Critical Analysis of Employee Motivation in Organizations - Literature review Example

Critical Analysis of Employee Motivation in Organizations Number Introduction In every organization, training and developing human resources should be one of the most important strategies of ensuring efficiency and productivity within the organization. Organizations who do not organize their most important asset often end up creating a bureaucratic system that impedes every positive development within the organization. As part of improving the effectiveness of organizations, most of current-day organizations have established a reward program, job redesigns and self-leadership strategies. This paper critically analyses the importance of rewards, job redesigns and self-leadership strategies to organizations based on my past experiences. Rewards Several executives and business proprietors give incentives to their respective human resources to reward their achievements or boost their impetus and productivity. Cash bonuses and other tangible gifts are often used as incentives. However, awarding gifts to best performers has the potential to soar business running costs. As Gagné (2009) noted, whether the award is in the form of cash or a tangible object or a service such as paid holiday, money is the benchmark that covers costs relating to the implementation of the reward. In light of this, I have learned that the rewards cut into profits and conspire to create a significant expense, particularly if the rewards are targeted at many employees or are issued severally within a short period of time. Apart from the finances, precious organization time must also be spent planning and implementing the rewards (Chung, & Scullion, 2013). If the rewards are intended to enhance the performance, I realized that the initial assessment of the employees’ performance through to the actual time of the award can be time-consuming. For instance, even when my former organization in which I conducted internship targeted all of the employees with performance-based gifts, the buying, preparing and awarding of the rewards took significant time. I realized that precious time must also be spent coming up with the modalities for rewards and arriving at who within the organization is competent and sufficiently impartial to create those modalities. I have learned through my own experience that rewards in the form of monetary bonuses and other tangible gifts for the university staff may translate into a temporary motivation to employees. As the employees finished these rewards, their benefits to the organization drastically faded. As such, I understand that the feeling of motivation or other impetus that employees have when receiving cash rewards may die within the course of the month they get them, especially when they quickly spend the money on consumables. After a few months, the recipients of university rewards such as subsidized programs had the same feeling they had before they received the reward, since there were clearly no long-term attachments created by most of such rewards. In fact, some saw the reward as stressful if combined with normal work. In addition, for rewards that were hinged on employee performance, lesser-performing employees who were left of out of such programs appeared demoralized (Gagné, 2009). The outcomes were be more devastating, especially for employees who initially thought their handling of tasks was good enough. Similarly, if the rewards were awarded only at particular times of the year, I learned that the university staffs could develop a feeling that high performance is only necessary when the rewards were still up for grabs. Yet, as London, Mone and Scott (2004) said giving rewards may present employee expectations as potential beneficiaries of similar rewards in the future, I leaned that the problem becomes more serious if the rewards are awarded at particular times within the financial year. As such, if the human resources came to anticipate gifts, then many staffs admitted that any reward aimed at improving motivation would lose its meaning in the sense that the reward would be seen as part of those particular employees’ normal earnings (Podmoroff, 2005). In light of this, I believe a perception that a bonus is a sign of appreciation and not any employee’s birthright will achieve the motivational goal, however. Claims of bias in such scenario will be no more. I concur with Chung and Scullion (2013) on the fact that unless a particular gift is awarded to every staff, giving out rewards faces the danger of weakening the employees’ morale, especially if the beneficiaries turn out to be undeserving. From my experience, I believe that if the reward is not performance-driven, the organization risks the specter of real bias coming up, as any conditions that fall purely within the whims of senior executives or other senior members of the organization may be prone to individual bias. Impacts of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards From my experience studying management, despite the stark pitfalls in administering rewards, extrinsic rewards such as salary hikes, bonuses, and related benefits have proven advantages (Podmoroff, 2005). For instance, pay is an imperative offer for