Motivation in the Workplace - Essay Example

? Assignment Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts (12, July, Introduction In today’s corporate world it has become extremely important to motivate employees. Managers are interested in increasing the productivity of employees and they are searching for ways to do so. Since the start of industrialization process managers are searching for ways that can help employees produce more. Initially the focus was on the physical work of the employees but with the passage of time management started to focus on the other factors as well. The nature of jobs have also been changed and more creativity is now required. Motivating employees to increase their creativity has now become a main challenge for manager. Financial rewards and benefits are not the only factors that can increase the motivation level of employees in the workplace. Positive remarks, promotions, admiration by superiors and competition in the workplace can also increase the motivation levels of employees. The topic of our research proposal will be motivation in the workplace. In this proposal we will provide a comprehensive literature review upon which a theoretical concept will be based. Previous research work that has been done on factors that can increase motivation in the workplace will also be elaborated. Research questions and purpose of the research will also be discussed alongside with research methodology. Data sources and analysis will also be included in the research proposal. Literature Review The research that has been done on motivation is focused on factors that can increase the work dedication of employees and can lead them to work harder in achieving organizational objectives. Monetary benefits and rewards are not the only factors that can contribute to the motivation of employees in the workplace. The research on subject is motivated by the need to identify non monetary benefits that can increase the productivity of employees. Monetary rewards are not always feasible therefore more cost effective ways are being analyzed by managers. Employees are also not always motivated by monetary rewards therefore non monetary factors are very important. Self efficacy is a very important concept in psychology. It is a belief of a person in his or her own competence. Motivation has been found to increase self efficacy of the employees and this can in turn empower them (Yoon, J. 2001). Motivation actually increases the confidence of employees and they are better able to perform the work that has been assigned to them. Motivation gives employees a sense of independence and they come up with their own ideas because they have this self belief that they can do something for the organization. It was a common belief that extrinsic motivation only can affect an employee and motivate him to work hard in pursuit of organizational goals. Extrinsic motivations include rewards and threat of punishment and these were believed as factors that can increase the motivation levels of employees. Recent research has suggested that a synergy of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can be more influential then only extrinsic motivational factors (Amabile, T. 2002). Internalization of behaviour is very important in organizations and this can increase motivation of employees and can in turn increase their productivity. Reliance on extrinsic motivation should be reduced in today’s business world. There are at least four motivation techniques identified in researches that include monetary incentives, goal setting, job design and participation (Perry & Porter 1982). All these four factors can increase motivation but extent of effectiveness depends upon the organizational culture and personality of employee. Goal setting is very important because it gives employees a sense of direction. Goals should be very realistic because unrealistic goals can decrease the motivation of employees and can discourage them. Job design is another important factor that can motivate employees. Monotonous jobs that require no innovation and decision making can lower interest of employees. Participation of employees can also increased by involving them in decision making process and asking for their advice. Motivation also impacts the transfer of knowledge and skill in any organization. This is extremely important because no organization can afford high costs of training employees through external experts. Internal training is a cheap alternative and motivation can play a role in internal training. Employees who are motivated were found to play a positive role in transfer of knowledge and skill in organizations. The factors affecting motivation of employees included organizational variables and individual attitudes of employees (Seyler, et.al. 2002). These two factors play a role in motivation of employees in transferring their knowledge and skills to other employees. The nature of jobs done by employees can shape their individual personality as well. It was found that public service employees were more likely to donate blood and take part in social services as volunteers (Houston, D. 2006). This means that public service employees are more motivated to take part in social work than for profit workers. This actually proves that job design influences a person and can help change his or her attitude. This finding has important implication for motivation. Employees can be motivated by job design to work harder and this can be done independent of the personal attitudes of a person (because job design can change personal attitudes). Internal motivation of employees was found to be directly related to employee performance, quality and quantity of their work (Oldham, G. 1976). Also high satisfaction levels with co workers were responsible for the positive relationship between job characteristics and internal motivation (1976). These findings clearly highlight the importance of motivation in the workplace. The environment of the workplace is also an important factor that can increase motivation of employees. The relations between co workers play a major role in employee motivation. Growth oriented employees are found to be more internally motivated then employees who are not growth oriented (Moch, M. 1979). Aspirations of growth in the organization therefore are an important factor in motivation of employees. People who want to step up in the organizational hierarchy are more internally motivated to work hard and have greater productivity. Managers can formulate a system of promotion in order to motivate employees to work hard. It is not only the monetary reward but the respect that comes with higher position that motivates employees to work hard. The role leadership cannot be neglected in motivating employees. Leaders play a major role in motivating employees. Leaders can take feedback from employees and this can motivate