The Need for Motivation in Work Place - Article Example

Name Course Tutor Date Article Critique Relevance of thesis statement The need for motivation in work place is quite vital in all professions. In accordance to this, Hertzberg’s motivational theory need to analysis to identify if it is still relevant and applicable in the present day. Essentially, theorists like Herzberg (1974), Maslow (1957) and McGregor (1985) came up with among the first motivational theories found useful and effective. Hertzberg categorized motivation into two major factors. These two factors are hygiene and motivators. Motivator or intrinsic factors relates to achievement, recognition and attaining job satisfaction. Strengths of the Article According to the article, issues pertaining motivation of employment and organizational downsizing form a crucial part of organization’s performance and goal realization. Factors such as practices that motivate employees to contribute ideas oriented to organizational success also form a major part of the research conducted by Nigel and Geoffrey. Illinitch et al., (1996) propose that stiff competitions, accelerated innovations and globalization have pushed companies and organization to extreme ends in terms of competition. Employee motivation therefore remains of the ancient strategies a company adopts to cope with market cut throat competitions. This ensures that organizations and workforce continuously maintain improvement in production, processes and systems. The article seeks knowledge of ancient research on motivation, which posits that the reasons for motivation in two broader perspectives based on Taylorism and Hawthorn views. The former explains that people are generally lazy and an act of motivation is external simulation while the later explain that employees work well when motivated due to the fact they enjoy the monetary benefits they access and that motivation is internally stimulated. The article further concentrates its research on Hertzberg’s two-factor theory to identify its relevance in the present day. The theory expounds both internal and external factors of motivation, conforms to present practices, and explains the circumstances under which employees react to both internal and external stimuli. According to Herzberg and his allies, two factors influence motivation. These factors include motivators and hygiene. In this context, hygiene factors also referred to as maintenance factors; represent financial factors such as salary, psychological factors, and feelings of job security, company policy, physiological safety and working condition. In most cases, when these factors are inadequate, it can result to poor motivation. However, since financial needs increase at every point, it is never satisfying to argue financial inadequacy leads to demoralization. However, a certain limit may be adequate for one to weigh between work satisfaction and the need for more finance. According to the article, motivator factors have their basis on individual employee’s need for personal development and growth. When they are effective and present, motivator factors can motivate an employee to deliver above average performance. Motivators as a factor represent the entire activities of supervisors and principles of every organization. Poor management and biased prospects for promotion are good reasons for demoralization and the converse is true. In a broader perspective, motivator factors include challenging and stimulating work, gaining recognition, responsibility, opportunity for personal development and status. Presence and effectiveness of both factors of motivation, in my own opinion, stimulates positive performance through motivation. Generally, improvement in any of the two factors leads to increased satisfaction and hence motivation. Furthermore, the article’s strength also lies on the approach it used to address the role of management in influencing motivation and job satisfaction. In most cases, company managers eliminate job satisfaction by presenting poor company policies, failure to develop job status for all positions available, failure to provide job security, applying ineffective and intrusive supervision, providing unsatisfying wages and finally poor support of respect culture and dignity for all members. The article explains that according to Herzberg et al., (1959), motivators need to act gently when supervising employees in order to motivate them towards realization of organizational goals and targets. In the present day, biased promotional prospects, harsh supervision strategies, poor working condition, poor company policy and poor management skills leads to automatic demoralization as no employee would wish to be handled in an inhuman and unprofessional manner. Many individuals would wish that their professional skills and career to be respected and given their opportunity to dispense their skills in the best way possible in order for them to derive job satisfaction and fulfillment. The article’s strengths meet the thesis statement as it confirms that Hertzberg’s two-factor theory still holds grip in today’s organizational motivation strategies. Weaknesses of the article The most striking weakness of the article is that it expounded much on the critics encountered by Hertzberg’s two-factor theory as the criteria used to conduct the research that expounded the theory. The article posits that since the use of interviews that entailed critical incident was new at the time, was still new and unfamiliar to many employees, other researchers using other methods of research such as survey supported uniscalar model of job satisfaction. Most researchers argued out that recall methodology invoked respondent ego defense since it sought to attribute sources of job satisfaction on individual achievement and capability. Furthermore, the argument by Hertzberg that money insufficiency is a demoralizing factor is quite demystifying. This is because money has different roles as both satisfying and dissatisfying factor. However, despite this minor weakness, the article critically analyses Hertzberg response of 1987 when he published another article that came up with clear distinction between movement and improvement as management confused the two more often. Movement as argued out by Hertzberg is a characteristic of human nature of phobia to pain