majority of candidates’ fondness for job satisfaction; unfairly low remuneration can contribute significantly in the employees’ demotivation. But, after candidates have accepted an employment and unfairness claims have been resolved, extrinsic rewards become somehow less imperative to employee effectiveness (London, Mone, & Scott, 2004). By contrast, motivating intrinsic rewards may come in the following ways: first, giving the employees a feeling of meaningfulness. I believe this kind of reward encompasses the significance of the roles an employee is attempting to fulfill. This way, I learned that employees would feel they needed to put more effort towards the success of teams by working harder because they have an opportunity to realize something of tangible value to the organization’s wider perspective (Sims, 2002). As such, employees would develop a feeling that it is important to concentrate on their tasks because they have an obligation to serve the interests of the organization. Secondly, I learned that intrinsic rewards give the employees the freedom they need to handle their tasks. This way, employees would feel they are at liberty to complete tasks in their own ways. This way, the employees would employ their own understanding in carrying out their different tasks through the most appropriate ways (Gagné, 2009). With intrinsic rewards in place, I have witnessed university employees feel more responsible for their job by believing in the solution path they are taking. The employees felt they needed to be more accountable for its applicability. Thirdly, I learned that the rewards enable employees to have a sense of effectiveness within them (Podmoroff, 2005). This way, I witnessed the staffs develop a feeling that they are tackling the tasks in the most appropriate way; that the rate of their execution of these tasks meets or goes beyond their individual standards, and that they are undertaking effective work. As such, the employees would develop a feeling of satisfaction, courage, or even innovation in how effective they should handle these tasks. Lastly, intrinsic rewards give employees reason to work harder. I have seen university staffs become more motivated that their efforts are actually achieving something (Grenway, 2008). This way, they feel that their work is relevant and headed in the right way. As such, they feel as contributing to the overall effectiveness and or profitability of the organization. Job design Accomplishing tasks is the primary objective of any job (Podmoroff, 2005). As such, job design is based on enhancing employee motivation by altering the kinds of tasks they do during their engagement. Previously, I thought job redesign was a top-down strategy in which executives modified employees’ tasks in order to improve their motivation and effectiveness (London, Mone & Scott, 2004). In the recent past, however, I have learned that a bottom-up strategy works as good. Under the new approach employed in the university, the employees often take part in the change process by carrying out a self-redesign of their jobs, thereby improving their own morale and engagement. The current strategy of job design seeks to integrate these two approaches and is known as idiosyncratic solutions (Chung, & Scullion, 2013). I realized that this perception encompasses job design as a practice in which staffs and individual executives jointly discuss the kinds of tasks which staffs accomplish at work (Gagné, 2009). Regardless of the inclusive approach to job redesign, I learned that organizations have a propensity to force unfavorable tasks upon some employees, either because they are the most qualified or because other employees are avoiding them. Based on my experience in the university’s human resource management, a basic demerit of job redesign is the rise in the workload of some employees, especially the most capable ones. Whereas some staffs may have the capacity to quickly re-organize their time allocations for tasks, some may initially experience challenges adjusting to such new changes (Grenway, 2008). A job redesign may result in increases of tasks for some employees, which is often frustrating, exhausting and de-motivating. In addition, Podmoroff (2005) established that not every employee in an organization is ready to welcome job redesign changes. I learned that employees who were keen on having more responsibility, but did not demonstrate their capacity to perform it, were bound to turn the heat on their colleagues and the management if their “effort” were not recognized. Yet, some employees performed well in job redesigns, while others registered worse performance, especially if they do not get adequate training or if they lose interest in their new capacities (Gagné, 2009). Interestingly, underperformance prompted employees to develop a feeling of incompetence and embarrassment. Impacts of redesigns First, job enlargement is one of the most important redesign techniques that were introduced in the mid-20th century in response to criticisms about jobs that are tiresome and require highly specialized input (Grenway, 2008). The strategy involves introducing more variety of tasks into an employee’s job by integrating technical tasks of similar complexity. From