employees greatly (Jong & Hartog, 2007). Feedback taken from employees should be taken seriously and changes should be implemented. In this way employees can feel that their say matters and will work harder for the company (2007). Motivating employees to innovate more also involves locating resources correctly. Employees are more likely to innovate if they like their work. Leadership therefore plays an important role in motivating employees. Recognition is another element that can play a major role in motivating employees. Reward and recognition programs were found to be positively related to motivation, job satisfaction, performance and interest within an organization (Milne, P. 2007). Recognition programs identify employees with high performance and these employees are rewarded. Recognition can play a great role in raising the performance of the employees. When employees are recognized they feel a sense of respect in them and other employees also encourages them. This makes them feel that they are important and motivates them to work hard. Other employees also aspire to receive recognition therefore they also work hard. This is how a recognition process increases productivity of all employees. Generational effect on motivation in the workplace is widely discussed in management sciences. It is said that generally different generations have different thinking therefore they can be motivated through different techniques and there cannot be one model of motivation that can be applied to all generations. But research has suggested that the perceived differences between generational differences are no supported by empirical evidence (Wong, Gardiner, Lang, & Coulon. 2008). The different generations do not react differently to techniques employed by management to motivate them. This means that similar motivational techniques can be employed for all generations in order to increase their motivation. There are some differences that have been identified but those are on the basis of age (Wong, 2008). Concept and Theory Motivation is dependent on monetary and non monetary factors. Monetary factors cannot be ignored because they play a vital role in motivation of employees. The increasing financial difficulties that firms are facing are forcing them to use non monetary motivational techniques. The non monetary factors of motivation are therefore very important. Job satisfaction is very important for motivation of employees in workplace. Employees can derive satisfaction through positive environment. Relations with co workers and superiors also play a role in job satisfaction. An employee will be satisfied with his or her job if he or she experience positive relationships with other employees and superiors. Intrinsic motivation is also dependent on participation of employees in the decision making. This can be a very important way of motivating employees through non monetary techniques. Intrinsic motivation can also be increased by designing jobs in a manner that keeps the interest of the worker in that particular job. Job design and participation therefore are important factors for increasing intrinsic motivation. Leadership and recognition programs also play a role in motivating employees. Leadership can give employees a sense of direction and encouragement which can enhance productivity and performance. Recognition programs can also prove beneficial in motivating employees to work harder. All the above mentioned factors play a role in increasing motivation of employees. All these factors are non monetary in nature and therefore can help an organization decrease its costs. Research Purpose and Research Question The main purpose of the research is to find out ways in which employees can be motivated in today’s tough financial situations. It is not feasible now to offer employees with high levels of salary and expensive benefits. In today’s world cost effectiveness is everything because overall economic situation of the world is not very good. In such times it is essential that non monetary factors are identified that can increase motivation of the employees and at the same time can reduce costs of the company. Employees do not always need large sums of money to work hard. They are social animals and can be motivated through other factors as well, and this research will attempt to identify such factors. The purpose of the research is also to bring clarity in the subject of motivation. There have been many researches done on motivations and outcomes are varied. It is important to find empirically that what factors influence motivation of employees. Many factors have been identified but the factors that are most important should be found out. In this research we hope that we are able to identify the most vital techniques and factors that can motivate employees in the workplace and increase their productivity and performance. The research questions of our research are given below. 1- What is the relationship between Job Satisfaction and Motivation? 2- What role participation plays in motivating employees? 3- What is the role of leadership and recognition programs in increasing performance of employees? 4- What is the relationship between job design and Motivation? The main variables that will be tested are job satisfaction, participation, leadership, and recognition and job design. The effect these variables on motivation will be observed. The research will only find a negative, positive or no relationship between the above mentioned variables and motivation. Research Strategy & Research Design This study will be qualitative in nature. The reason for this is that variables like job satisfaction and leadership cannot be measured through quantitative means. These factors do not have an exact definition therefore they cannot be measured quantitatively. Different people have different perception of leadership. Also job satisfaction can also be different for different people therefore no exact standards can be set. Another reason why qualitative approach is used in our research is that there cannot be yes no answer when it comes to motivation and its relationship with say participation. An employee will have to explain how he or she thinks about the relationship and only then insights can be gathered on the subject. The research design will include a sample of 53 participants all of who will be employed in different organizations. The sample will be selected from 3 organizations and ideally all level of employees will be taken in the sample. This will diversify the sample and include a wide range of employees. The research is a correlation analysis where only relationships between the different variables on motivation will be discussed. The cause of that relationship will not be elaborated in the research. Because there are many variables it is not possible to provide causation for each and every variable and its relationship