Workplace Motivation - Case Study Example

Mitsubishi Motors is the leading car manufacturer operating on the global scale. During 1990s, the company experienced problems with workers motivation which influenced productivity level and product quality. The main sources of resistance were lack of skills and low morale, low personal commitment and fear of technological changes (Mitsubishi Motors 2007). The corporation has to deal with motivation from the standpoint of the environment, that is, the various kinds of rewards and pressures within which people operate at work.

Also, the corporation pays attention to motivation from the standpoint of the individual himself: his needs and purposes and how he acquires them. In order to increase productivity, Mitsubishi Motors develops new management strategies based on intrinsic motivation. As the most important, they underline manager's role in motivation and commitment. The key to a productivity-motivated workforce is a supervisory style which enhances the workers' proprietorship of their jobs. Management has too often approached the problem negatively, by depriving workers of control in order to forestall stoppages and goldbricking.

Mitsubishi Motors pleads for a positive approach, for delegating this control in order to make the satisfactions of self-discipline possible (Scheuer, 2000). The morale changes occurred after men begin to think of themselves as belonging to a group. Part of the bargain is a worker's passive acceptance of any method that management might choose for organizing his work, even if this meant fragmenting his job to the point of tedium and regulating it to the point of puppetry (Scheuer, 2000). As a result, the men feel that they are important rather than taken for granted; each man knows that the group's record would suffer if he slackens, and most are determined not to let this happen.

It is important to note that productivity is the goal, and control is merely one of several possible means to achieve it. The way to achieve the greatest profit is to remove the artificial impediments to productivity rather than to impose a regulatory system, no matter how tidy. A consistent record of excellence would then become a matter of personal pride rather than a meaningless exertion for somebody else's gain. The key to linking the individual's most potent aspirations to the goals of his company is his membership in a group which participates in its own management -- a group in which the role of the supervisor is changed from that of an enforcer or overseer to that of an expediter, an information giver, and above all an ego supporter.

(Robbins, 2002). Security in the past and fear of change are another problems faced by Mitsubishi Motors. The 1990s were marked by technological and information changes, so many workers were afraid of negative consequences of these improvements. For a worker, the principal advantage of the old system is that he knows it well; it is at least predictable and that, for him, is not a small advantage by any means. He will not welcome change, but he is not likely to resist it very much, either. He considers resistance useless, and besides, he expects that in the long run all systems will work out about equally for him.

Mitsubishi Motors introduces extensive training programs for assembly workers (off-job and on-job training). Also, the company proposes financial benefits for