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research proposal on effects of employee motivation
theories on the impact of motivation on employees performance
theories on the impact of motivation on employees performance
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What is motivation? Motivation is the “total propensity or level of desire of an individual to behave in a certain manner at a certain time.”(P. 71 Dixon, 1997) Also, it can be defined as the “willingness of an individual to respond to the organisation’s requirements in short run.”(P.71 Dixon, 1997) Motivation is important to productivity. Getting good results in motivating staff can also results in high productivity. Why motivating staff is the most difficult task for any kinds of managers? It is because “individual behaviour is a complex phenomenon”(Davidson et al 2005,p.304)Clearly, A manager must “make motivating workers as an integral part of job “(Harvard Business School Press, 2005, P.3) if they want to build a successful company. By increasing the motivation level of a worker, we must know our workers’ needs and perception. Needs can be defined as unrealized desire and perceptions can be defined as the present and expected impression of workers’ place in the company.(Dixon,1997,p.72) In order to motivate my workers, I must know their needs and perceptions. I would choose Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory and Theory X&Y to understand their needs, then to motivate them to perform at his or her highest level.
According to Maslow, a person’s needs are the main motivator that drives a human. He categorized the needs of a person into 5 levels. They are physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self- actualisation needs respectively.( in ascending order) As the needs on lower levels fulfilled, the upper level needs act as motivator and the person would like to satisfy the upper level needs.(Hassan Ali,2005)
Physiological needs: It is the lowest level among 5 levels. These are needs which must be satisfied in order to survive such as food, air, water etc. This only represents the basic needs of people for survival. But for any organisations including my company, the physiological needs of the staff is adequate salary and work conditions. So, in order to satisfy my employees’ needs, I will pay them salaries. Besides, I will create good working conditions for them such as providing adequate lighting, up to date computers and equipments, comfortable chairs, enough ventilation and providing a leisure room for them to relax during lunch time.( Hassan Ali,2005 & Davidson et al 2005 p.306) They will feel comfortable about the environment of workplace and can concentrate on their work.
People have long considered general theories of motivation, and the question regarding the specific motives that direct and energize our human behavior has undergone tremendous speculation. To this day the question still stands: what is it that humans seek most in life? In an effort to answer this question, Abraham Maslow proposed what he called the hierarchy of needs. Maslow theorizes that human beings are motivated to fulfill this hierarchy, which consists of needs ranging from those that are basic for survival up to those that promote growth and self-enhancement (Kassin 300).
Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who introduced the concept of the motivational needs in his paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” written in 1943. He explains that humans have certain needs that need to be fulfilled and when they are not met is what gives he or she the motivation toward achieving that goal. His work was popularized by a representation of the motives using a pyramid. The pyramid displays the needs in chronological order until one becomes self-actualized. Maslow states that a person will finally reach self-actualization when, “A basically satisfied person no longer has the needs for esteem, love, safety, etc” (1433-1434). The lower levels of the pyramid are more easily accomplished as compared to the higher levels that are more challenging. In order to graduate from one level to another, the lower levels must be satisfied first or else one cannot progress further according to Maslow.
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.
Every person has a motivating factor that makes them go to work. Some people go to work for the paycheck or the benefits, others go to work for the social aspect or experience, these are incentives. Incentives are the most common motivating factor for people to complete tasks. This is also called, work motivation. Work motivation is defined as “A force that drives people to behave in a way that energizes, directs, and sustains their work behavior” (Steers, R. M., Mowday, R. T., & Shapiro, D. L., 2004). In contrast to the benefits of incentives, incentives are commonly counterproductive because they undermine the intrinsic motivation of an individual, this is the overjustification effect.
Maslow, created a pyramid that would describe each level of a humans need to survive, to grow, develop and become successful; he believed that the drive to accomplish each level becomes stronger when a level is not being fulfilled. One lever must be mastered or accomplished before an individual can move on to the next level. Each level, has an interdependency, each setting the stage for the next level; physiological, safety, emotional, esteem and self-actualization are the five stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The needs of each level are the “unconscious desires”’ (McLeod, 2014) that drive an individual to success.
Maslow developed his ‘hierarchy of needs’ in an attempt to describe patterns of human behaviour, and to try to understand the processes behind the actions of consumers. In essence, his theory centres on the idea of ‘motivation’, which he sees as a driving force in a person’s movement from one level of need priorities to the next.
