Theories of Employee Behavior and Motivation - Coursework Example

Name: Date: Tutor: Institution: Title: Theories of employee behavior and motivation Introduction Employee behavior refers to the reaction of employees to certain situations in the workplace. Employees need to feel motivated in order to produce the best in their work as well as create a healthy culture at work (Philips, 2011) not all employees are able to handle workplace stress or stress from personal issues in the appropriate manner. Some face it with a smile while others are not able to handle stress. Certain behaviors at work are not professional like shouting to fellow employees or spreading rumors. It is important for employees to realize that they should not share information with third parties. This paper seeks to enlighten managers on how to motivate employees in an organization. It achieves this by analyzing certain motivational theories. These theories focus on how to motivate workers using various ways apart from money motivators. The paper analyzes four main motivational theories which include Maslow’s hierarchy needs or the need-fulfillment, expectancy theory, reinforcement theory and justice theory. It analyzes how the theories influence compensation policies in modern organizations. Content theories explain how individual needs of employees differ from group employee needs. There are both external and internal factors that tend to affect the behavior of employees in an organization. Some extrinsic factors include relationships, work conditions, pay and job context. Intrinsic factors include skill variety, task variety, autonomy, task significance and feedback among others. Certain things act as motivators to employees like growth, achievement, responsibility, power and recognition. Below are the motivational theories in details and how they impact on the behavior of employees in the modern organizations. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs A psychologist known as Abraham Maslow who made an assumption that people get motivation by certain unmet needs (Petherick 2009) developed the theory. Abraham explains that when the need of an individual is not met, he or she feels driven or motivated to meet that need. Maslow defines needs that motivate people to achieve into five categories. The first category is the physiological needs which are essential for the survival like food, shelter, sex and water. This category looks at the basic needs of people which are very crucial. The other category is security needs which are a category that keeps people from harm. In the modern society, examples of security needs include medical checkups, a house in a safe neighborhood and insurance. The third category is the social needs which include desire for companionship, friendship and for love. Most people seek to satisfy through various ways like the time they spend with friends, co-workers and family. The fourth category according to Maslow is the esteem needs. This includes needs for respect for others and self-esteem needs (Flora, 2012).The needs can be achieved through praise and acceptance. The last category is the self-actualization needs. They explain the desire to live up to an individual’s full potential. People who want to achieve this will ensure that they do their best both at home and in their workplace so that they develop spiritually, physically and mentally (Petherick 2009). These needs have a hierarchical arrangement where the most basic needs are at the bottom of this hierarchy. Individuals tend to satisfy the most basic needs at the bottom before satisfying those at the top. Individuals rely on their jobs in order to satisfy the needs. In a work situation, the theory of Maslow requires that managers should be aware of the current needs of employees in an organization. Increasing flexibility at the workplace is essential as employees seek to satisfy various needs under the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A factory manager might find out that employees have a motivation of keeping their jobs so that they pay their bills while in another company, a manager could discover that an employee is concerned with meeting physiological needs. This may include a situation where an employee wants to become the president of an organization so that he may have esteem. Reinforcement theory This theory came from a proposal by Skinner and his associates. According to (Flora 2012), this theory explains that the behavior of individuals is as a result of its consequences. The theory has a basis of the law effect where individual’s behavior which has positive results tends to be repeated. However, the behavior that is negative results does not get repeated. Skinner tends to overlook the inside state of a person like inner feelings because it only focuses on the events that happen to a person when he takes certain actions. Thus, Skinner encourages that the external environment of any organization ought to be assigned positively and effectively so that employees are motivated. The reinforcement theory acts as a strong tool for controlling and analyzing the mechanisms of employee behavior. In the modern organization situation, managers should ensure that they motivate their employees by creating a positive environment for their employees. Managers in a modern organization can use the following methods to control the behavior of employees. One method is using positive reinforcement which implies giving a positive response to an individual when he shows positive and the right behavior. For