Factors effecting Motivation Essay

* Job satisfaction: if workers get job satisfaction they will enjoy working which will mean high quality work is being produced. Workers will come early to work, they will have good attendance at work, workers will take pride in their work, workers will want to work overtime, and would want to help the business meet its objectives and goals. If employees do not get job satisfaction they will not be motivated at work and will become really lazy, will not put time and effort into the quality of the work, targets which are set will not be met because employees are not enjoying themselves. * Challenge: if you are in a monotonous environment you are in a day in day put routine where you have no motivation, you feel your work is not challenging enough. Therefore it is necessary for employees to have a challenging role within the work place. By having more challenges employees will set themselves targets, work harder more importantly they will feel the necessity to work to their best potential. * Rewards: if employees are given rewards it will motivate them to work more harder. Rewards may be shares for the business, profit related pay, performance related pay, introduce schemes such as employee of the year, company cars etc. * Money: money is one of the greatest factors for motivation, when pay rises are given employees tend to work much more harder. However apart from money there are factors that motivate employees such as social status, recognition, responsibility, opportunity for promotion etc. * Promotion/Career development: if employers offer employees chance to develop their career, it will be a great method of motivating employees, because they will want to work towards the companies goals and also will want to work up the organisational structure. * Training: Having training schemes within the business is another motivating factor. If employees feel that employers are spending time and effort on them they will feel appreciated and in return will work really hard during the training and will try there best to put the training skills in practise. THEORIES OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOUR Abraham Maslow and ‘the hierarchy of needs’ Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970) said that all motivation comes from meeting unsatisfied needs. He stated that there was a ranking of needs which must be achieved in the correct order – from the bottom to the top of a ‘pyramid’ (see diagram below) Basic physiological needs (e.g. food, water,)are at the bottom and self actualisation is at the top. The need †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Which is achieved by†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. Self actualisation Personal growth and self fulfilment Esteem Recognition Achievement Status Social needs Affection/love/friendship Safety needs Security Freedom from pain and threats Physiological needs Food, water, air, rest, sex Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of needs was first formulated in 1943. Maslow suggested that human motivation was dependent on the desire to satisfy various levels of needs. Maslow saw these needs as being organised in a hierarchy as shown on the diagram. * Physiological needs: persons first concern is to be fed, clothed and house themselves and family to an acceptable standard. Insys provide this need to their employees as these basic needs are met by an adequate wage which allows the employees to have there physiological needs. * Safety and security: this includes things like job security, social security and protection from arbitrary actions of others for example superiors. Insys ensure employees are have job security, sick pay, pension schemes. If these securities are not met then they will move to jobs, which provide these securities. * Social needs: these needs include the feelings of belonging and affection. Once low level needs are met relationship with others seem of great importance, everyone wants to be expected in a team, and if these needs are not met individuals will want to move to a job which will welcome them, and will be nice to them. Insys believe in ensuring that social needs are met such as liasing with one another, this is done in team briefings (informal), internal memos, emails. This helps the all the individual to feel as part of a team. * Esteem needs: desire to self-respect and respecting others, employees need to be recognised. Employers should give respect, and employees should value the work employee’s produce. Also bonuses should be given to employees for their hard work. This is a part of praise. Insys invest in incentives and bonus schemes for commending employees on outstanding efforts. They believe the team should work together, respect one another and help each other to be successful. * Self-actualisation needs: this involves self-fulfilment and release of potential. There will be a need to release ones full potential. Work becomes truly satisfying only it enables the individuals to realise their full potential. Insys believe that it is really important to encourage employees to release their full potential as it will give the individual self-satisfaction and it’s a great asset to Insys to have multi skilled employees. Insys may not realise that the Maslow Hierarchical of needs relates to there company but when people like myself cross reference the theory and Insys itself you can link the theory to Insys as indicated above. Due to the current redundancy situation at Insys, it has been closely analysed that employees who had been employed there for over a number of years feel rather demotivated due to the situation. Referring back to Maslow’s theory Insys can closely relate to the situation of hierarchical needs. The remaining employees at Insys were at the top of the Maslows hierarchical of needs, i.e. they were content with their jobs, felt secure. Due to the redundancies taking place the employees have know travelled down the hierarchy of needs feeling low self esteem and they have no sense of stability within there jobs. DOUGLAS McGREGOR THEORY X AND THEORY Y McGregor believed that manager’s basic beliefs have a dominant influence on the way that organisations are run. Mangers assumptions about the behaviour of people are central to this. McGregor argues that these assumptions fall into two broad categories – theory X and theory Y. these findings were detailed in ‘The human side of enterprise’, first published in 1960. Theory X and theory Y describe two views of people at work and may be used to describe two opposing management styles. Mc Gregor formulated two theories: X and Y, which makes a number of assumption: Theory X is summarised as follows: The traditional view of direction and control * The average human being has a dislike of work and they avoid there work * Due to the basic dislike of work, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed, threatened