The Various Theories that Revolve Around Worker Motivation - Essay Example

Motivation in Corporations and Big Businesses Motivation of employees is all about encouraging them to work better without pressure from their superiors. The question of whether or not it is possible to fully motivate employees has brought a lot of debate. However, both those who claim it is possible and those who see it as impossible at least agree that there is something like worker motivation. Therefore, my paper seeks to highlight the various ways managers in corporations and big businesses can work to effectively motivate their employees. In addition, in order to understand the factors that lead to worker motivation and demonization, my paper will most of its arguments on the various theories that revolve around worker motivation. The theories include Theory X and Theory Y, Motivation-Hygiene Theory, Expectancy Theory, Maturity-Immaturity Theory, and Equity Theory. According to Maslow (1943), most managers have successfully used motivation as a way to encourage ordinary employees to achieve beyond their expectations. The managers have seen the miracle motivation can have on employees’ performance and company productivity. People work to achieve a number of objectives. Their objectives range from simple survival to making friends and having a secure future. They also work to gain a feeling of achievement that carries with it a higher social status, and for a point of identity. However, most workers consider job satisfaction as the most important reason for working. Those workers who feel almost fully satisfied at their places of work tend to perform better than those who are not satisfied (qtd. in Sapru 205). How then can people be motivated to work better? This is the question most people in corporations and big businesses need to ask themselves if they need to be successful. For Taylor (1911), what motivate workers better are salaries and wages, since “non-incentive wage system encourages low productivity (qtd. in Griffin and Moorhead 92). He further argued that giving employees a standard salary irrespective of their individual contributions towards achieving the organization’s goals, only acts to kill their motivation (93). He also argued that most employers tend to keep the number of employees as low as possible to make them more efficient. Taylor differs a bit with them since he thinks that these only apply to unmotivated and unskilled workers (94). As for Mintzberg (qtd. in Sapru 206), motivation of workers depend on a number of mandatory factors. To understand the factors, employers need to assess workers needs and interests as a job is concerned. Only through the factors they will identify will the organizations work accordingly toward worker motivation, and eventually better results. Lenin (qtd. in Griffin and Moorhead 93), argued that all employers should know what their employees’ needs and aspirations toward achieving organizational goals are. Employers should then go on to help them in their endeavors. The employees need the employers’ support to put the organization where they dream to have it. Employers also need to avoid breaching employee contracts. The breach of contract only serves to kill their interest in the work; they may even leave the job for another. Another factor that may motivate employees to work better is when the management clearly sets out the objectives of an organization. This has been the problem with most UK based firms. Most of their employees do not know what their employers want to achieve, at least for a period of one year. This has left them feeling unmotivated. This is according to a report by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (2009). The report further revealed that the employees who understood the objectives of their firms for 2010 were only 25 per cent. Such a trend has had discouraging impacts on many businesses in the UK. Only 27 per cent of employees in the UK would admit that they were motivated to for the next year. To sum up this McLeod commented, “If leaders don’t explain where the business is going and what it is seeking to achieve, how can people be motivated or know what they are meant to contribute?” (qtd. in Griffin and Moorhead 94). However, what we all need to know is that these motivational factors are never standard for everyone. For instance, most countries still consider bonuses as a way to motivate employees. This is not the same in the UK, where bonuses have become so unpopular. It has been seen as a contributor to the increasing lack of trust in employees. Workers have also tended to be so egocentric to the extent that collective good for all team members seems to be in its death bed. The situation even forced Gordon Brown to welcome a bill focused to doing away with the system of bonuses. It is no doubt bonuses can effectively work to motivate workers. However, some managers, especially in the banking industry, have used the system to steal the public money. Therefore, to succeed in motivating employees, managers should consider the fact that different human beings have unique ways of looking at things (BBC News, qtd. in Sapru 207). According to psychologist, Edward Spranger, human beings have six different values that need to be understood before embarking on motivating them. They have the passions for material wealth, for knowledge, for aesthetics, for service to others, for power and control, and to make sense of life. What determines a worker’s motivation is the attainment of their top