Work Motivation - A Jumeirah Group case study - Essay Example

?Work Motivation- A Jumeirah Group case study Introduction Work occurring in organisations’ cognitive efforts is more important than physical effort (Erez, 2001). Nowadays, organisations do not focus on the number of employees and their physical efforts as much as they care for their mental attitude reflected by the concept of motivation. Motivation comes from a Latin word- movere, which means “to move” (Allen, 2010). More importantly, motivation can be defined as a collection of forces within the individual and in the surrounding environment; driving the individual’s behaviour to satisfying the requirements of unmet needs (Allen et al., 2009). Within the environment of an organisation, work motivation consists of fulfilling the needs of workforce by motivating employees to behave in a way to achieve the expected organisational goals from the role of the employees. Various organisations adopt different ways to measure and assess the current level of motivation. Various reasons may require the organisations to do so. First, by knowing the current level of motivation, an organisation becomes in a position to determine its current and potential changes in its human resource policy. If the results of a survey suggest that currently, most of the employees are not having the required level of motivation level. In that case, this may put some negative impacts over the work related duties. And the employees would not be able to fulfil the organisational requirements. Consequently and aggregately, the organisation would not be in a position to attain its corporate strategic objectives. This would put some stress over the organisational goals and objectives that would not be met if the current level of motivation persists in the employees. In the subsequent part of this essay, work motivation is going to be further examined; and it is followed by a critical analysis over the employees survey carried out by the Jumeirah Group. And, at the end of the paper, a conclusion is included. Work Motivation The success of organisations considerably depends on work motivation of employees. Previously, work motivation was not given as much significance as it is receiving in these days. At that time, organisations preferred to work with employees and provided them only salary. Additionally, the concept was that the employees can be only motivated by providing sufficient salary and bonuses. However, due to a variety of new factors including technology, such have considerably changed the work motivation theory held previously. In that context, Richer & Vallerand (1995) argue that workers nowadays seek to satisfy their intrinsic as well as their extrinsic needs; the former are satisfied when employees accomplish achievements while the latter are achieved when they are given an attractive pay, job security, bonuses and promotion. Additionally, undoubtedly, it is the sincere and motivated employees’ contribution that has sufficient capacity at the strategic management level to change the entire landscape and bring a superior and exceptional performance for the organisations and put a particular level of effort for a certain period of time towards a particular direction (Singh,2010). Leadership Leaders own a very dynamic personality and charisma. They considerably vary with one another. This variation according to Goleman (2000) defines at least six different leadership styles. Further, on the leadership topic, Goleman (2000, pp. 78-79), highlights that leaders do not rely on one particular leadership style; they constantly use most of them in different measure and in different business situations. Six practical leadership styles are: coercive, requiring immediate compliance; affiliative, creating emotional attachment and harmony; authoritative, directing people towards a vision; democratic, building agreement and consensus through participation; coaching, developing people for the future; pacesetting, developing and expecting self-direction and excellence (International business coaching, 2009). In the Jumeirah Group, the strategic leadership have a strong belief over affiliative as well as coaching leadership skills. As the hospitality industry is mainly based on services, the use of affiliative leadership styles serves the required organisational goals. Organisational goals Organisations develop and try to achieve organisational goals. They vary organisation to organisation as they operate in different industries. The strategic management, such as board of directors, considerably play their role in developing a set of organisational goals. For example, the Jumeirah Group has organisational goal to make operational at least 60 hotels and resorts by the end of 2012. Jumeirah Group Survey over Employee Motivation After coming into corporate existence in the hospitality industry, Jumeirah Group slowly and gradually expanded its chain of luxury hotels and resorts beyond its corporate headquarter-Dubai- into other parts of Middle East, America, Europe and Asia. In its list, the Jumeirah Group own and run Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Madinat Jumeirah, Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Jumeirah Bab Al Shams Desert Resort and Spa in Dubai, the Jumeirah Carlton Tower, Jumeirah Lowndes Hotel in London, and the Jumeirah Essex House on Central Park South in the city of New York (Enz, 2010). Every year Jumeirah Group carries out Colleague Opinion Survey (COS) since 2002. According to its published report, an independent survey company is authorised to provide the services in this regard. In 2008, COS was carried out in which 8,644 employees were asked to fill a questionnaire form. The questionnaire form had many questions about a variety of areas such as employee welfare, meals, leadership and management, accommodation, compensation with benefits and training, and career growth. According to that published report, COS 2008 brought the following highlights: A total of 8,644 employees responded to the survey. The respondents agreed that topic areas have significantly improved since the year of 2007 in which superior