Organizational Culture in the Workplace - Research Paper Example

Chapter One: Introduction

• • Overview

A person’s work environment greatly impacts on their motivation. The major aspect of an organizational culture that impact on one’s motivation is organizational culture. For different employees, motivation means different things. Each employee has varying motivation for why they work. Work reasons for different employees are as different as the people themselves. Additionally, the different definitions of motivation arise from the fact that different personalities are motivated through different factors, and there exist numerous programs and theories of motivation. However, at the end of the day, each employee works because there is something they need from work. Hertel defines motivation as the internal drive that makes individuals to take action towards accomplishing a given goal. However, motivation is a complex and difficult aspect that requires the employers to figure out what employees define as attractive in the definition of effective motivation initiative. With increasing competition among employees in the workplaces today, motivation is increasingly becoming important. Consequently, employers and managers have to seek for effective ways to motivate themselves and their employees. Effective motivation calls for management to consider theories of motivation and the variations in personality within its workforce, in order to implement an effective motivation initiative.

• • Background

According to Yoon , empowerment has been widespread. The focus is on the adoption of modern day paradigm of organizational behavior and human resource practices. In a stable environment, human behavior management within organizations can be a routine function. Managing employees has become a major issue at change and organizational restructuring. Organizational restructuring is known for cost saving, though it is also known for creation of skill shortage, increased workloads, and elevation of pressure to accelerate change on the retained employees. Though the retained employees are happy to retain their jobs, they get burnt out and powerless owing to increased uncertainty and workload. In such environment, employees’ empowerment is a crucial intervention as it boosts employees’ motivation, physical and mental health, and proactivity. Yoon highlights that some structuralisms perceive organizational empowerment as the set of constraints and opportunities embedded in societies, jobs, and opportunities. Additionally, organizational/social structures have both constraining and enabling effect thus both reinforce the permitting effect while lessening the pressuring effect can result to empowerment. Some scholars emphasize that autonomy is a key mechanism for structural empowerment. According to Huq , employee empowerment is critical for the survival and success of organizations. Huq emphasizes that the only effective way of handling serious competitive problems facing the business world is through changing the manner in which business is carried out. Such change requires empowering people for change execution. Huq reveals that empowerment is crucial for the survival of businesses in ever changing international and national marketplace. The result of employee empowerment as pointed out by Huq is the association to excellence movement where customer is king. The implication is that empowerment should enable employees to be instantly responsive to their customers. This way, organizations would manage to get out of the traditional approach of traditional classical model of management where product creation involved division of labor and economies of scale, with workers engaging in disjointed and repetitive jobs. Empowering employees assist in increasing motivation and improving performance through equipment of employees with ability to exercise initiative and judgment, and believe they can control their destinies. The belief to control destination results in a sense of independence and self-motivation. The implication is increased employee loyalty and extra effort. When empowered, employees’ believe that they control their own success through hard work and individual efforts that in the end benefit the entire organization.

• • Problem Statement

With an ever changing business marketplace both nationally and internationally, company competitive advantage becomes a critical aspect success. In different organizations, it is expected that employees should work their full prospective to cultivate as much as possible with high quality and no risk. The aim is to satisfy the needs of their customers while driving their company profit and revenue high. In order to sustain high quality achievement, less risk achievement, and time efficiency, employees must be satisfied and motivated. This research paper seeks to evaluate to what extent the various forms of employee motivation provided by employers influence employee performance in the workplace.

• • Purpose

The major aim of the study is to understand the relationship between employee work motivation and employee’s performance. The study also seeks to analyze the major motivation approaches and theories commonly used and followed. The knowledge of such approaches and theories would allow an organization to make decision regarding the form of the motivation to effectively use to motivate its employees for high quality performance.

• • Research objectives
• To understand employee motivation concept
• To explore why employees should be motivated
• To investigate the commonly used motivation approaches and theories
• To examine the implication of various approaches of motivation on employee performance in the workplace, and the implication on business productivity
• To explore the importance of employee performance and how it can be measured
  • Scope

This research paper focuses on employee motivation within different industries and the implication of employee motivation on their performance. The choice of the scope is guided by the high rates of turnover owing to high workloads, pressure on employees to deliver, and employee burnouts. However, the changing climate of the global marketplace is calling for very customer-centered approach to clients where customer needs are customized to their needs. Employee motivation is critical for delivery of high quality customer-centered services that are personalized for each customer.

• • Research structure

This research constitutes of five chapters. The chapters assist in addressing the defined objectives and purposes of the research.