my experience at the university, the horizontal loading strategy eased the time and resources needed to complete certain tasks. Whereas employing job enlargement is part of a wider strategy that improves employee motivation, it is sometimes discredited for its complexity in application, considering that it is a multi-dimensional strategy that most organizations often find hard to implement (Chung, & Scullion, 2013). In our case, for instance, qualified university employees tended to avoid highly specialized jobs that proved too demanding. Secondly, the primary strategy behind job rotation is to provide employees greater options in their execution of tasks. Job rotation requires a transfer of staffs from one specialized position to another. Instead of executing only a single job, employees are prepared and allowed to execute two or more different jobs rotationally (Grenway, 2008). By carrying out staff rotation on jobs, the chief human resource managers of the university was sure the level of interest and morale of employee would rise. I learned that Rucor Company, for instance, implements job rotation as a strategy for developing cohesiveness of its workforce and exposing the employees to the challenging environment of international businesses. Other benefits of job rotation to the organization encompass greater flexibility of the workforce and easier organization of the work because workers are cross-trained to perform in different positions. As Gagné (2009) indicated, I learned that the organization also enforces job rotation as a strategy to assign new staffs tasks that can enable them to best serve the organization’s interests. According to Chung and Scullion (2013), the concept is that by allowing employees to select their jobs on their own, the turnover rate reduces drastically. In spite of benefits of job rotation on organizations, managers often face the problem of arriving at a binding agreement on the essence of the practice due to shifting goals and interests of the organization. Thirdly, job enrichment refers to the practical enforcement of the motivator-hygiene theory of employee motivation. The theory was developed by Frederick Herzberg to inform job modification for purposes of achieving satisfaction (Podmoroff, 2005). The theory seeks to ensure that staffs have the chance to feel success, recognition, fruitful work, accountability, and development. In practice, I learned that rather than assigning extra tasks whose complexity is similar to employees, giving staffs more independence and responsibility has been established as productive. Self-leadership Effective leadership is a nurtured art that starts with self-leadership (Chung, & Scullion, 2013). Owing to the fact that at the apex of leadership there should be an individual who has the capacity to create a positive difference for the subordinate staffs, the change is driven by self-leadership qualities. According to Gagné (2009), leadership achievement or failure starts with the manner in which the leader handles their self-leadership capacities. Despite its significance, in practice, I realized the difficulty finding a leader who manages himself or herself without being distracted by individual biases, which often resulted from preexisting beliefs. Self-leadership is divided into four different facets: these are: a) self-awareness; the ability to recognize, understand and always stick to one’s own principles, opinions, strengths, manage their weaknesses, leadership style and emotional needs; b) self-management, involving the ability to cultivate one’s own desires, strengths, emotions and leadership traits in decision-making processes; c) other-awareness, involving the capacity to recognize the desire, talents, strengths, flaws, potentials and necessities of others, and; d) other-management, involving the capacity to let other people grow by motivating them in nurturing their potential and or meet the objectives of the organization they serve (Grenway, 2008). Impacts of self-leadership Despite the fact that effective leaders start their management with self-awareness and transfer their abilities to self-management, before proceeding to other-awareness and ending the whole process in other-management, most of them skip some of the tenets of self-leadership due to self-distractions. According to London, Mone and Scott (2004), it is normally an integrated process involving all of the four aspects. I learned that a number of leaders at the university are mindful of themselves, their self-worth, idiosyncrasies, aspirations, and abilities, even if they try to perfect their skill in respect of self-managing their weaknesses and emotions. The executive I spoke with lack perfect self-control, calmness and tended to become strangely critical of others for “disobeying university rules”. In addition, some behaved strangely, for instance by wanting to do any tasks with their high level of pride. Conversely, Podmoroff (2005) noted that leaders like any other person have their own way of doing things, which may not always lead to the best solutions, but carrying out self-management where individual interests tamper with professionalism and the interests of majority others, self-control requires a delicate balancing act. Appreciating