Organizational Behavior: Motivation - Assignment Example

Organizational Behavior Organization behavior is defined as the study of individuals conduct in their place of work, interaction between staffs and the organization in order to know and foresee human behavior. Therefore, organization behavior in motivation emphasizes on attitude and performance by analysing behavior of the employees in order to help an organization and its staffs to easily achieve set objectives and mission. Moreover, it is important to understand workplace behavior that involves a guide of actions by the staffs of the organization that indirectly or directly influences the effectiveness of an organization in terms of performance and productivity. Therefore, to maintain a positive progress in an organization performance and productivity, managers have the responsibility to ensure the employees feels useful and important to the organization and allow them a modicum of self-control and self-direction while carrying out their routine chores. Therefore, work motivation becomes the ideal factor to enhance performance and productivity of the working staffs. Work motivation will help to control employees behavior in an organization, improve employees-employees and employees- organization interaction and the organization itself, improve work habits, ethics and how staffs carry out their daily tasks. Additionally, motivation will help the leaders to manage work in an organization. Therefore, on the task of organization behavior, my paper will focus mostly on work motivation; types of motivations with their effects on performance and productivity of the organization fraternity and how to measure the impact of motivation on employees. Motivation energizes and guides behavior of employees towards the outcome of their particular effort. Although the power is recognized as the greatest motivator in the workplace, there exist a variety of rewards and employees may want all kinds of these rewards to some degree. Therefore, managers are required to understand the various needs that are mandatory to be met in the place of work. Overall, an organization need to focus mainly on how it can often increase the ability, and willingness of employees tendency to exert their effort towards success of the organization. Satisfaction in workplace is the ideal consequence of improving performance of employees in their job allocation. Additionally, motivation in the workplace can be attained in two ways. First management can motivate people using methods such as pay, promotion, praise, leave, and bonuses. Secondly, employees can drive themselves by seeking, finding and carrying out work or being given work that satisfies their needs or at least assure them that their objectives will be attained. Therefore, an organization can achieve work motivation by practicing either extrinsic or intrinsic motivation that influence the performance of its employees (Newstrom, 2007). a) Extrinsic Motivation Extrinsic motivations are tangible rewards that include bonuses, working leave and promotion towards the working staffs of an organization. It refers to what the organization does to or for employees in order to motivate them. Bonuses will include on the spot bonus award to employees who are often industrious on their allocated duty, and regularly does some extra work voluntarily for the benefit of the organization. When the hardworking staffs are motivated fairly, they feel their exert effort recognized by the organization and when the motivation is done in public, other employees admire it and can change their attitude towards increasing their devotion to their allocated duties. Secondly, giving employees a certain profit share when an organization realizes an increase in profit after every financial year. The profit share should be granted to employees according to their contribution towards the whole organization profit such as according to department performance in order to ensure fairness. Thirdly, give incentives to teams or individuals to encourage them to perform better above a certain threshold in the future. Incentives occur where an individual employee or a team obtains a reward from an activity. Forth, sign-on rewards that involve giving a warm welcome to new employees such as holding a party for them for orientation purpose. The party will help to develop a goodwill and to recover any compensation left on the table by preceding employees. Fifth, assignment bonus or the chore bonus that is given to a team of employees for attaining an objective or for accomplishing an essential project as a form of giving them a sigh of relief for their effort and dedication towards the achievement of an organization as a community. Sixth, referral bonus that involves paying a fee that an organization staff incurs in the process of referring and convincing their friends or other customers to purchase goods from their organization. Other bonuses include retention bonus where an organization decides to retain an employee who is supposed to be retired or going for a leave at a fee because his or her position cannot be left vacant for the functioning of the organization. Additionally, giving sale commission to sales persons encourages them to increase their commitment to the organization in order to sell more goods and services for their organization (Griffin, 2007). On the other hand, promotion as an extrinsic motivation refers to the act of moving a person from a lower rank to a higher rank and a more responsibility position within an organization. From the word promotion, those who get promoted feel a sense of incitement and are ready to exert all their effort towards securing their new position to avoid the feeling of embarrassment if they are demoted for failing to perform their allocated duties. Promotion is associated with an increase in salary for the individual promoted. Therefore, it creates a kind of competition in workplace where every employee works extra hours and hard voluntarily. However, extrinsic motivators could have a powerful or immediate effect that will not necessarily last for a long period. b) Intrinsic Motivation Intrinsic motivations are intangible rewards that are intended to raise the ability and willingness of employees performance and productivity for the benefit of attaining the visions and mission of the organization. Intrinsic motivation helps to increase the employee’s feeling of accomplishment, self-esteem, and growth via a compliment of work well-done from their leaders. Moreover, making the employees feel they are part and parcel of the organization in occasion such as involving them in decision making raises their confident to work in their organization. Moreover, exercising team approach in an organization during crucial decision making ensures that correct solutions are attained and if success is measured, such organization is more successful compared to the organizations that do not recognize the contribution of employees community in running day-to-day activities of the organization since unity is strength and two heads are better than one. Finally, rewarding system could also help with recruiting effort. For example, just as a happy customer can be suitable advertisement for a company’s particular brand of products, cheerful employee is often an immense tool for recruiting freshmen and make them feel the organization they have started working in is their best workplace of choice. On the other hand, managers have the greatest responsibility to ensure they play their role in leading their employees as a role model. Therefore, they are required to apply cognitive or process theory more often than need theory because the former theory provides more rational assistance on motivation techniques. Additionally, the processes will involve; goal achievement (goal theory), feelings about equity (equity theory) and expectations ( expectancy theory) (Roberg, 1990). Expectancy theory will help the manager to understand that there is a possibility of a momentary belief