• • • Chapter One: Introduction

This chapter begins with an introduction and an overview of employee empowerment and motivation. The chapter also offers the aims and objectives where the main aim is to understand the link between employee motivations in the workplace and how that impacts on their performance.

• • • Chapter Two: Concept of Motivation

This chapter explains the concept of motivation. The chapter also offers explanation of two motivational theories and their application in organizational employee motivation. The theories are Maslow theory and Herzberg theory.

• • • Chapter Three: Common employee motivation approaches

This chapter focuses on three common forms of employee motivation in use in organizations today. The approaches include promotion of self-efficacy in employees, reward systems, and recognition. This chapter will elaborate the impact of the different approaches on employee performance.

• • • Chapter Four: Employee motivation and Employee performance

This chapter offers the relationship between employee motivation and employee or job performance.

• • • Chapter Four: Conclusions and Recommendations

This chapter presents the conclusion part of the paper. The conclusion is the detailed finding of the research questions, the limitations involved, and areas that can be subjected to future research. Based on the literature review, recommendations will be provided to add light on employee performance and business productivity.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

• • Overview

This chapter explains the concept of employee motivation. Since employee motivation is conceived in numerous ways, the research evaluates different findings by different researchers to identify common themes and patterns. The paper also examines various theories of employee motivation and identifies those that greatly impact on employees’ performance and organizational productivity. Two major motivation theories evaluated are Herzberg and Maslow’s theories.

• • The concept of motivation

The word motivation is derived from the Latin verb Movere. Movere means ‘to move’. Consequently, motivation refers to what moves a person to make some choices, involve in action, continue in action, or lay out effort. Despite such knowledge of what motivation means, there lacks consensus in the understanding of motivation with different researchers focusing on selective parts of motivation unlike capturing the entire picture. Since motivation theories offer explanations of why humans think and behave as they do, it is not possible for a single theory to offer satisfactory explanation. Consequently, the concept of motivation is explained using various theories including Hertzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Hawthorne effect, Expectancy theory, and three-Dimensional Theory of Attribution among others. All motivation theorists agree that motivation can be separated into extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.

• • Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation
    • Extrinsic motivation

This motivation revolves around external factors that incline employee actions towards achieving a given goal or task at hand. The external factors are either rewards or punishments. While a punishment motivates the employee to conduct self in a manner that avoids them, rewards motivate employees to act in ways that incline them towards receiving them. Punishments can involve termination, while rewards can involve proper pay.

• • • Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation starts from within an employee. Employees become intrinsically motivated once the motivation to work motivates them as individuals. The implication is translation of work into enjoyable, satisfactory, and fulfilling task. Compared to extrinsic motivation, Hennessey, et al reveals that intrinsic motivation is more effective since it is not imposed on an individual but comes out from an individual. Additionally, intrinsically motivated employees can easily remember their role. However, intrinsic motivation is difficult to facilitate as it must come from within the employee. The only way to facilitate it is to design a job to align with intrinsic motivational factors such as employees’ empowerment to make decision on their own. According to Hennessey, et al , autonomy and control contribute towards employees being more satisfied with their work since they have the ability to be innovative and creative. Consequently, employees end up attaining job satisfction and being intrinsically motivated.

• • Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

Maslow is hierarchy of needs motivates employees with its premise that the needs of human beings are ranked hierarchically. Among humans, some needs are basic and without them nothing else matters. The satisfaction of the basic needs creates the needs to satisfy higher order needs since the lower order need is no longer a motivator. According to McGuire, the physiological needs are the most basic needs, and refer to food, clothing, water, and biological needs. Once satisfied, the physiological needs are no longer a motivator and people begin to become concerned about safety needs. Safety needs drive people to become free from threat of pain, uncertainty, or danger. Once safety needs are accomplished, pelple tend to seek satisfaction of social needs. Social needs refer to the need to be loved, bond with others, and form lasting attachment with others. Social needs refer to the need to belong and attachments of lack of them impact on human well-being and health. Esteem needs become salient once social needs have been met. These needs include the need for respect from peers, being appreciated, and feeling important. With all the needs satisfied, people move towards self-actualization. Self-actualization involves becoming what one is capable of becoming, as evident in the desire to acquire new skills, believe in a new way, and take up new challenges.

