Motivation In The Workplace Essays

According to Maslow’s Needs theory, based on the fact that a person is justified as long as he still has not reached a certain level of satisfaction, has a better understanding of the fact that human motivation leads to a broad spectrum of their needs we could say that in order to motivate people, the manager has to give employees the opportunity to meet the needs in a way that together lead to the organization's objectives.

Motivation is derived from an internal force that provides an individual the opportunity to achieve their needs or goals. People are motivated by a variety of things and often have different motivating factors. Employers should be mindful of individual motivating factors when attempting to motivate staff to increase performance. While some people may be motivated by money, many are motivated by things like: recognition, promotion, and increased responsibility. Once an employer has identified motivating factors they are able to analyze a variety of motivational theories to design and implement a program that will motivate employees to go above and beyond what is expected of them.

The Equity Theory touches on the effects these situations have on the employee’s motivational level. In society today employees are constantly comparing how they are

Sales assistants are able to climb the ladder of management without a degree. Primark always advertise these positions internally before they advertise externally. Employees can view the organisation as a hierarchical structure and aim to work their way up through the company. This is a motivation factor for all employees, even senior management within the Belfast store because Primark being a multinational company can offer positions at head offices or in another country. This is Maslow’s self actualisation factor and a ‘motivator’ factor of Hertzberg’s two factor theory.

According to researcher Lindner (1998), motivated employees are needed in our rapidly changing workplaces to aid in the survival of organizations. Not only is it important to meet the needs of the consumer, it is equally important that to make sure that associates are taken care of and remain motivated. For this reason, Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly and Konopaske (2012) “states much of management’s time is spent addressing the motivation of their employees” (p. 125). According to the Encyclopedia of Small Business (2007), employee motivation is the level of energy, commitment, and creativity employees bring to their jobs; the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals (Lindner, 1988). Despite its obvious importance, employee motivation can be an elusive quest for managers due to the multiplicity of incentives that can influence employees to do their best work. The reality is that every employee has different ways to become motivated and the knowledge of how to motivate them is key to organizational success. It is imperative that employers get to know the personal needs and wants of their employees in order to establish tactics in which to motivate each of them. Once achieved, “managers are in a better position to encourage and reward employees to behave in effective ways” (Gibson et al, 2012, p.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs was introduced in the mid-1940’s by Abraham Maslow; it is one of the most popular theories of work motivation to this day. the theory was originally used specifically in a psychological setting, but was made more popular by Douglas McGregor in the late 1960’s and began to be used by not only psychologists but managers as well (Steers & Porter, 1983). The hierarchy is based on the fact that human beings have needs, Maslow took these needs and separated them into five categories: physiological needs, safety, belongingness or social needs,

We can define motivation as the desire and willingness to do something and the inner force that helps individuals achieve their goals. Understanding what motivates employees and what employers can do to motivate their employees has been the focus of research for many years. This is mainly because motivated employees can provide an organisation with a distinctive advantage and a competitive edge and by being more productive they can help the organisation thrive and survive. In a public service organisation such as West North West Homes we would expect staff to be motivated partly by the desire to have a positive impact on others. Someone working within a sales team

In recent years, organizations have shown an interest in addressing the subject of employee attitude regarding their jobs and tasks. Many leaders believe that motivation is a key factor in keeping employees on a path to achievement in the workplace. Motivation as defined by Vroom (1964) is the force impelling an employee to perform a particular action. Theories of motivation started to be developed following World War II. Prior to this time, organizations had not shown any concern or interest in the increasing of employee’s productivity because social and economic conditions were such that the demand for a workforce had been less than the supply of people willing to find work.

Work signifies an important aspect of human being’s life owing to the outcomes related with it, such as economic outcomes (salary, financial incentives), social status and fulfillment of needs. This had inspired organizational scholars to explore, what motivates one to work, leading to tremendous research on work motivation. Motivation theories can be classified through three predominant approaches (Chalofsky, 2003):

Personally I don’t think agree much with Maslow’s theory for the simple reason that as human beings we are the most complex species when it comes to behavior and breaking us down in five levels of motivation is simply unfair. We not only have numerous needs that need to be satisfied in an organization but

Motivation is what encourages us to act in a certain way and to achieve certain things in our everyday lives and is a major factor in deciding how we behave. Work motivation is especially important to managers in organizations. According to Kanfer et al (2008), work motivation is a psychological process that influences how employees allocate effort to their work. It also influences the direction, intensity and persistence of these actions. It is very important that managers motivate their employees in the workplace as having highly motivated employees can benefit the organization. Motivated employees are known to be happier at work and as a result will work harder and are less likely to leave their job. There are many different theories of motivation that managers can use to motivate employees. In this assignment I am going to discuss, in detail equity theory and goal- setting theory. I will examine the effectiveness of these theories, outline some problems associated with them an compare the theories.

We all need the motivation to get our work day started each day. According (Elbert& Griffin, 2015, p256) motivation is the set of forces that causes people to behave in certain way. However, people can be motivated in many ways and it can be in a positive or negative technique that influences on someone. In the business society we have to recognize the changes in a conduct and the motive why. There are four primary theories of motivation to encourage employees to come to work such as classical theory, early behavior theory, two-factor theory, and contemporary motivational theory.

In an organization, motivation involves ensuring the employees perform highly to achieve the organization's desired goals. Several motivational theories have been advanced as to explain workers' attitudes towards motivation. One such theory is Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory (Bauer & Erdogan, 2015). He posits that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction. These include the advancement of an employee’s career. He believed that workers were no longer just satisfied with the minimum basic salary but aimed to achieve more. Herzberg also found there are certain factors in the company that causes dissatisfaction for the employee. These include supervision, company policies, salaries and work conditions. If a business wants to motivate its employees, it should focus on satisfaction factors (Bauer & Erdogan,

The equity theory of motivation states that motivates employees if he or she is treated equally and demotivated if they are treated inequitably (Armstrong, 2007). This theory concerns employee’s perceptions of how he or she is treated in comparison to other employees. Employees who experience this theory attempts to eliminate discomfort and restore sense of fairness to the situation. Equity comparison usually occurs when managers distribute rewards, monetary incentives, or pay increases (Lombardi and Schermerhorn, Jr., 2007).

Over the past few decades, managers have realized that the motivational capacity of most organizations has a significant impact on the productivity and on the profitability of a firm. Much of the old paradigms regarding management theories have focused extensively on a single way of developing worker productivity and motivation in the firm through the