Motivational Problems in the Workplace - Essay Example

The company was a start-up firm in the technology industry. The job of the floor workers was to provide quality control for technological companies in the social media industry such as MySpace and Facebook. I started working with the company when it was founded in 2007. When the company started a representative from MySpace offered prizes and incentives to the floor workers for higher production. Everyone was extremely motivated to achieve the best possible output. A few months passed by and the monthly contest winners were never announced.

Eventually, people realized that the company lied to everyone, and the prizes if they existed were being distributed among the managerial staff instead of the floor workers. The employees were outraged and motivational problems began to manifest among the staff. When the employees rebelled the managerial staff made things worse because they started to cheat the employees out of money from their paychecks by paying less money than the hours the employee worked.             Full-blown chaos occurred internally at this firm.

The employees rebelled in different ways. Some would come into work late and leave early since other employees would punch their time cards for them. The workers that came to work would not give such an effort. The overall production of the company went down a lot as a consequence of the administration’s disregard for the best interest of its employees. The employees went on strike twice to get the word out about the abuse occurring at the company. The administration was very mad at the employees’ response, but they brought all the trouble by violating the rights of the workers.

The problematic situation described in this paper can be analyzed using motivational theories. Motivation can be defined as forces within an individual that account for the level, direction, and persistence of effort expended at work (Schermerhorn & Hunt & Osborn, 2003). The motivational theory that best describes the behavior of the workers at my former place of employment is equity theory. Equity theory states that an individual’s motivation level is correlated to his perception of equity, fairness, and justice practiced by the management (Managementstudyguide, 2012).