When applied in work environments, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs clarify the responsibility of managers in ensuring that deficiency needs are met through safe environment and proper wages. Additionally, managers are responsible for the creation of proper climate that allows employees to develop their maximum potential. The failure to do that results in the frustration of the employees, and could cause lower job satisfaction, poorer performance, and elevated withdrawal from organization. For instance, managers must ensure that job insecurity and threats of lay off do not block people from higher growth needs, since they might work harder to obtain security without fulfilling other needs. Some physiological needs in the workplace include vending macines, and drinking fountains.security needs in the workplace include salaries and wages, medical benefits, heating and ventilation, and rest periods among others. Social needs or belonging needs in the organization encourage social interaction through the creation fo team spirit, use of periodic praise, and promotion of outside social activities. Self-actualization involves the provision of training through challenges and encouragement of creativity.

• • Hertzberg’s Two-Factor Theory

Herzberg’s approach to the aspect of motivation involved asking individuals what did satisfy them on the job and what dissatisfied them. His conclusion was that different elements of the work environment do satisfy employees while other different ones dissatisfy them. The factors responsible for dissatisfaction were labeled hygiene factors, while those that satisfy employees are known as motivators. Hygiene factors include working conditions, company policies, on job security, supervision, and safety. Motivation factors are fundamental to an individual’s job and include recognition, achievement, advancement, increased responsibilities, and opportunities for growth. In the presence of motivator factors, employees are encouraged to work harder. The two-factor theory is crucial for managers as it can aid managers to understand that improving the environment where job is performed goes along way into employees motivation. Additionally, managers understand that all contextual factors do mater within the work environment and their absence only contributes to dissatisfaction. For that reason, focusing solely on motivator factors or hygiene factors is insufficient. Managers must thus enrich the jobs through providing employees with challenging situations or work, opportunities to grow and advance, and jobs that are satisfactory. Additionally, managers must assist with employees’ motivation through ensuring that they feel appreciated and supported. For instance, providing employees with feedback and ensuring they understand how they can progress and grow through the company is critical. It prevents job dissatisfaction by making employees feel that they are treated right while working in the best possible working conditions and receiving fair pay.

• • Why employees should be motivated

The implementation of motivational factors within an organization results in the creation of a work environment where employees cognition and emotions are acknowledged, and this influences their sense of well-being, and their well-being impacts on their intentions. The ultimate results it influencing on employees’ behaviors and impact on employees’ work passion. According to Fowler , employees’ feeling of motivation involves an appraisal of the workplace that either leaves them with a positive sense of well-being or without. It is their well-being that then determines their intentions. Positive employee conduct and intentions result in employee engagement. Satisfactory employee engagement contributes towards employee work passion that demonstrates intentions of performing above standard expectations, using discretionary effort on behalf of the organization, endorsement of the organization and its leadership to others external to the organization, and high employees’ retention. Fowler highlights that the establishment of a work environment that supports employee work passion involves proper job designs, procedural and distributive justice issues, workload balance, and other processes and systems proven to encourage the positive intentions of individuals. The implication is the facilitating of optimal motivation among employees where they have positive energy, sense of well-being, and vitality needed to retain achievement and pursuit of meaningful goals while flourishing and thriving.

Chapter Three: Common Employee motivation approaches

• • Commonly used motivation approaches
    • Self-efficacy among Employees

A major approach to employees’ motivation is self-efficacy. The concept of self-efficacy involves different factors that impact on the general outlook of an individual’s life. The concepts include self-esteem, and the concept of self. According to Cherian and Jacob , self-efficacy affects an individual’s thought patterns and reactions. Self-efficacy as a motivational factor predict behavioral outcomes more than any other motivational construct as it enables employees to manage to increase their strength amidst frustrations and obtain self-confirmation. As a result, self-efficacy impacts on an employee’s behavior and employee performance. Bandura highlights that higher self-efficacy is linked to good outcomes ranging from greater job performance and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is linked to better mental and physical health, which translates to improved organization commitment and job involvement thus impacting on employee motivation.

• • • Reward System

Another employee motivational approach is reward system. Rewards in organizations take both monetary and non-monetary forms. According to Bartol and Srivastava , knowledge is a stock of expertise. It is information in action. In organizations, reward systems that promote knowledge sharing enable employees to have adequate understanding of concepts, facts, and their relationship, as well as the basic information required to perform a task. Knowledge is defined as information, ideas, and expertise required performing a given task as individuals, teams, and organizational units. Knowledge sharing approaches include contributing to organizational knowledge database; sharing knowledge during formal interactions; knowledge sharing during informal interactions; and knowledge sharing within practice communities. Common forms of incentives used by employers include bonuses, travel perks, paid time-off, and vouchers among others.

