Methods to Motivate the Employees in Different Situations - Essay Example

Compensation holds a very important place in every organization. Organisation pays their employees to motivate them and get the best out of them. Different individuals have different ways to get motivated. For example the efficiency level of certain employees fall when they continue the same work again and again but, when they are temporarily shifted to other job their efficiency increases. For this employee change is the drive which motivates him. Organisation needs to find out this drives and work towards those to achieve best results. Thus, motivation is a continuous process. Thus, we can say that organisation needs to make use of an employee’s intensity in the right direction. This should be a continuous process as an employee who is motivated remains for a long time with the organisation. People use both their intrinsic and extrinsic goals to be motivated. Intrinsic goals is growth whereas extrinsic is money. Study has shown that “physiological threat increases priority people give to intrinsic goals”. (Smith & Robert, 1994) Various studies have also showed that intrinsic rewards holds prime importance and ensures higher motivation compared to extrinsic reward. In the true sense both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards holds importance and it is difficult to differentiate whether extrinsic or intrinsic reward holds more importance. It has been seen that organization has to use different methods to motivate the employees in different situations. One motivational theory which demonstrates the same is Hierarchy of Needs Theory. Every individual has certain needs and wants and they work towards accomplishing those. The most basic need for an individual is the need for food, shelter, thirst and so on called the Psychological need. When a person achieves these basic needs he moves higher up in the hierarchy and wants Safety. He wants safety from physical as well as emotional aspect. Once this is satisfied he needs a Social status and he starts to crave for it. He wants respect in the society, a sense of belongingness and friends around. When he achieves this he wants to move higher up and crave for Esteem needs. He continues to work harder until his last need i.e. the need for self Actualisation is achieved. This is the stage where an individual achieves what he wants. He knows what he is capable of and this leads to self fulfilment. (Robbins, Judge, Millet, Waters-Marsh, 2008) For example, suppose a person earns 20000. This is enough for his basic requirement. Now he wants recognition. So, he works to achieve those. Thus it motivates him. It urges him to work harder. This gives him satisfaction. This continues on and on. It is also important that the organisation understands which of these need can be satisfied internally and which externally. When a person starts to move higher up in the need hierarchy his needs are more satisfied internally as his basic requirement of food, hunger, thirst and safety are met. (Stephen & Timothy, 2007) It is important for organisations to realise the fact that all the human needs cannot be satisfied through money. Employees need to be motivated through measures other than monetary like respect, recognition for the work done and social status. (Lowery, 1998) This will help the employees to be motivated and remain loyal with the organization. “Motivated people are more contend. They have focus and higher satisfaction. Employees feel a part of the company”. (Ross & Eeden, 2008) As people are scarce it is important to manage them. This is more for learned people. Procedures need to be in order to guide and motivate them. A research shows that “when an employee is motivated through intrinsic measures the communication process passes without any barrier and information flows freely through the organisation as the employee feels a part of the organisation and share the same common goal”. (Alexander, Page & Wentling, 2003) This shows that satisfaction is high. It leads to good concentration. It is also seen that “a relationship exists between motivation, job satisfaction and intrinsic rewards. Here a survey was carried among the employees and more than 50% showed that there was some relation between the two and this was due to leadership and intrinsic rewards that was present in the team”. (Ross & Eeden, 2008) Intrinsic reward leads towards satisfaction and motivation of employees. The more satisfied a person is the better he is able to work and generate better results for the future. (Aswathappa, 2008) We see that when a person is extrinsically satisfied and achieves something in life he craves for more. The feeling of accomplishing something motivates a person and gives him satisfaction. He realizes the potential he has and he starts working harder. He starts believing that he can achieve the goals he has set for himself and it motivates him to face even the toughest challenges. This thus helps him to achieve the goals. (Robbins, Judge, Millet, Waters-Marsh, 2008) This is the time when intrinsic rewards holds importance and guides the employees towards achieving the goals of the organization. A study shows that “methods to motivate has changed compared to the last 10 years as the business has evolved and finding the correct talent has become difficult”. (Messick, 2010) This is due to the fact that the “age of work force is increasing and with changes taking place in the business front finding the correct talent is difficult”. (Messick, 2010) This has transformed the way business performs. It has made business units look towards intrinsic reward to motivate the employees so that a pool of employees can be created for the future. A research carried out shows that it’s not only the compensation package which motivates an employee but it’s the intrinsic reward prevalent in the organisation that determines how motivated an employee is and this leads to job satisfaction and this circle continues and helps the employee to achieve both the organisational and individual goal. (Shah, 2007) Thus intrinsic reward holds importance and helps to motivate the employees. Extrinsic reward