. This section tries to examine and explain various methods adopted by Toyota Company in motivating its employees by use of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs motivation theory. We will start by analyzing how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is utilized in Toyota Company. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs Essentially, Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchy of needs is comprised of a pyramid with various levels of needs. At the base is Physiological needs, followed by Safety needs, Love & Belonging, Esteem and Self-Actualization are the highest at the top. When lower needs such as physiological and safety are satisfied, then employees can move to higher level needs like esteem and self-actualization, which motivates them to work more competently, with a lot of energy and more new ideas (Maslow, 2013). Physiological and Safety needs All Toyota employees are satisfied at the lower level of needs because they are paid well; there is job security, and there is a well-organized and safe working environment. The company also provides recreational and child care facilities to site for employees. Most of these benefits are offered to ensure that their staffs are secured and safe to ascend to needs at a higher level that result to more achievements. Needs of belonging Toyota Company promotes a sense of belonging and strong team spirit by discouraging any form of discrimination amongst its team members; or between employees and managers. Particularly, the company does not offer private offices, managers’ private cafeterias, private parking services, or personal secretaries. All employees are called by their first names and are also encouraged to put on the company uniform. All these practices enhance the spirit of belongingness where the employees feel they are part and parcel of the company’s community and strengthen a strong tie between the company and its employees. Self-esteem and self-actualization Toyota employees are also encouraged to try solving their challenging problems to improve their self-confidence and gratify their higher level needs in self-esteem and self-actualization. In addition, by adopting a ratio of team leader to team members of 1 to 4 as compared to 1 to 20 in the entire industry, Toyota has created promotion opportunities of around 4 to 5 times for employees. Furthermore, those workers who are ambitious are assured that their jobs on the assembly line are temporary, and after they are promoted to become a team leader, they would get job rotation and lots of training opportunities. How Toyota Company applies Goal-setting Theory of Goal-Setting The theory of Goal-setting proposes that a person can be motivated to a point where an individual can accept particular, challenging goals and get a feedback showing one’s progress towards achievement of this objective (Frederick Herzberg, 2011). From the above definition, there are four components that can be decomposed as follows: The specificity of a Goal- goal must be detailed, precise, and not ambiguous. In the case of Toyota Company, the goals are clear and well defined for instance; the entire lead-time should be fewer than the expectations of the customer-order-to-delivery lead-time. The difficulty of a Goal: i.e. very challenging goals are more inspiring than easy goals. Acceptance of a Goal: employees must understand and support fully the goals. The ideology of community of fate was developed at Toyota Company, which means that both the organization and its employees share the same fate that either of them can either succeed or fail together. This assists in aligning personal goals with that of the organization Performance feedback- it is an indication of progress towards a specific goal. If the feedback of a performance is very clear, employees tend to be more motivated. In this case, Toyota utilizes visual management systems i.e. Jidoka in communicating some problems from a particular line of production so that each staff can monitor their progress; this offers a roadmap for them to walk toward individual goals. Strategic planning This is the process where an organization defines its direction, or strategy and making major decisions on the allocation of its scarce resources to pursuing the strategy. Strategic planning also extends to creating control mechanisms that guide the execution of the strategy (Barksdale, 2006). Strategic planning is regarded as a collaborative process that involves various stakeholders within the organization. The question that may arise when an organization is developing its strategic plan is who should be involved? Collaboration during the process of strategic planning is significant for a plan to be effectively transformed into an action. Everybody within the organization has to be involved in one way or another in its strategic plan. Employees have a tendency of owning what they took part in making it. Incorporating various stakeholders allows for diverse information and perspectives to be employed. Obviously, not all those who participate in the strategic planning process are strategic thinkers. Nevertheless, all their contributions could be valuable, even during the execution of strategies. Similarly, it gives an opportunity to be exposed to the larger picture, the vocabulary, and the strategic thinking process. As a result, collaboration increases understanding and awareness, thus hopefully enabling the stakeholders to test and improve on what is being done while moving forward. It also creates a sense of common culture in the entire organization and supports the need to rally behind the future direction of an organization (Barksdale, 2006). Furthermore, the element of collaboration offers an opportunity for various groups to share skills, experience and knowledge with others so as amend goals and make a contribution to its development. For a successful collaboration, there should be adequate resources, a culture that enhances effective cooperation and teamwork besides clearly defined responsibilities. Furthermore, team members should respect and trust one another. There should be open communication among the team members and also a readiness to receive a contribution from others. As a matter of fact, collaboration ensures that none of the group, person, organization or any other institution controls everything, but rather, most participate and shoulder some responsibilities. This makes the strategic planning process to become very challenging and expresses the requisite for more negotiations, discussions and coordination in tackling issues. Cooperation is regarded as a critical partner in the strategic planning process. Without cooperation, there will be competition. It comprises of partnering with other stakeholders in terms of capabilities, competencies, and resources in pursuit of common interests for the improvement of desired goals (Axson, 2010). References Axson, D. A. (2010). Best Practices in Planning and Performance Management: Radically Rethinking Management for a Volatile World. John Wiley & Sons. Barksdale, S. (2006). 10 Steps to Successful Strategic Planning. American Society for Training and Development. Frederick Herzberg. (2011). The Motivation to Work. Transaction Publishers, . Hackman, J. R. (2002). Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. NY: Cengage Learning. Maslow, A. H. ( 2013). A Theory of Human Motivation. Start Publishing LLC. Read More