others is one of the most important aspects of self-leadership (Sims, 2002). While at Rucor, I learned that when a leader truly knows himself or herself, his or her strengths and weaknesses, the leader will appreciate the effort of others. Owing to most leaders’ prioritizing of individual dignity, they tend to appreciate the needs, potentials and self-worth of their colleagues. Regardless, I realized that reconciling the dictatorial self-leadership qualities with the often diverse interests of others in respect of handling organizational tasks and meeting of objectives can be resource-intensive if not difficult to implement. In avoiding derailment, I learned that any emerging leaders at the organization often encountered the problem of self-destruction; they never realized their potential early enough because they were lacking in self-leadership qualities (Podmoroff, 2005). Previously, I thought cognitive abilities made great leaders by improving their ability to execute out their tasks as required in particular fields, however the fact that emotional intelligence ranks higher is more practical than theoretical. Chung and Scullion (2013) noted that a comparison of high performing leaders with their average counterparts reveal that more than four-fifths of individuals who register higher emotional intelligence scores demonstrate greater leadership qualities in the long-term. Regardless, in my opinion, the fact that highly learned executives sometimes lag behind their experienced counterparts with lower levels of education contradicts knowledge management principles (Gagné, 2009). Grenway (2008) noted that effective leaders have functional, lasting solutions to the challenges of life. I now believe that only leaders who are keen on implementing self-leadership throughout their management practice normally register long-term successes. However, personal distractions such as the temptation to pursue easily achievable, short-term gains can disrupt the long-term goals of the leader. Sims (2002) argued that unless leaders show keen self-leadership qualities in their practice, they cannot remain focused on the most important objectives. By contrast, smaller, more easily achievable goals in the short-term are as important as long-term goals. From my experience at the university and at Rucor, all executives want to leave their legacy on the organization they serve, through their principles, values and approaches to solutions (Podmoroff, 2005). I believe proper self-leadership is therefore basically about leaving an indelible mark for the stakeholders occupying the lower pedestals of leadership. In light of this, self-leadership should be perceived as a continuing process of an impartial self-assessment program, which is normally achieved by transcending individual biases in the handling of organizational issues. As Podmoroff (2005) suggested, self-awareness is a continuous process. I now believe that by executing constant audits of one’s goal and objectives, principles, interests, and other individual achievements and weighing them against the qualities and the needs of others a leader will be better-placed to provide better, well-informed leadership for the purpose of improving the overall productivity of the workforce and the organization. From my experience, transcending one’s individual interests and carrying out an impartial self-assessment remains a challenging task that even managers with higher cognitive abilities only cannot resolve. Conclusion Generally, rewards are an imperative motivator in organizations, but overreliance on it has the potential to trigger serious economic loses, especially when they are given out regularly. Job redesigns are also important to the success of an organization, in that they clamp down on employee boredom and turn more specialized jobs easier to accomplish. By contrast, job redesigns may impact negatively on the affected employees, especially if adequate preparations were not factored in the change process. Lastly, continual self-leadership marks the height of effective of leadership. Personal leadership supports self-assessments and tailors the outcomes to be in line with the strengths, weaknesses, and needs of others for purposes of a more effective workforce for greater organizational productivity. References Chung H.K., & Scullion, H. (2013). The effect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on employee motivation: A cross-national study. Poznan University of Economics Review, 13(2), 5-30. Gagné, M., (2009). A model of knowledge-sharing motivation. Human Resource Management, 48(4), 571-589. Grenway, B. (2008). The Relationship Between Employee Motivation and Job Satisfaction of African-American Human Service Employees. New York: Walden University. Applied Management and Decision Sciences. London, M., Mone, E.M., & Scott, J.C., (2004). Performance management and assessment: methods for improved rater accuracy and employee goal setting. Human Resource Management, 43(4), 319-336. Podmoroff, D., (2005). 365 Ways to Motivate and Reward Your Employees Every Day--with Little Or No Money. Toronto: Atlantic Publishing Company, 2005 Sims, R.R., (2002). Managing Organizational Behavior. Toronto: Greenwood Publishing Group. Read More