with motivation. Data Sources and Data Analysis The main source of data will be employees that will be included in the sample. They will be interviewed and their responses will be recorded. A set of open ended questions will be asked to employees of 3 different organizations and their responses will be recorded using a tape recorder. They will be promised completed anonymity so that all their responses are accurate. The responses should be accurate so that results can be objective. The interview method is the only possible way to record responses. There is no other way employees can record their responses. Also questionnaire wouldn’t help because employees will not always have definite answers. Interview is the only way where different employees can be made to talk about motivation and factors that can increase it. The topic is complex that is why interview is the only way through which data can be collected in this study. Interview will be taken by experts and will last for about 20 to 30 minutes. Questions will be given to the interviewer but they will be allowed to ask more or less questions depending on the responses of employees. This is done because open ended questions will illicit responses that will be diverse. It will be important to force responses to come back to the topic because digression will waste time. Data will be analyzed by listening to the responses and by counting how many people thought there is positive or negative relationship between different variables and motivation. No software will be used to identify the relationship because qualitative data is very difficult to put into software. Therefore data will be analyzed in a simple manner by listening to responses. Conclusion Motivation is very important in workplace because it is very important in today’s time when firms are not doing well financially. Monetary rewards are always not in the best interest of the company therefore nonmonetary techniques of increasing motivation should be researched. Job satisfaction can increase motivation of employees. Also leadership can play a role in motivation of employees in the workplace. Internal motivation can also be increased by creating job designs that can keep the employees interested in doing their work. In this research proposal we have discussed how will be conducting our research which is aimed at improving the motivational level of employees. Bibliography Amabile, T. 2002. Motivational synergy: Toward new conceptualizations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the workplace, Human Resource Management Review, 3(3): 185-201 Houston, D. 2005. “Walking the Walk” of Public Service Motivation: Public Employees and Charitable Gifts of Time, Blood, and Money, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16(1): 67-86 Jeroen & Hartog. 2007. How leaders influence employees’ innovative behaviour, European Journal of Innovation Management, 10(1):41 – 64 Moch, M. 1979. Job involvement, internal motivation, and employees' integration into networks of work relationships, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 25(1): 15-31 Oldham, G. 1976. Job Characteristics and Internal Motivation: The Moderating Effect of Interpersonal and Individual Variables, Human Relations, 29(6): 559-569 Patricia M. 2007. Motivation, incentives and organizational culture, Journal of Knowledge Management, 11(6): 28 – 38 Perry & Porter. 1982. Factors Affecting the Context for Motivation in Public Organizations, The Academy of Management Review, 7(1): 89-98 Seyler, et al. 1998. Factors Affecting Motivation to Transfer Training. International Journal of Training and Development, 2(1): 16 Wong, Gardiner, Lang, & Coulon. 2008. Generational differences in personality and motivation: Do they exist and what are the implications for the workplace? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(8): 878 - 890 Yoon, J. 2001. The Role of Structure and Motivation for Workplace Empowerment: The Case of Korean Employees, Social Psychology Quarterly, 64(2): 195-206 Assignment 2 Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name (12, July, 2011) Motivation in the Workplace Jeroen & Hartog. 2007. How leaders influence employees’ innovative behaviour, European Journal of Innovation Management, 10(1):41 – 64 In this article the main topic of research is leadership and its role in promoting innovating behaviour in an organization. It is actually aiming at ways in which employees can be motivated to innovate more so that organizations can excel. Innovation is greatly influenced by leadership and innovating organizations usually have good leaders that drive the firms to greatness. The link therefore between leadership and innovating behaviour is very strong. People can be motivated to innovate by leadership and this is why we picked this article for our research proposal. Finding the behaviour of a leader towards his or her employees that can lead them to work hard and innovate more is the main aim of the article. Face to face interviews using unstructured questions were used to find out the specific leadership behaviours that can increase motivation of employees. Qualitative technique of gathering data was used in this research. The sample consisted of employees of knowledge based service organizations like engineering and consulting companies. The results of the research found out 13 different behaviours that were likely to increase innovation in an organization. In other words through 13 behaviours a leader can motivate his or her employees to innovate more and work harder in the organization. Reward, recognition and providing vision were some of the leadership behaviour that was identified in the research. All the 13 behaviours were found to impact employees in motivating them to innovate more in the organization. The limitations of the study are that it used qualitative approach to collect data therefore the results can be exposed to bias. It is extremely important that findings of this research are also confirmed by a quantitative analysis of the same topic. Also only knowledge incentive service companies were used in the research and not other companies that innovate like cellular and automobile companies. In such companies innovation is very important. The results can therefore not be applicable to manufacturing companies. Also work climate was identified as a factor that is necessary for innovating behaviour therefore further research should be done with regards to the role of leadership in creating a positive working environment. This article can help us a lot in the research proposal as it identifies a key factor that plays a role in motivation of employees in the workplace. Leaders can motivate employees therefore it was important to see the relationship between leadership behaviours and motivation of employees. Promoting innovating behaviour is actually motivating of employees in the workplace therefore it is relevant to our research. Leadership is also a factor that is non monetary in nature and it can help motivate employees. The specific leadership behaviour like recognition and reward were also found in the article that can increase motivation. We have taken leadership as a separate factor and have used it to test whether it has a general impact on motivation or not. Wong, Gardiner, Lang, & Coulon. 