two values (qtd. in Sapru 205). In addition, the efficiency of services provided by the employees depends, to a great deal, on the availability of an environment that allow them to meet their emotional desire to achieve, comprehend, and protect what they have. Moreover, creativity among the employees is very crucial, and has to be encouraged as much as possible. Unfortunately, most managers seem to have not realized this. They still use control skills which limit employees’ creativity. In doing this, they kill workers’ motivation to achieve in a particular job, especially relying on their passion and interest (qtd. in Sapru 205). Another good way to motivate employees is the adoption of employee suggestion plans (ESPs). The ESPs tend to make it easier for management to involve all employees in decision making, a factor which motivates them a lot. It is also a way of realizing the potential hidden in workers. It is human nature to feel appreciated wherever they work (Sapru 206). Worker Motivation Theories One of the most sought after theories when discussing worker motivation is Fredrick Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory. The theory is built on the premises that there are not only factors that promote workers’ satisfaction, but there are also those that limit it. However, the factors at the two extremes are totally independent of each other. Employees are mostly least concerned with satisfying their lower-odder needs when working. These needs may include those in connection with limited salaries, and working conditions. What they sought after is high-level gratification of psychological needs. These may include needs attached to achievement, ability to be recognized, and kind of responsibilities to take, possibility of promotion, and even the nature of work they do. His two-factor model argues that satisfaction at work and lack of it does not exist on a continuum of direct proportionality. They are totally independent of each other. Therefore, for better performance among employees, managers have to treat these factors separately, and not assume that by working on one set of factors will automatically change the other set (Herzberg et al 157). Those features of a job that are related to a worker’s job nature can be used to motivate the worker as they have a direct effect on not only achievement abut also competency. They also affect one’s self-worth and status. By achieving these, a worker definitely feels satisfied. However, lack of them does not necessarily mean dissatisfaction. The dissatisfaction only comes as a result of poor assessment of those factors which are related to work. These factors may include the policies employed by the company, methods of supervision, salaries, and working conditions among others. Therefore, in an attempt to motivate workers’ performance, managers should focus on the nature of work. In nature of work they will have to address the kind of opportunities workers will get in the job that may help them achieve status in the society. They should also allow workers to take more responsibilities according to their interest, as well as promote their efforts to develop a full self-actualization system. On the other hand, in order to limit job dissatisfaction, organizations must do something about the job environment, that is, modify policies and procedures to favor employees, as well as change in supervision tactics and improve working conditions. Note that the most important thing here is to give equal consideration to both sets of factors that promote and those that limit satisfaction (Herzberg 157). Another important theory as worker motivation is concerned Theory X and Theory Y, which assesses the theories on behavior of workers. The theory has been crafted in two models, theory X and Theory Y. According to Theory X, all average human beings dislike work and will not hesitate to avoid a job if they can. Therefore, because of this inherent attitude, managers need to not effectively control the workers, but they should also threaten them to make them perform better. Any average person expects to be pushed around and as such fear responsibilities. They only look for jobs as a form of security for a better living in future. Most organizations tend to employ this kind of perspective when dealing with their employees. They put strict supervision in jobs and failure to follow organizational guidelines attracts heavy punishments on the employees. However, sometimes they tend to be too soft in dealing with employees. The two approaches tend to be faulty in improving workers’ performance. To make workers perform better, organizations need to have in mind that apart from financial rewards, workers also need some form of order motivation. This helps them to achieve satisfaction at work. Theory X managers, unfortunately, do not provide this chance to their subordinates. This has always made the employees to behave in an unexpected way (Gitman and McDaniel 241). Theory Y, on the other hand, is based on the assumption that the investment of both mental and physical strength at work is natural, just as in play or rest. It also argues that strict supervision and punishments are not necessarily the only ways to maximize workers’ performance. Managers need to encourage workers’ commitment to the organizations’ goals, since they can easily perform if committed to the objectives of the organizations. However, this commitment can only be attained if employees get satisfaction in the jobs they do. Under good conditions, an