instance, a manger can praise an employee immediately after coming to work early (Flora 2012). This will go a long way in increasing the probability of the outstanding behavior occurring once more. Rewarding employees is a positive reinforcement because it stimulates the occurrence of a behavior. The other method is negative reinforcement. This explains a situation where employees are rewarded by getting rid of negative consequences or those consequences that are not desirable. This helps in increasing desirable behavior. The third method is punishment which aims at getting rid of positive consequences with an aim of lowering probability of repeating undesirable behavior in the future. For instance, a manger could suspend an employee for breaking certain rules in an organization. The other method is extinction where there is absence of reinforcements. This is where the probability of an undesirable behavior getting repeated is lowered by removing the reward. Expectancy theory This theory proposes that individuals decide on how to act or behave because they have a motivation of selecting a certain behavior over another due to their expectations on the results of the selected behavior (Nelson 2012). In other words, the motivation to choose a certain behavior is normally determined by the desirability of its outcome. This theory has a cognitive process that explains the process through which an individual processes the various motivational elements. This is usually done before a person makes the ultimate choice. However, the outcome of that choice is not normally the sole determining factor in coming up with the decision on how employees will behave. The Expectancy theory is normally about the mental procedures in regard to the choices that employees make (Nelson & Quick 2012). This theory seeks to explain the process that individuals go through as they make choices. When studying organizational behavior, Expectancy theory acts as a motivation theory which was proposed by Victor Vroom. The theory has emphases on the need for an organization to relate performance directly to rewards. This ensures that rewards given are deserved and are wanted by the employees. Victor defines motivation as a way of governing choices among all the alternatives which is normally controlled by an individual. In a modern organization, a supervisor should consider the various differences while designing rewards for employees in an organization. This is because what motivates one employee might not motivate the other employees (Philips, 2011).This also helps in reducing discrimination and ensuring that benefits are equally distributed to employees in an organization. There are various ways of motivating employees according to victor. An organization can use money as a motivator and other non-monetary motivators like giving employees leaves and taking them for retreats and holidays. There are three elements according to Victor which include valence, expectancy effort and performance and instrumentality performance and outcome. In modern organizations, mangers should use systems that aim at tying rewards to performance. Justice theories The theory is based on the principle of equity or balance. This theory looks at an employee and how he is motivated based on the correlation to how he perceives fairness, equity and justice practiced by the organization’s management. Employees evaluate fairness by comparing job input to outcome in terms of compensation (Petherick 2009). They also compare that to another category of peer in the organization. The justice theory makes certain assumptions which include assuming that employees expect to get an equitable and fair reward for their input. The other assumption is that employees are concerned with their individual rewards as well as rewards of other employees in the organization. According to Philips & Gully etal, (2011), the justice theory also assumes that employees decide on the fair rewards after making a comparison between their inputs and outcomes with other employees in the organization. The last assumption is that employees who feel that the organization is not equal to them will try to reduce that inequity by distorting inputs or outcomes. There are various classes of justice under the justice theory. One such classification is the distributive justice that looks at the fairness of employment outcomes. This includes the rewards or salaries they get for working. Conclusion In conclusion, employees within a given organization tend to evaluate whether they receive fair rewards for their contributions towards the organizations growth. Employees will also evaluate whether they receive fair interaction justice that seeks to analyze the perceived equity of emotional or interpersonal relationships. In this connection individual seeks to know whether one they are treated with respect in his daily work relationships. The last category is the procedural justice where it perceives at the equity of decision making process at work like performance appraisal. Under this category, employees want to be fairly treated by the decision makers like getting a fair hearing. References Flora, S, R. (2012). The power of reinforcement. Amazon Publishers New Yorkk City Nelson, D & Quick, J. (2012). Organizational behavior: science, the real world and you. Cengage Learning. Philips, J & Gully, S (2011). Organizational behavior: Tools for success. Cengage Learning. Petherick, W. (2009). Serial crime: Theoretical and practical issues in behavioral profiling. Academic press. Read More