More handpicked essays just for you.
The effect of motivation on employee performance
The effect of motivation on employee performance
The effect of motivation on employee performance
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The concerns that managers have regarding the subject of motivation and how to get the most effort from their employees are valid concerns because. The reality of today’s economy have many people living paycheck to paycheck and sometimes working two and three jobs just to make ends meet. Although many people are grateful to have jobs, they feel that they are living in times of uncertainty and worry everyday if they will have jobs tomorrow. The stress of dealing with the rising cost of everything not only makes motivation more challenging, it has caused people to be more anxious and distrustful. Trying to keep employees motivated in these times of uncertainty is indeed a big concern.
Robbins and Judge define motivation by means of three elements. The first element is defined as being the process that account for an individual’s intensity which is concerned with how hard a person tries. The second element is direction that benefits the organization and the third element is persistence which is a measure of how long a person can maintain effort. Motivation is also driven by certain situations that vary between individuals and within individuals, at different times. (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p.186) These elements should not only be expected from employees but from managers as well.
The key to understanding what employees’ motivations are, and how managers can support them in their aims and objectives, is to understand that different people are motivated by different things. Managers should make a conscience effort to stay in touch with the interest, skills and abilities that their employees possess. Given the opportunity, it is possible that employees can provide valuable information about how to motivate each other to do a better job.
Maslow needs theory has received wide recognition particularly among practicing managers. Perhaps it could provide some valuable insight in motivation. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs “hypothesized that within every human being there exists a hierarchy of five needs. Maslow separated the five needs into higher and lower orders. Physiological and safety needs were described as lower-order needs and social, esteem, and self-actualization as higher-order needs. As each of these needs becomes substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant. So if you want to motivate someone, you need to understand what level of the hierarchy that person is currently on and focus on satisfying the needs at or above that level.” (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p.187) Psychologist Frederick Herzberg contends that “if we want to motivate people on their jobs, emphasize factors associated with the work itself or to outcomes directly derived from it.
Have you ever thought about how people become motivated to do things? Maybe you even wonder what motivation really is. Motivation is the desire to do things. Motivation creates a drive that pushes a person close to their breaking point and beyond. It helps an individual reach goals that some couldn’t even imagine of doing. But have you ever truly thought about what motivates people. What really gives people that drive? What empowers people to reach their aspirations? If so you are not alone, a ton of people has thought about what it is the gives people such a drive. Including American psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow has created a psychological advanced thinking on what he think inspires people to do such gargantuan complex things. Maslow made a theory, which states that people fulfill needs in stages or levels in life. There are five stages that are divided into basic needs, such as safety, love, and esteem, and growth needs like self-actualization.
Motivation is important in any organization. Work motivation is a process that can initiate goal-directed performance which results from beliefs about what the employee feels makes him or her successful (Clark, 2003). Motivation can also influence employees’ decisions to choose to partake in a job task and continue until it is completed. It has the ability to drive individuals to behave in ways that can energize, direct, and sustain their work behavior (Levy, 2013). This is important to organizations because it can ensure the success of the company. The best approach to fostering motivation is employee satisfaction (Heathfield, 2014).
Motivation is defined as individual internal process that energizes, directs and sustains behavior. Motivation depends on how much the person wants something and how likely they think they will get it. Managers struggle to improve motivation in the workplace, but with the right tools they can become successful. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a pyramid of personal satisfaction that need to be met so a person can reach their full potential and be happy. Each level of the pyramid is stratified from the bottom up. A person cannot move up the pyramid until the bottom needs are met. Maslow’s hierarchy is usually a personal tool used to assess how an individual is doing, but businesses adapted this tool to use in the workplace and improve morale.
He was the first to show that factors causing job satisfaction were different from that causing job dissatisfaction. He developed the motivation-hygiene theory; he called the satisfying factors motivators and the dissatisfying hygiene factors. According to Sapru (2013), the two factor theory is a theory that relates to intrinsic factors to job satisfaction, while associating extrinsic factors with dissatisfaction. To find the individual’s relation and attitude to work, Herzberg investigated the question: “What do people want from their job?” According to Hertzberg certain attributes tend to be consistently related to job satisfaction and other to job dissatisfaction. For instance, intrinsic factors such as responsibilities, achievement, recognition and advancement seem related to job satisfaction. While, extrinsic factors such as pay, working conditions, policies and supervision seems related to job dissatisfaction.
Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” Studies have found that high employee motivation goes hand in hand with strong organizational performance and profits. Therefore, managers are given the responsibility of finding the right combination of motivational techniques and rewards to satisfy employees’ needs and encourage great work performance. This becomes a bit more challenging as employees’ needs change from one generation to another. Three of the biggest challenges a manager faces in motivating employees today are the economy and threats to job security, technological advances, and company cultures that primarily focus on the bottom line.
Employee motivation has always been a central problem in the workplace, and, as an individual in a supervisory position, it becomes one’s duty to understand and institute systems that ensure the proper motivation of your subordinates. Proper motivation of employees can ensure high productivity and successful workflow, while low worker motivation can result in absenteeism, decreased productivity rates, and turnover. A large body of research has been produced regarding motivation, and much of this research is applicable to the workplace. Due to the nature of man, motivation varies from individual to individual, and, because of this, there is no one system that is the best for ensuring worker motivation in every organizational situation, and, as a product, many theories have been created to outline what drives people to satisfactorily complete their work tasks. Throughout the course of this document, the three main types of these motivational theories will be outlined and examples of each, as well as how these theories can be used to further strengthen and sustain worker motivation....