with punishment to get them to put forth-adequate effort towards the achievement of organisational objectives. * Most humans prefer to be directed they wish to avoid responsibility, and have little ambition and overall want security. A theory X management style therefore requires close, form supervision with clearly specified tasks and the threat of punishment or the promise of greater pay as motivating factors. A manager working under these assumptions will employ autocratic controls, which can invariably lead to mistrust and resentment from those they manage. In contrast, ‘people centred’ employers who subscribe to the alternative Theory Y assume their employees: * Like working and seek responsibility * Do care about the objectives of their organisation * Like to be fully employed and developed to their full potential * Like variety in work and are motivated by interesting tasks * Are not motivated simply by money or threats These categorise are too broad and too extreme to be entirely useful in human resource planning and management. The workforce is an organisation, it may contain different employees who conform to both theories, or display muted elements of both. The same employees may also move between these categories over time as their working environment, expectations, and attitudes change. SUMMARY OF THEROY X AND Y X Y In a realistic workplace it is very difficult to get staff which fit in theory Y. and there are individuals who do fit into theory X. Insys encourages and aims to get employees from theory X and works towards theory Y. this is done via performance reviews (Appraisals). FREDERICK HERZBERG – The hygiene motivational theory The hygiene motivation or ‘two factor’ theory resulted from research with two hundred Pittsburgh engineers and accountants. These people were asked what pleases and displeases them about their jobs. From their reponses, Herzberg concluded that man has two sets of needs: * Lowers level needs as an animal to avoid pain and deprivation * Higher level needs as a human being to grow psychologically Some factors on the work place meet the first set of needs but not the second and vice verser. The first group of factors he called ‘hygiene factors’ and the second ‘motivators’. Fredrick Herzberg developed his ideas in 1966. From his research he listed those factors which improve job satisfaction and those which, if improved or handled correctly, would reduce or at least prevent job dissatisfaction. Herzberg said that certain elements in a job motivate people to work harder. He called these elements SATISFIERS. They include: * Achievement * Recognition * Responsibility * Advancement * Personnel growth * And the actual work itself Other elements do not motivate people to work harder. These are called HYGIENE FACTORS. They include: * Pay and conditions * Status in the organisation * Job security * Benefits (pensions, company cars etc) * Relationships with fellow employees * The quality of the organisations managers Herzberg’s key point was that hygiene factors do not motivate but if they are not very good then the satisfiers will not motivate either. For example: ‘even if a job is interesting and gives a person a substantial sense of achievement it will not motivate them properly if they are not earning enough money to live in a reasonable house and cannot feed themselves and their family properly. Obviously all individuals differ. The personnel administrator at Insys was interviewed, her views on the theory were: ‘pay is not the only motivating factor, there are other aspects to consider such as experience of different jobs, gaining new skills and achievement. However views can differ some employee’s priority may be the pay, you will never get all members of the team thinking in the same manor. FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR – FATHER OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT Taylor (1856 – 1915) worked as a factory superintendent in a locomotive axle factory in the USA. From his studies of how people worked making axles he concluded that: > Employees got jobs there because they were friends or relatives of the managers, not because they were any good at the job > Employees did not work hard because they thought it would throw some of their friends out of work > Employers paid employees as little as they could get away with > Employees got very few instructions on how to do their jobs so they did them badly. The amount produced and the quality of output was often poor. Taylor said that the following ideas would improve matters: * Only money would motivate employees to work hard – therefore they should be paid on a piecework system, i.e. each item made would earn the certain amount of money – this would encourage hard work. * Properly trained managers should run organisations and supervise employees effectively with firm but fair disciplinary methods * Employees must be properly trained, through what he called ‘scientific management’ to do specific tasks efficiently – this was the beginning of what we today call Organisations and Methods Study or Work Study * Employees should be properly selected through tests and interviews to make sure they are right for the job; Taylor was one of the first people to see the need to do this * Employees, if motivated by good pay, would work efficiently without questioning what they were required to do. Many organisations still operate Taylorism, even in rich countries, but there has long been a recognition that employees want more from their jobs than job security and good pay. Other writers have developed more complex theories about what motivates people at work – as I have explained a few of them above. Insys and other organisations do have a linkage with the motivational theories I have explained above. However they do not use all the parts of the theories. Some theories do not even apply to the organisation such as Insys. Such as Frederick Taylor’s view of motivational theory does not apply to Insys itself as shown above that employees want more from their jobs than job security and good pay. Some other motivational theories Expectancy theory This theory states that an employee will only be motivated to work harder if they believe that it will lead to a reward, which they feel is worth having. The key point is that the reward does not match the employee needs it will not motivate them very well. Equity theory This means that people are better motivated if they feel they are fairly treated by their bosses and on par with other employees. Goal Theory Setting employees specific goals motivates them more effectively. If the goals are achieved they get more money or promotion. Reactance Theory This means that people are motivated by what they think they have achieved. For example, where pay is tied to employee’s performance it motivates them to work harder. Their achievement has been rewarded.