The credible version of hierarchy of needs of Maslow (1943, 1954), have five motivational levels that are arranged in a pyramid with depicted levels. The stages are divided in basic needs which include, psychological, love, safety, and esteem. These needs are also primary of deficiency needs. The other needs are growth needs which incorporate self-actualization needs. When basic needs are not met, they are said to motivate people. The strength of the desire of such needs depends with the time in which they are denied. For example, the more a person lacks food, the hungrier that person becomes. Basic needs must be satisfied before a person proceeds to satisfy other needs in the higher levels. When basic needs are satisfied reasonably, the person can now strive at achieving the self-actualization level, which is the highest level.
Employee motivation seems to be a constant problem in the working world. It is true, not everyone is going to absolutely love their job and want to do it five out of seven days a week. Everyone has their bad days where all they want to do is just go home and get away from the office, which is okay. The problem with those people that dislike their job every single day, is that their dislike makes them completely unmotivated to work. This lack of motivation can then rub off on other employees in the office and it can be very hard to get people motivated unless they have the desire to be. I have noticed a few employees at my workplace that seem to be having trouble motivating themselves to do their job. This can be caused by many different things, such as: their perception of their
Which are the following; Self-actualization which includes morality, creativity, problem solving, Esteem which embodies confidence, self-esteem, achievement, respect; Belongingness, includes love, friendship, intimacy, family; Safety includes security of the environment, employment, resources, health, property and Psychological includes air, food, water, sex, sleep, other factors towards homeostasis. Abraham Maslow states in his Theory of Human Motivation (1943), which “Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of pre-potency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also no need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other
Motivation in the workplace is one of the major concerns that managers face when trying to encourage their employees to work harder and do what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. According to Organizational Behavior by John R. Schermerhorn, James G. Hunt and Richard N. Osborn the definition of motivation is "the individual forces that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person's effort expended at work." They go on to say that "motivation is a key concern in firms across the globe." Through the years there have been several theories as to what motivates employees to do their best at work. In order to better understand these theories we will apply them to a fictitious organization that has the following three types of employees: salespeople, production workers, and administrative staff. We will discuss which of these theories would or would not be most effective to motivate these employee groups and try to explain why. The motivation theories that will be discussed are: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, ERG (Aldefer), Two-Factor Theory (Herzberg), Equity Theory (Adams), and the Expectancy Theory (Vroom). Let's start with salespeople.
Abraham Maslow is known for Maslow 's Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow (1943) insisted that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. He thought people’s needs are consisted like a pyramid. When one need is satisfied, people want to fulfill the next one. He insisted there are five stages of people’s demands. The basic one is physiological, and the next one is safety, belonging, esteem and the highest level is self-actualization. Physiological need is to instinctive desires, such as eating, drinking, sleeping and sex. Safety level need is for security. When people fulfill physiological needs, they want to keep them stable. Therefore, people want to maintain their health and get a job with a good salary to own their house or to live happily. The
Abraham Maslow (1943,1954) stressed that motivation is the key to understand of human behaviour. It comprising of five motivational needs, often depicted as hierarchy level within a pyramid namely physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs. Maslow emphasized that each individual should sustain or meet the lower level basic needs before the individual desire the second or moving on the highest level. He claimed that motivation is essential as it helps in self-development in achieving one’s personal goal and leading to satisfaction. Humanism emphasizes on the freedom, dignity and potential
Maslow’s theory implies that before one can be intrinsically motivated we must first satisfy some more basic human needs. These include physiological needs (ensure our physical survival), safety need (bringing safety and security to our lives), social needs (love, affection, acceptance), Esteem needs (self respect) and need for self – actualization (individual being) (Neher, 1991)
Motivation is an important function in organizations to motivate their employees for their ability to perform well, improving their skills, increasing productivity, job satisfaction and employee extension. Employees also are not a machines that we could just program their task in their brain and they will do it automatically, they require motivation to actually do their job properly. And so, after discussing the process models of the Maslow’s “Hierarchy of needs”, Douglas McGregor theory X and Y, and also the Herzberg’s “two factor motivation hygiene theory.” understanding the ways of motivating people, the human nature, and the substance of nature. I believe that the true motivation can only come from within and also managers can actually motivate all of their employees.
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.