• • • Recognition

Mone, Eisinger, Guggenheim, Price, and Stine highlight that one of the performance management activities in organizations is recognition and provision of ongoing feedback. Provision of feedback to employees creates a sense of recognition. When employees feel recognized, their performance improves translating to improved employee engagement. Managers must ensure that the feedback provided to employees is honest in order to assist them understand their areas of improvement and areas of strengths. Another driver of employee engagement is the engagement in career-planning discussion with employees.

Chapter Four: Employee motivation and Employee performance

• • Intrinsic Employees motivation to perform

Organizations can use different intrinsic motivators to increase employee motivation. According to Dobre , two major factors are design of interesting tasks; and allowing employees to have autonomy. Interesting tasks allow employees to align their work with their capability owing to their skill variety, task significance, and task identity. Ensuring that employees enjoy autonomy creates a sense of empowerment as employees can make informed decisions aimed at providing quality services or products to customers. Autonomy also allows employees to have some say in some organizational decisions, thus contributing to the creation of a work environment that allows employees to get out of their way to resolve challenges on the job.

• • Extrinsic Employees motivation to perform

Herzberg’s two-factor theory reveals that hygiene or extrinsic factors alone cannot cause satisfaction or motivation. However, these factors control performance in the workplace. The most common examples include promised rewards, deadlines, praises, crucial feedback, deadlines, and specifications on the way work must be carried out. A pure extrinsic task is doing formal performance review of employees. The act of appraising employees based on their performance is a task that is done merely for intrinsic motivation. The person involved in employee appraisal does their job for their paycheck at the end of the work. According to Dobre , salary is an extrinsic motivator and does not cause motivation in the workplace. On the contrary, the higher the wages one gets, the more their job performance is affected. Consequently, employers are likely to pay higher wages to increase employee retention and lower turnover costs linked to labor turnover. The implication is that pay is probably the most crucial motivational factor, while reducing wage levels below market levels lowers employee productivity, and decreases employee intrinsic motivation. Becker, Billings, Eveleth, and Gilbert reveal that commitment to supervisors and increased job security increases job performance. Commitment to an employee’s peers and supervisors elevates job performance. However, the researchers found no correlation between overall commitments to organization with job performance.

• • Employee motivation vs. job performance

According to (Said, Zidee, Zahari, Ali, & Salleh , employee motivation is a predictor of job performance. The implication is that job performance is determined by motivation, skill, and aptitudes. Consequently, motivated employees with high job involvement levels are regarded as significant aspect of any organization. In order for businesses to survive competition in a fierce and volatile market environment, the greatest success tools are employee motivation and job performance. Motivated employees are empowered and have authority and responsibility to act under control of their own destinies. With the right reward system and recognition, motivated employees gain a sense of appreciation that cause them to put extra effort in their work to get more recognition next time. Empowered employees are also able to get involved in quick decision making to resolve customer issues without having to ask the manager what they need to do. Consequently, employees’ autonomy allows them to greatly impacts on their commitments and understanding. Empowered employees are thus less likely to resist change. On the contrary, motivated employees direct organizational operations through informed suggestions, and reinforce organizational productivity resulting to improved company productivity.

Chapter Five: Conclusion and implication on managers

• • Conclusion

From the research, it is evident that employee motivation is a crucial element of organizational success. The study reveals the existence of a circular link between employee motivation, job satisfaction, and employee performance. When an employee achieves high performance, they are satisfied, and this result in increased employee motivation to perform even better in the future. From the study, organizations used different employee motivation approaches which contribute to Hertzberg’s two-factor motivation theory that emphasizes both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors working towards effective employee motivation. From the study, intrinsic factors contribute more towards employee motivation and include task design and employee autonomy to make some decisions. However, intrinsic factors without consideration of extrinsic factors like pay and bonuses may not be effective. Extrinsic factors contribute towards employee performance.

• • Implications on managers

From the research, managers must ensure to reinforce both extrinsic and intrinsic factors in implementing any employee motivation approach. Managers need to understand the implications of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors on employees’ motivation. The application of extrinsic factors at the expense of intrinsic factors decreases motivation thus impacts on performance and vice versa. Managers must try to balance. Secondly, managers need to put into consideration the fact that different employees are motivated differently. While some employees require extrinsic factors to motivate them, others require intrinsic factors. Employee performance appraisal must thus be designed in a way that considers employee skills, personality, knowledge, abilities, and experience. In conclusion, managers must ensure that supervisory ratings are not the only job performance measurement since they are highly subjective. Managers must seek for objective ways to measure job performance.