Research has shown that motivation in an employee is an important factor which determines his performance. Motivation is the “driving force within individuals” (Mullins, 2007, p. 285). It is the concerned with finding out the reasons which shape and direct the behaviour of the individuals. The people act to achieve something so that they can satisfy some needs (Gitman and Daniel, 2008). It is important for the manager to understand this motivation of individual employees in order to inspire them and devise an appropriate set of incentives and rewards which would satisfy the needs that they have individually (Kerr, 2003). Once these needs are expected to be met in return for some specific behaviour or action, they would work more diligently to have that behaviour in them and to achieve that objective (Meyer and Hersovitch, 2001). Since it would lead to early and fuller achievement of the company objectives as the individual would work more diligently, it would lead to better organizational performance (Wiley, 1997).
Motivation is the reason or purpose behind action, or what causes one to act in a particular manner. Motivation can either be intrinsic or extrinsic in nature, yet it rests solely within the power of the individual actor to be motivated (or not) by intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Motivation is an extremely important topic of discussion in the larger discourse on leadership. It is important because it provides the basis for human action, or inaction. Leaders must be able to understand what motivates their followers in a hope to use that knowledge to guide them to behave in a certain way that is beneficial for the organization. To do so, it behooves leaders to understand the basic concepts and theories of motivation that abound.
Furthermore, there are three theories which explain the different factors in how employees are motivated based on their needs. The first theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, was proved by Abraham Maslow in the years of 1943 and 1954 (McLeod, 2013). Maslow believed that society developed their motivations depending on their needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a theory in which five motivational needs( self-actualization,esteem, belongingness and love, safety, and psychological) are demonstrated in a hierarchy pyramid. The five motivational needs are divided into three categories(basic, psychological, and
Motivation is key in the workplace. It is developed from the collaboration of both conscious and unconscious principles such as the strength of desire or need, motivating force or reward estimation of the objective, and desires of the person and of his or her peers/co-workers. These elements are the reasons one has for carrying on a specific way. An illustration is an understudy that invests additional energy contemplating for a test since he or she needs a superior review in the class. The Inside and outside principles that animate want and vitality in individuals to be constantly intrigued and centered around their work, part or subject, or to try to achieve an objective.
The job of a manager in the workplace is to get things done through employees. To do this the manager should be able to motivate employees. But that’s easier said than done! Motivation practice and theory are difficult subject, touching on several disciplines.
To analyse the importance for managers to understand motivation, it is essential to identify what management and motivation are and the links between the two. According to Dr. Kumra (2013), leadership and management are regarded as same. However, leadership is one aspect of management. Managers and leaders have differences in their functions, which means leaders are more motivated and flexible than managers. Motivation is considered as an individual phenomenon, which starts from one individual and continues to influence another (Kumra, 2013). It is also a tool which is under-utilized by managers at workplace to inspire people and to improve work environment (Bessell et al., 2012). The importance for managers to understand motivation can be divided into three parts. Generally, as an intrinsic reason, motivation allows managers to develop their leadership. The largest difference between leadership and management is that the purpose of management in execution is to control the situation and to solve problems, whereas leadership aims at motivating and inspiring people, which reveals the other difference between leadership and management is that leaders have followers but managers have subordinates (Kumra, 2013). The transformation assists managers to improve their leadership and to build better relationship with employees. For the extrinsic reasons, managers can fulfil people’s desire to work more productively by applying extrinsic motivations (Frey & Osterloh, 2002). It is beneficial for managers to build more harmonious relationship with employees and to turn subordinates to followers. The other extrinsic reason is that it creates more motivated environment at workplace. People can be more initiative into their target and to be more...
Motivation is the force that transforms and uplifts people to be productive and perform in their jobs. Maximizing employee’s motivation is a necessary and vital to successfully accomplish the organization’s targets and objectives. However, this is a considerable challenge to any organizations managers, due to the complexity of motivation and the fact that, there is no ready made solution or an answer to what motivates people to work well (Mullins,2002).
Although few individuals are motivated intrinsically from the pleasure or enjoyment an individual gets while performing the activity or by completing it, the majority of people are motivated extrinsically when they are rewarded by money, promotion, or bonus. For example, by linking motivation to one of the most famous motivation theories which is "Maslow hierarchy of needs theory", it's important that leadership understands the needs for employees' motivation for adequate workplace motivation. Maslow's theory states that people have a pyramid hierarchy of needs that they will satisfy from bottom to top. Starting from mere physiological subsistence the Maslow hierarchy of needs covers belonging to a social circle to pursuing your talent through self-actualization. Unfulfilled needs lower on the ladder would inhibit the person from climbing to the next step. The pyramid of needs is divided into two categories: deficiency needs (physiological and safety) and growth needs (belonging, self-esteem and self-actualisation). If the deficiency needs aren't satisfied, the person will feel the deficit and this will stifle his/her development. When Maslow's theory is applied to work situations, it implies that line managers have the responsibility, firstly, to make sure the deficiency needs are met. This means, in broad terms, a safe environment and proper wages. Secondly, it implies creating a proper climate in which employees can develop their fullest potential. Failure to do so would theoretically increase employees' frustration and could result in poorer performance, lowers job satisfaction, and increased withdrawal from the
Theories of motivation consists two parts. Content and process motivation theories. Content motivation theories focuses mainly on people needs and explains why people have different needs at different times. Content theories of motivation treated as a need or desire, to act for the sake of promoting a certain goal. One most prominent theorist Abraham Maslow (1943) proposed the hierarchy of needs. It states that all the needs of the people can be divided into five categories, aligned incentive effect in descending order: (psychological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization needs). Psychological are the basic needs to survive, e.g. food, clothes, shelter, warmth, sleep, etc. Safety are the needs like security, stability, freedom from fear, etc. Social needs are the feelings of belongingness, acceptance, being part