Tough economic times: The impact on employee motivation and morale

Chapter Two

Introduction

The main purpose of this project is to uncover factors responsible for causing a 36% decrease in employee satisfaction for the department of EHS over a 5-year period (2005-2010) reported in EHS’s 2010 employee satisfaction survey (EHS, 2005; EHS, 2010). With over 64,000 full-time employees making up the State of Colorado’s workforce it is imperative to determine how best to improve employee satisfaction and morale as these directly affect job performance and workplace safety (Barling, Kelloway, & Iverson, 2003; STAR, 2009). The objective of Chapter two is to provide information regarding employee satisfaction and the examination of the capstone’s project theoretical framework. Having a clear understanding of the motivation of employees is tremendously significant to managers as well as the supervisors, particularly in the industries today where the limited budgets make it complicated to reward workers monetarily. In order to analyze the effect of the long-term reductions in employee compensation, benefits, and incentives directly affecting the State of Colorado workers’ motivation, job satisfaction, and morale, it is important to include the two well-known motivational theories i.e. Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory (1959) as well as Adam’s Equity Theory (1963), into the project’s theoretical framework (Gibson, et al., 2009).

Definition of Terms

In the context of this study, the following definitions are provided for understanding: Absenteeism: is the failure to report for duty or obligation or a habitual pattern of absences (Robbins & Coulter, 2007). Conventionally, the word absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance (“Absenteeism,” n.d.). Effectiveness: The degree to ...

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...ervant (Adams, 1963).

Summary

Chapter two provided an overview of the current problem at EHS and provided a literature review of two mainstream theories on employee motivation that is, Herzberg’s Two-Factor theory and Adam’s Equity theory. Herzberg’s Two-Factor theory is known as a Content Theory, which focuses on motivational factors within a person whereas Adam’s Equity theory is known as a Process Theory, which focuses on external factors to provide motivation (Gibson, et al., 2009). Motivation, job satisfaction, and reward systems are all key elements of an employee motivation models and are essential in encouraging an individual to attain a specific goal (Aguinis 2009; Gibson, et al., 2009; Robbins & Coulter, 2007; Robbins & Judge, 2010). Chapter three in brief outlines the capstones project’s methodology including how the data was analyzed and compared.