average person will accept as well as look for responsibility. This will promote their creativity and innovation within them, a factor that will definitely improve their performance. According to this theory, it is unfortunate to learn that today very few managers consider tapping the ordinary employees’ potential (Gitman and McDaniel 241, 242). Another theory is the expectancy theory, whose backbone is the “link between motivation and behavior” (Gitman and McDaniel 243). People tend to do things in particular ways in anticipation of a strong outcome, one which they strongly believe in. According to this theory the amount of motivation an employee gets depends on some factors. The first factor is the relationship between the efforts they invest and their level of performance, and what they achieve from their performance. This is closely tied to the expectations attached to the possibility of a certain amount of strength leading to some kind of performance. Secondly, it depends on the relationship between one’s performance and the results they expect. Third, it will depend on the relationship between the expected results and a worker’s own needs. Employees tend to attach more importance to some results than on others. Therefore, for effective motivation of employees, organizations need to take it upon themselves to understand what each employee values. They also have to consider how they want the employees to perform, and this has to be communicated to the employees. In addition, the expected performance levels have to be realistic. Moreover, employees should be rewarded according to what they bring to the organization and also make sure that the remuneration is adequate (Gitman and McDaniel 243). Another theory on motivation of workers is the equity theory, which mostly addresses how workers feel concerning how they are treated by their bosses. It also extends how their coworkers are treated too. This covers the relationship with their bosses and the kind of rewards they receive. If a worker is treated better than their colleagues they tend to be motivated to work harder. On the other hand, if a worker is treated as less important than others, they tend to feel demoralized. This form of discrimination may also be realized in the amount the workers are paid, with some being paid better than others, yet they have the same qualifications and do same jobs (Gitman and McDaniel 243). The last theory I would like to discuss is Chris Argyris’ Immaturity-Maturity Theory. This theory builds on the assumption that there is a constant friction between an organization’s structures and what mature adults psychologically yearn for. Most workers seem to be usually frustrated since their organizations’ have refused to give them opportunity to operate as adults. They also need to be treated like responsible people, who can be trusted with various responsibilities in the organizations. According to Argyris, people seem to develop certain qualities. One of the qualities is that they cease from being passive beings to become active participators. Therefore, to motivate them, organizations need to offer them chance for active participation. Without this they only become too passive to work efficiently. They also grow from being dependent to being independent. This makes them want to participate in major decision making processes in the organization. Failure to give them that space, they will lose their self-esteem, a factor that seriously limits their performance. They also tend acquire a number of behavioral qualities. This makes them need to be given an opportunity to participate in as many roles as possible. If denied the chance, their motivation and interest in work relatively falls. Their interests also become deeper with time. This builds an urge in them to participate in decision making, failure to which they the decisions only become synergistic and they feel alienated and disenfranchised. Their perspectives also tend to be more of long term, pushing them to want to participate in long term strategies of the organization. They lose morale and their productivity decline if they are not given this chance. They also tend to want other people, especially their bosses to treat them as adults. This entails having trust in them that they can effectively carry out various roles. Their sense of awareness also develops more, and this makes them have a lot of experience on the works they do. Organizations which can recognize this fact is at an advantage since it can tap the potential within the employees (Pardeep 337-338). Motivation of workers is possible, though full satisfaction is hard to attain. We also realize that motivated workers tend to bring better results to various organizations. Therefore, for any corporation or big business out there which thinks of a good way to improve productivity, then worker motivation is one of the best options. Works Cited Gitman, Lawrence J. and Carl McDaniel. The Future of Business: The Essentials. Stamford, Ct: Cengage Learning, 2009. Print. Griffin, Ricky W. and Gregory Moorhead. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Stamford, Ct: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print. Herzberg, F, et al. The Motivation to Work. New York: John Wiley, 1959. Print. Pardeep, Sahni. Administrative Theory. Patpar Genj Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd, 2010. Print. Sapru, R.K. Administrative Theory and Management Thought. Patpar Genj Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd, 2006. Print. Read More