2008. Generational differences in personality and motivation: Do they exist and what are the implications for the workplace? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(8): 878 - 890 In this article the focus is on generational difference and motivation. The article aims at finding out whether different generations react differently to motivational strategies. This is something very important because it can change the whole dimension of motivation research. If different generations react different to motivational strategies then in a workplace one policy cannot work. This can lead to significant changes in the whole dynamics of motivation in an organization. It is widely believed that different generations think differently therefore this article aims to find whether there are any empirical differences identified that can prove generational differences in personality and motivation. The purpose of the article is to find out whether three generations of Australian people: Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y have different drivers of motivation and have differences in their personalities. Two questionnaires were used in this research in order to collect data from all generations of Australian people. Questionnaires were based on questions that would check whether motivational drivers are different across generations. The sample was made up of 3,535 employees and managers from different firms of Australia. Participants were included from all areas of Australia so that any bias can be eliminated. The results showed that there are no differences between different generations of Australia. There were no differences between the generations regarding motivational drivers according to the study. The general perception was not validated empirically through the research. There were only some differences that were identified between generations and those differences were because of the differences in age. Generational differences were not found in motivational drivers and personalities. The main limitation of the research is that it is based in Australia only. It is a developed country and therefore all generations are well aware of the world around them. These findings cannot be generalized in countries that are still in the developing stages. Also the culture of Australia may play a role in such findings. It is very important that more research is done in other countries regarding generational differences and motivational drivers. This was a quantitative research therefore qualitative research should also be used to validate the findings of this research. This article is very important for our research proposal because it informs us that generational difference does not exist in motivational strategies. The implications of the findings can be far reaching because all the employees of the organization will be treated similarly and same reward system will be established. If the findings of this article were opposite then the whole research proposal would have changed. This is the importance of the article. Motivational drivers are similar in all generations therefore employees can be treated equally and reward system that is placed in an organization should be just. An organization can take serious notice of this and can reject all the general talk about generation change. Patricia M. 2007. Motivation, incentives and organizational culture, Journal of Knowledge Management, 11(6): 28 – 38 This is very relevant article for our research proposal and it deals with the reward and recognition programs in organizations and their impact on motivation of employees in the work place. This article talks about how rewards and recognition can help employees to work harder. The role of organizational culture is also discussed in the article. Organizations are finding it very hard to find ways to motivate employees and they are investing in different programs to do so. The reward and recognition structure is also discussed in the article in great detail. The main aim of the article is to find out ways in which reward and recognition programs can be used in knowledge aware organizations. The methodology used in this study is called a Meta analysis where no new research is done but instead previous research work is reviewed and findings are used to draw conclusion. The study has relied wholly on previous researches and no new data collection is done. Previous researches can give important insights about a particular topic and this is done in the research article. The article has found previous literature on private and public organizations and the issues they face. The article has also discussed articles about team based system of rewards and recognition. The results of the article clearly shows that rewards and recognition can play a great role in motivation of employees in a work place. The analysis of previous literature showed clearly that a positive relationship exists between reward and recognition programs of organizations and the motivation of employees in those organizations. A positive relationship also exists between reward programs and performance and interest of employees in their work according to the article. The team based reward system is not always good for organizations. These systems can be useful if designed carefully keeping in mind the organization but there is not sufficient evidence that can suggest that the efficacy of team based reward system. Also it is not necessary that team based incentives can motivate an employee to pass on knowledge to other members of the group. The main limitation of the article is that it has relied on previous literature. Things may have changed a lot in an organization since the data was collected for previous research. These results may also not apply to new organizations. Also research work is lacking on knowledge sharing within organizations and impact of motivation on knowledge sharing. This article has helped us a lot in preparing the research proposal. It has highlighted that reward and recognition systems play a role in increasing motivation of employees. Rewards and recognition can also be non monetary in nature and they are included in the research proposal under job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is directly related to rewards and recognition. We are measuring the relationship of job satisfaction and motivation in our research. Therefore this article has helped us a lot in our research proposal. Read More