is equally important but in certain situations intrinsic rewards helps to motivate the employees more. Organizations look towards motivating the employees through intrinsic reward by giving responsibilities to the employees. This helps to ensure that employees are able to recognize themselves. It helps the employees to rake decision for the work which ensures that identifying the task becomes easy. This makes the employees take the burden and having involved in the entire process helps him to deal with the problems in a better way. This motivates the employees as completing the work helps them earn social recognition through a pat on the back and other ways which helps to improve motivation. Organizations also look towards motivating the employees through intrinsic reward by considering the requirements of the job and choosing employees and designing the job which matches to it. Organizations look into the skill the employees have. It is a seen phenomenon that employees performing similar task feel de-motivated. Rotation helps in this case but for that employees need to have a variety of skills so that they can be transformed to other work even. Thus an intrinsic way of motivating the employee works and ensures that the work is accomplished easily. Organization ensures that employees can be rotated which will help the employees to ensure that the employee remains motivation and is able to give the best and organization grows. This is helping organization to ensure that the jobs are performed in a variety of way and helps the organization to find prospective employees for the future. Thus non monetary reward through job rotation is helping employees to be motivated and intrinsic rewards are helping organization achieve their goals. Organizations also ensure that the job performed has relevance on other employees. This helps the employee’s morale as when other employees speak about the task performed by the employees motivate him as he finds social recognition. This affects his chances of promotion and increase in pay. It ensures that employee is able to build on that and contribute meaningfully. (Sufficool, 2010) Intrinsic reward thus helps in this situation as it helps to nsure that employee receives recognition which motivates the employees to work harder thereby contributing towards the goal of the organization. Even a study reveals that “employee retention holds prime importance for the business units and by using the intrinsic rewards helps to retain the employees, improves satisfaction and creates a bright career prospect”. (Tymon, Stumpf & Doh, 2010) This thus looks into the motivational aspect and helps management to retain employees by motivating them. Another survey shows that “as compared to 2009 where 35% of the employees expected higher employment level the percentage has risen to 50% in 2010”. (Kootungal, 2010) This presents the fact that employees are looking towards being part of the same organisation through development of their career. This is associated with motivation and will help to ensure that employees remain loyal. Another study in the same direction reveals that “ensuring proper work life balance helps to motivate the employees as it helps to remind the employees continuously about the vision, mission and goals they need to accomplish”. (Jay, 2010) This highlights the importance of intrinsic rewards as it helps to ensure proper work life balance and helps to motivate the employees. Thus, work life balance will help to ensure that the motivational theory works well for the organisation and designing different incentive programmes will help to achieve the goals. This will serve the following benefits for the organisation and will help to improve the final results. A study reveals that “dissonance between work value and rewards indicates dissonance which spreads to the work culture and influences the satisfaction level of the employee thereby taking its toll on motivation”. (Porfeli & Mortimer, 2010) This indicates the importance of motivational theory in work place. Managers need to ensure that special tool and techniques are ensured to bring about a match between the two. This will help to achieve the desired result and help to achieve the personal and organisational goal. Organisations use succession planning to build bench strength for the organisation where they have a pool to choose from. It will ensure that the business units have the required talent in house. A study conducted in this field shows that “organisations give importance to intrinsic reward and by using this as a tool ensure future leadership for the organisation”. (Derr, 2002) This has made business units to consider it as very important. Organisations prefer to fill the vacancies from within as “the people working in the organisation understand the culture better and are able to articulate it clearly”. (Derr, 2002) Despite studies showing the manner in which intrinsic reward it is contributing towards motivating the employees’ organization need to look at both the extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Organisations need to ensure that a proper mix of all the qualities which are required to motivate the employees are looked after as it will transform into motivation. This will make the employees satisfied and ensure that they remain with the organisation. Organization needs to ensure that they are able to recognize the method which will help to motivate the employees and will ensure that the employees’ intensity is directed in the right direction. Organization needs to lay stress on identifying the needs of each individual employee so that the mechanism which will help to motivate each employee is identified. Thus, organization needs to find out the manner through which it will be able to extract the maximum return for the employees by ensuring that the employees is motivated which will help to increase satisfaction. This will thereby help to ensure that the organization is able to achieve the goals and ensure that employees are motivated to remain with the organization thereby contributing towards the growth of the organization. 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