Behavioral Influences

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Motivation has always been a valuable concept in today’s corporate domain when it comes to revenue and production. As long as businesses have been seeking for ways to improve efficiency, productivity and quality within their workplaces, employees have had their own underlying expectations to satisfy. Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory explores the concept of employee’s motivations in completing a task influenced by their expectancy (effort-performance relationship), instrumentality (performance-rewards relationship) and valence (rewards-personal goals). By identifying these three key relationships and associating them to the internal focus of the workplace, we can begin to determine and understand the important factors that drive individuals to meet performance goals and their likelihood of achieving beneficial results.

The first component of this theory is expectancy. Expectancy suggests that the personal valuation of effort will subsequently lead to an attainable and agreeable level of performance. Typically, this effort-performance relationship can be “influenced by factors such as possession of appropriate skills for performing the job, availability of right resources, availability of crucial information and getting the required support for completing the job” (“Expectancy Theory of Motivation,” 2011). Through the application of these skills, resources and experiences, the individual can readily apply their newfound skill set to improve job performance.

This leads me to the second component of the expectancy theory, instrumentality. Instrumentality focuses on the perception of an employee’s belief that favorable performance will result in the acquisition of a desired outcome or reward. This performance-reward relationship gene...

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...supervision, the individual will be held accountable for their performance and further action may be necessary (i.e. senior management involvement, a decrease in salary, no vacation time, etc.) However, individuals that do reach production goals feel that the bonuses are not worth the extra effort. This is where the individualized reward system becomes imperative. If goals are met, the bonuses will be based on a percentage of that individual’s salary. The purpose of the system is to offer a reasonable but generous incentive to keep individuals motivated.

To summarize, the expectancy theory helps us to learn and understand the many influences that impact and motivate individuals to meet production standards and goals. As managers or supervisors, this understanding can be utilized to help produce highly effective, productive and motivated teams within our departments.

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