accruing from the environment they are in, Hertzberg (1987). However, to trigger movement, motivation is necessary. Although motivation belongs to the motivator, what is seen in the individual motivated is movement. In the case of organizational management motivation, it is true that management promotes employee movement and in return gets motivated. On the other hand, motivation is individual’s internal desire to move. Once and individual gets motivated, he or she puts in a lot of commitment resulting in organization performance, Hayday (2003). Additionally, motivation being an individual’s internal desire, its core principles includes satisfaction in terms of achievement and achievement recognition, personal growth and responsibility. My personal opinion Employee motivation has a positive financial research in both individual and the organization. However, it comes with negative impact on career development available to individual employee. This happens since organizational principles have since unilaterally rewritten psychological contracts. However, the wider field of motivation is rapidly increasing. Organizational justice, Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), expectancy theory, perceived organizational support (POS), self-efficacy, and goal theory are just a few of the many famous theories under practice today. In spite of these recent theories, the two-factor theory developed by Herzberg et al, (1959) still hold tremendous grip in organizational motivation strategies today. In line with Hertzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation, correcting management’s actions such as poor formulation of policies and improving wages means elimination of job dissatisfaction in every organization and therefore, it makes no sense motivating employees when the above needs are not fixed. Nonetheless, fixing these issues should not be the end but rather organizational management should know that one is never satisfied even after fixing these issues. Thus, it is crucial to note the conditions for job satisfaction as it varies from one individual to another. I believe that the theory of Hertzberg and his allies is responsible for the practice that presents employees with greater responsibility for planning, organizing and taking greater control of their work, as the most effective method of improving job satisfaction and motivation. The connection between job satisfaction and the real motivation is not much complex as it may seem. The most common problem that many employers and managers face in relating the two is the way they perceive the hygiene factors as a way to motivate when the real sense, beyond the very short period, they fail to motivate and even if they do, it is very little. Perhaps employers and management like the use of this approach because of the thinking that people are more motivated financially than they actually are. Critically speaking, it takes very little management effort to increase salaries and other monetary incentives than it does to reevaluate the organizational policies and redesign jobs to provide maximum job satisfaction to employees. In their quest to motivate employees, first management in every organization must first discover and effectively fix issues that do not please employees in their respective workplace environments, (Self, 2012). Finally, every management is judged with the responsibility of ensuring that employees get fair treatment and respect. This fair treatment includes offering support and help to workers to enable them grow within their careers and providing them with opportunities for achievement, King (1970). My opinion of Herzberg’s theory is that it still holds up to date despite the fact that the research expounded it over 50 years ago. With the rise in economic needs and the huge amounts of money spend in acquisition of skills, employees experience dissatisfaction and subsequent demoralization when remuneration seem non-proportional to their skills and efforts applied in their respective jobs. Furthermore, the demand for better and sophisticated lifestyles that categorize individuals into classes demand for higher pay for individuals to attain their desired ways of lives. Conclusion As Frederick Herzberg posited in his two-factor theory, complete motivation of employees does not arise from satisfaction of hygiene factors nor the motivator factors. To motivate and provide reasonable job satisfaction to employees, managers need to combine the two factors of motivation in an effective way to fit employee’s special needs. In the current organizational structure, it would be more prudent for organizational managers to come up with an efficient approach to moderate the motivator and hygiene factors with more concentration on the hygiene factors. After all, economic shifts have become more demanding and satisfaction appears to depend much on individual’s levels of income and subsequent performance, (Self, 2012). Although the theory has its strengths and weaknesses, my judgment is that the two-factor theory is quite significant as it facilitates the growth of job improvement and performance. This more complicated proposition, where motivators and factors of dissatisfaction can be present for a person, underscores the importance of managers’ understanding of the differences between human beings when developing motivational techniques. It is evident that needs vary among people and over time. References Bassett-Jones, N & Lloyd,G., 2005, Does Herzberg’s motivation theory have staying power, The Journal of Management Development, 24(10), p. 929. Hayday, S 2003, Staff Commitment is the Key to an Improved Performance. Personnel Today. [online], available at www.personneltoday.com/articles/2003/06/10/19275/staff-commitment-is-the-key-to-an (Accessed 21st September 2012). Herzberg, F. 1987. One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct. 87, 65(5), p.109-120. Herzberg, F., Mausner, B. and Snyderman, B 1959, The Motivation to Work. New York: Wiley. King, N 1970. Clarification and Evaluation of the Two-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction, Psychological Bulletin, 74(1), pp. 18-31. Illinitich, A.Y., D'Aventi, R.A. and Lewin, A 1996. New Organizational Forms and Strategies for Managing in Hypercompetitive Environments, Organizational Science, 7(3), pp. 211-221. Read More