performance, teamwork, rewards and benefits are increased 4% or more. In the area of employee engagement, 92% of the respondents have scored while 86% of employees would suggest Jumeirah as a good place for the purpose of work. Additionally, 92% of the respondents are proud to be a part of Jumeirah Group. Furthermore, 82% of the respondents were of the opinion that Jumeirah has employee motivating policy, encouraging its workforce to perform and put their best work. Interestingly, the results of COS 2008 are above the global benchmark on five out of six topics of survey where focus of customer was 10% above; benefits and rewards were 9% above( Corporate Responsibility report, 2008) Critical analysis over the COS 2008 On the face of it, the management of Jumeirah Group depict a very promising picture of employee motivation. However, many questions still expect some answers. First, in its survey, the Group maintains that the survey was carried out by an independent company. This company developed a questionnaire and topic areas. Subsequently, the so called ‘independent company’ distributed and collected the answers from the respondents. Instead of mentioning the survey company name, the Group used the word “an independent company.” This raises certain questions and doubts over the reliability and creditability of the survey results. For the sake of argument, if an independent company was hired to provide the survey services, what made the Jumeirah Group not to provide the name of Survey Company? Additionally, there is no neutral source to confirm the authenticity of the employee survey. Only one source, which is the Group’s official website, is there to provide the entire process of survey and its results. Again, this creates more doubts over the creditability of the results. Furthermore, expatriates may be biased while representing the real situation. Almost, all of the employees are foreign nationals, who come from developing countries such as India, Philippine and Pakistan. At their home, they were unable to earn a sufficient amount of money and they headed to lucrative destinations such as the Middle East. This situation highlights that they are financially vulnerable. They have no choice except to depicting the picture that is expected by the Group otherwise, they don’t have any other option. Most importantly, the timing of the survey may represent the actual picture. The survey was carried out in 2008. It was the period when the wave of global financial crisis hovering over the global economy with wide spread unemployment, rising cost of living, inflation; and as a result, many business were forced to shut down. It was not happening not only in one country but the majority of countries including United Arab Emirates. The worst economic condition prevailed in the developed countries as well even in the United States of America; the rate of unemployment had touched its peak coming after the level of the Great Depression of 1930s. Under such worst economic conditions, the employees had no choice but to tick the boxes expected the management of the Group. In the same context, the Jumeirah Group may have used this opportunity to carry out an opinion survey as there were less chances of unfavourable feedback. At that time, many of employees were forced to leave or they were fired due to the financial crisis. Many of the businesses were experiencing a rapid rise in the cost of doing business; they had no choice either to shut down their business or find some ways to minimise their costs. All the surrounding circumstances were negatively influencing over the employees globally, including the workforce of Jumeirah Group. Consequently, the possibility of getting a positive feedback could not be ruled out at the hands of the Jumeirah Group. Conclusion Organisations succeed with motivated employees. It is the role of motivated employees who put their best efforts and energy in the management of an organisation in a way to ensure the achievement of objectives. Previously, it was understood that employees could only be satisfied with an attractive salary. However, such perception has been added with fresh changes. Nowadays, both intrinsic and extrinsic needs have become a fundamental to ensure the motivation of the employees at the required level. In order to assess the workers motivation, different assessment methods are used to assess the current level of employee motivation. For instance, the Jumeirah Group uses a survey questionnaire consisting of certain topic areas where the employees are asked to fill the relevant boxes given in the questionnaire. In the Group’s 2008 survey, majority of the employees have shown their satisfaction over the majority of the topics, including rewards and benefits, supervisor performance. However, the reliability of such survey can be questioned as there is no survey company name mentioned. Besides, the survey was carried out when the world was experiencing the worst financial crisis. References 1. Allen, J., 2010. Administration and management in criminal justice?: a service quality approach, Los Angeles: Sage. 2. Enz, C., 2010, ‘Hospitality strategic management: concepts and cases,’ 2nd ed., Hoboken N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. 3. Erez, M., 2001. Work motivation in the context of a globalizing economy, Mahwah  N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates. 4. Richer, S. F., & Vallerand, R. J. (1995). Supervisors’ interactional styles and subordinates’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Journal of Social Psychology, 135, 707-722 5. Singh, K., 2010. Organizational behavior?: text and cases, Chandigarh?; Upper Saddle River: Pearson. 6. Corporate Responsibility Report, 2008, Jumeirah Group. [Available at: http://www.jumeirah.com/en/Jumeirah-Group/About-Jumeirah-Group/Corporate-Responsibility/] [Accessed on: 25 May, 2011]. 7. International business coaching, 2009, “leadership styles’, [Available at: http://www.internationalbusinesscoaching.com/content_common/pg-article-summary.seo ] [Accessed on : 28 May, 2011] 8. Goleman, D. (2000) Leadership that gets results, Harvard Business Review, March-April 2000 , pp. 78-90 Read More