involving a certain act to be followed by a particular outcome. However, expectancies are defined by the amount of strength that the manager implement on the expected outcome. Subjective certainty shows maximum strength that the act applied or implemented will be followed by the intended outcome. On the other hand, minimum or zero strength is shown by skewed sureness that the expected outcome will not accompany the act. Therefore, the manager is supposed to apply maximum strength accompanied by its acts in order to achieve the set goals of the organization. However, the strength of the expectations may be supported by past encounters as reinforcement, but employees should often be presented with new circumstances such as a change in job, payment system or conducive working conditions inflicted by the management. Moreover, the manager should know that, motivation will only be effective when a clear perceived and usable relationship exist between performance and outcome. Additionally, when the intended outcome is achieved, this is seen as successful means of satisfying needs of employees and the organization and explains the reason extrinsic financial motivation- for example use of incentives or bonuses- will only work if there is a clear connection between effort and reward and the value of the reward is worth the effort. Additionally, it also give an explanation why intrinsic motivation cropping up from the work itself can be more powerful than extrinsic motivation because intrinsic motivation outcomes are controlled more by the individuals capable of placing a greater reliance on their past experience to show the degree to which positive and advantageous outcome are possibly obtained by their effort. Overall, expectancy theory suggests that there are two factors that determine the amount of effort employees put into their jobs: first, how much the employee values the rewards to satisfy their needs such as self-actualization, autonomy, social esteem and security in the workplace of their choice. Secondly, the probability or expectations about the relationships between effort and reward. Therefore, if a reward has a greater value set on it, then there is the probability the reward requires a higher dedication to effort in order to receive a reward. Additionally, managers should emphasise on their employees that mere effort if not enough to get motivation but what matters most is the effective effort and performance that is capable of producing the desired outcome for the organization and the individual (Hampton, 1999). Additionally, there are two variables that often affect the effort of an employee dedicated to achieve a certain goal or objective allocated by his or her senior: first, the ability of an employee that involves features such as intelligence, know-how and manual skills where these characteristics differ hence the ability of performance varies despite the amount of effort exerted by the employees. Secondly, role perceptions-how the employee view their allocated duties or responsibility. The individual and organization viewpoints towards achieving a certain objective or goal for the benefit of the organization fraternity should coincide in order to ensure they move into the same direction and in case of any possible diversion there will be immediate notice and corrective measures applied instantly. Failure of viewpoints to coincide will result in diversion of mission and vision set for the organization. On the other hand, goal theory emphasis on motivation and performance and regards both as higher when individuals have set goals and regardless of goals being found difficult but accepted there is the need for feedback on performance. Therefore, participation in goal setting by all the organization staff is vital as a means of getting universal agreement to the setting of higher goals. Therefore, this participation motivates the junior staffs as they feel recognized by the organization and their presence and contribution are highly appreciated. Moreover, it encourages them and boost their morale to dedicate completely and exert all their effort to their duties with a feeling of happiness hence excellent performance. Moreover, equity theory is also important in work motivation as it is a concern with the perceptions employees have on their organization in accordance with how they are treated or compared with others. Therefore, an organization has to be very keen not to hurt the attitude of its employees since the latter forms the pivot of the organization’s stakeholders in terms of performance and productivity. Employees should be dealt with equitably with no compromises or bias regardless of their difference in age, status, race, performance in work or health to avoid creating division in workplace as “united we stand divided we fall”. Therefore, employees should be treated fairly in comparison with another reference group or any other relevant individual. Equity comprises of feelings and perceptions and is often comparative process. Therefore, equity theory states that “ in effect, that employees will be better motivated if they are treated equitably and demotivated if they are treated inequitably.” It ensures job satisfaction and significant in boosting workers working morale. Overall, motivation will involve: adequate concern of individual employee viewpoint; holding back of personal bias pointed to the employee; applying criteria consistently across employees; giving early feedback to employees pertaining the results of decisions and giving employees a sufficient explanation of the decision made. However, punishments such as disciplinary actions, criticism, and with-holding pay should go hand-in-hand with the consequences of poor performance and irresponsibility in each employee’s allocated duties in their workplaces. Failure of employees may be the intention. Therefore, there should be a follow-up of any negative outcome of a performance before a punishment action is implemented. This will ensure that those employees who intentionally perform poorly in their stations do not go unpunished. On the other hand, demotion should be also practised to the senior employees to ensure that they are impressive and focused to avoid losing their job as it happen to be shameful when one is demoted for failure to perform. Overall, it is inevitable that success is a two-way mission, therefore, as organizational consultant, I would recommend that the organization has a greater responsibility on how to motivate their staffs as they act as the moulder of their employees- for example, if the organization does not allow any effort and dedication of every employee to go unrewarded and rewarding is done fairly, then those employee feel motivated and recognized by the organization. On the other hand, workers do not need to often work hard or for extra hours to impress or create attention and in case their dedication is not noticed they does their duties inconsistently or unwilling, they should be patient for their sacrifice to be noticed by others but not themselves. Therefore, motivation should be the key compliment for any work well-done. References Hampton, D. R., Summer, C. E., & Webber, R. A. (1999). Organizational Behavior and the Practice of Management. Glenview, Ill: Scott, Foresman. Ivancevich, J. M., & Matteson, M. T. (2002). Organizational Behavior and Management. Boston, Mass: McGraw-Hill Griffin, R. W., & Moorhead, G. (2007). Fundamentals of Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Princeton, N.J: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic Dembo, M. H., & Seli, H. (2013). Motivation and Learning Strategies for College Success: Focus on Self-Regulated Learning. New York: Routledge Roberg, R. R., & Kuykendall, J. L. (1990). Business Organization and Management: Behavior, Theory, and Processes. Pacific Grove, Calif: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co Newstrom, J. W. (2007). Organizational behavior: Human Behavior at Work. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Read More