Motivation in the Workplace
There are people out there in the workforce that believe they are obligated to do their best at their job simply because that is what is expected from all of us as humans. On the other hand, there are those out there that want to only do as much as they can get away with doing. No matter which one of these employees you are or are working with companies and employer's need to understand the concept of motivation.
Motivation comes in many forms such as money, benefits, or simple recognition within. Motivation also leads to higher productivity and profit and that is what we are all looking for in business. The key to unlocking peak performance from your work force is the concept of human motivation. In addition, the key to motivation revolves around one fundamental principle: "What's in it for me?" (WIIFM). We have all been socialized to believe that only "selfish" people consider "What's in store for me." When in reality all people are motivated first by self-interest. The word selfish is used as a negative label for someone's perceived behavior. Understanding the concept of self-interest is perhaps the only way we will understand our need to achieve.
Self-interest or feeling good about your self is a fundamental ingredient of motivation. When you work an extra hour, not on the clock, you are doing it for one real reason. It makes you feel good to either get the job done well or to help someone else. In the end you might get some sort of recognition in the company but usually you will not stay an hour extra today to get a gold star in two weeks from now. Dr. Gerald Kushel, has stated in his book "Reaching the Peak Performance Zone"; there are several variables involved in motivation. Among them are...
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...hatever the motivational techniques used, they should be customized to coincide with the corporate culture unique to the organization. They also need to be meaningful to the employees and used in ways that the purpose of the reward is obvious. There are all kinds of employees out there with different work ethics and a small amount of thought into the motivational techniques used by an organization can go a long way to getting those unique individuals working together in a more productive and profitable way.
Bibliography
Works Cited
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3. Sherman, Arthur W., Managing Human Resources 1998 (11th ed.) South-Western Publishing
4. Traynor, William J., Opportunities in Human Resource Management Careers 1997 VGM Career Horizons
Intrinsic and extrinsic types of motivation have been widely studied and the understanding of each has led to great changes in how organizations run their businesses. It is clear that hourly employees have many great extrinsic motivators but lack intrinsic motivation in their job assignments which is a characteristic of our work culture. Changing the culture is one of the keys to improving motivation at that level of the organization because the best motivation occurs when employees perform because they want to and not because they are being made to do so.
As human beings it is difficult for us to efficiently conduct a task that is not of our interest. Although most, if not all, of us want to succeed in our endeavors, such is often difficult when the task is one we seldom care about. This is where the concept of motivation comes into play. As per the class textbook, motivation is defined as “The processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.”(Robbins & Judge, 2013, p. 202). Motivation plays a huge factor in how intensely and efficiently an employee goes about performing a task.
People spend an extensive part of their lives at work, so it is not astonishing that they expect to be rewarded and fulfilled with the job that they do. Motivation is concerned with why people do things as well as what drives them to act in a particular way. Understanding what motivates an individual is important in a workplace. Motivated employees are happier at work. They get more satisfaction from their work, they are absent less frequently, and work with more enthusiasm. This encourages them to contribute more, hence increasing the productivity in the organization. Unmotivated workers will not be as contented with their position in the work environment as motivated workers. The job might not be as important for them which may lead to a poor performance, which will lead to less efficiency and hence to poor productivity.
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
Restaurant workers are divided into two groups. “Front of House” workers and “back of the house” workers (Foodispower, 2014). The “Front of House” workers are the one that works with the customers. They’re the one that interacts with them and puts an image to the name of the restaurant. Meanwhile, “back of the house” workers are the ones that works behind the scene including the chefs and kitchen hand. It doesn’t matter what group you work at, working in a restaurant is fast-paced, stressful, repetitive, and physically challenging. Working overtime is also common. That’s why managers are responsible for the motivation of their staff. With all the cons of working in a restaurant, the manager should be able to still show their staff the benefits
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.
In recent years, how to improve employee motivation has become one of the most discussed topics in our daily social news. Working demands differ significantly around the world. People working in different kinds of industries obtain different rewards. Most of the time, the employee’s motivation depends on the local government policies and the customs of their society. This includes, for example, employee competitive salary, year-end bonuses and company stock dividends, paid annual leave, employee lunches and break times, paid social insurance and regular vocational skills training. There are also some welfare factors such as free employee traveling, free books and gym membership, monthly team building and communication activities, a comfortable
The goal of any organization is to have a workforce that works to its fullest potential. When the workforce is constantly moving in the direction towards the achievement of the mission statement a leader can often say they have a highly motivated workforce. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the organization’s leadership and upper management to find a way to bring out the best in their employees. Finding research-based strategies and techniques to truly motivate employees is a necessary skill that all leaders must possess.
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.
I have followed the teachings and inspirations of Les Brown for many years dating back to some of his earliest video recordings and writings. His quoted words, “You gotta be hungry” and “In the prosperous times, you put it in your pocket; in the lean times, you put it in your heart”, have been some of the words that I grew up reciting in an effort to encourage myself and others.
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....
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).
for a lot of people it is money that drives them this is not always
Motivation can be one of the greatest and most important aspects inside a workplace, as it enables employees to find their incentive to work harder and achieve different types of goals. Motivation can be identified and accomplished by elaborating a job design that helps keep employees happy considering the different environmental factors of the integrative framework when applying organizational behavior. A formal definition states that job design “refers to any set of activities that involve the alteration of specific jobs or interdependent systems of jobs with the intent of improving the quality of employee job experience and their on-the-job productivity” (Kinicki 168). Job designs help structure jobs and the different tasks needed to accomplish
Different companies and departments of those companies have very different approaches to motivate their workers to being the best they can. For example, I worked for three years at a food Store called Wegmans when I was younger. I worked as a cashier which was interesting to say the least. Managers were always trying to motivate the cashiers to go that much faster, be that much friendlier, and to be more efficient at every opportunity. They took many different approaches to find what would motivate each cashier, which was a difficult task considering how young each cashier was, the large number of us their were, and how different each employee was from the other.