Theories Of Employee Motivation Essay Explores Factors That Drive Employees.

Find some published examples (from journal articles and eBooks) about student motivation in primary schools, such as:

1. In primary schools, teachers need to motivate different students in different ways. The effectiveness of this approach was explored in a qualitative study of primary teachers 
2. New teachers benefit from training in student motivation so Education QLD has implemented a training program 
3. When faced with a challenging task, highly-motivated students will tackle it head on whereas less motivated students might avoid it.

Expectancy theory of motivation

Motivation can be described as the reason behind the actions of the people, their needs as well as their desires. Motivation acts as a direction to a specific behavior in an individual. This direction may be triggered by an individual or other such events which may be classified as an extrinsic motivation or it may come from within an individual which may be known as an intrinsic motivation (Abbah 2014). The motivation which is provided to a person may be considered to be a crucial reason why a person is inspired to move forward.

However, motivation is a wide topic and cannot be limited to one work domain or a sector. For this reason, the focus of this essay will primarily lie on the concept of employee motivation whereby the tool of motivation in the workplace and the manner in which it is used to influence the different employees will be analyzed. The essay will critically analyze three theories of work place motivation and relate them to practical examples.

 Concept of Employee motivation

Employee motivation can be rightfully described as a set of factors which can influence an employee at a workplace to pursue certain goals and objectives. It causes an employee to act in a particular manner. According to Ahmad et al. (2014), the concepts of extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation are used by the employers to motivate their employers.

On one hand extrinsic motivation is primarily based on punishments and rewards whereas the intrinsic motivation is based on the motivation of an employee which comes from within an individual and motivates them to perform well and enjoy their work. In order to understand the concept of employee motivation in the workplace in a better manner, the following section will be discussing three theories related to the concept of motivation at the workplace and equate it with relevant examples and concepts (Facer Jr et al. 2014).

Theories of Employee Motivation

Expectancy theory of motivation

The expectancy theory of Vroom is a motivational theory which is based on the assumption that the behavior of an individual tends to result from the conscious choices which are made among the alternatives. The primary motivate of these alternatives are to maximize the pleasure at the workplace and to minimize the pain. According to Vroom, the performance of an employee is largely based on the skills, personality and abilities of the different employees and that to increase the performance of the employees the variables of expectancy, instrumentality and Valence can be rightfully used.

Application to the workplace

Expectancy

The expectancy can be described as a belief that an increased effort shall lead to a better performance. According to Ganta (2014), his effort may be from the side of the employee or from the side of an employer. However, there are various factors which have an impact on the expectancy which are the resources will are available in the organization, the right kind of skills as present to conduct the job tactfully and the organizational support. Kuranchie-Mensah and Amponsah-Tawiah (2016) state that the expectancy can work well if the environment is conducive.

Instrumentality

The instrumentality can be rightfully described as a belief which states that in cases where the employee tends to work well the outcome of the organization will be good.  This simply leads to a direction that the degree to which a first outcome is reached will lead to a second outcome (Shields et al. 2015). This is affected by the factors that the relationship between the performance and the outcomes must be clearly understood. Secondly, there must exist a trust in the decision makers and lastly, the organizational processes must be highly placed on transparency in order to support the trust in an organization.

Valence

The valence can be described as the importance placed on the expected outcome. In order to ensure that the valence is positive, the outcome must be attained.

Application to the workplace

The Vroom`s expectancy theory is highly based on perceptions whereby it is believed that if an employer thinks that all necessary information and scenario have been provided , it does not mean that the outcome will be successful or the scenario will work for them. According to Lau and Roopnarain (2014), the theory is applicable in a traditional attitude work situation where the degree to which an employee is motivated depends on the fact whether they require a reward and the efforts will lead to the reward. In addition to this, it needs to be mentioned that the room`s expectancy theory of motivation is not based on self-interest but the association of the employee with the expected outcomes and their efforts.

Various organizations make use of this theory in order to motivate the employees whereby it is defined that a certain reward is set for the employees and they are made to believe that in order to achieve the reward, they need to achieve an outcome which leads to the reward. Lazaroiu (2015) states that this reward is generally monetary in nature.  In order to enhance the performance of the employees, the managers should use systems which closely link rewards to the performance. However, in needs to be ensured that rewards need to be linked to the desire of the recipients.   Hence, at the workplace, the people change their value of the efforts based on the value they place on the bonus.  They can provide training to the employees.

Job characteristics model

Job characteristics model

The next theory which can be rightfully discussed is the job characteristics theory. The theory is based on the work design. The particular theory provides a set of principles, the implementation of which can help the company in performing well. Previously a model of five core job characteristics were provided whereby the features like skill variety which means that a job requires a particular set of skills and talents which state that the job will be more meaningful in nature, task significance which means the degree to which the job affects others life , autonomy refers to the dree to which the job tends to provide autonomy to the different employees, feedback which is received and tends to.

provide improvement aspects to the employees and the task identity which means the degree to which a job requires a job holder to identity and complete a particular work with a specific outcome. According to Lazaroiu (2015), these characteristics affect the five work related outcomes of satisfaction, motivation, absenteeism, turnover and performance. The three psychological states are experienced responsibility, meaningfulness and the knowledge of the results.

The job characteristics theory can be applied in the workplace by the employers to ensure that the employees work well. According to Shahzadi et al. (2014), the HR managers at a workplace should be seen to it that the employees for a particular job comprise of the five different characteristics so that they can easily achieve the five work related objectives.

Motivating and Hygiene Factors-Herzberg’s Theory

The third crucial theory related to employment and workplace is the Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory. This theory was developed by Frederick Herzberg who being a psychologist aimed to find the correlation between the attitude of the employees at the workplace and the motivation. He developed the two factor theory which is based on the underlying assumption that the two different set of factors which influence the motivation as present in the workplace. These two factors are the hygiene factors and the motivating factors. According to Norton et al. (2015).

the hygiene factors can be rightfully described as those factors which state as factors which cause dissatisfaction at the workplace and are extrinsic to the organization. These factors primarily relate to the compensation, working conditions, job security and relationships between the different levels of managers. Herzberg states that these factors do not motivate the employees however, if these factors are missing, they may lead to a sense of dissatisfaction in the organization. For instance, if the there is a good working environment it might not have a good influence on the workforce but in case the work environment is negative it may have a negative impact on the workforce.

Motivating and Hygiene Factors-Herzberg’s Theory

The next set of factors are the motivators or the satisfiers. These factors are linked to employee motivation which is a result of the intrinsic motivation which is provided to the various employees or depend on the candidate themselves. Miner (2015), states that these factors which lead to a satisfaction at the workplace include factors like responsibility, recognition, opportunities for growth and achievement. Hence, according to this theory, the organization needs to ensure that to improve the employee motivation in a workplace.

the factors leading to dissatisfaction need to be reduced and that the factors leading to satisfaction needs to be improved. It has to be understood that the presence of a satisfier will not remove a dis-satisfier and that their individual factors will have an adequate impact. According to Shields et al. (2015), a manager needs to ensure that he is able to provide sufficient hygiene factors so that the satisfiers can be built and he employees are motivated.

 Conclusion

Therefore, from the analysis, it can be rightfully stated that the employee motivation plays a critical role in an organization and in order to achieve success in the long run any company the different managers need to ensure that they are successfully able to employ these employee motivation theories which will then assure that the work performance in the workplace improves and the overall productivity of the organization improves in the long run.

References

Abbah, M.T., 2014. Employee motivation: The key to effective organizational management in Nigeria. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 16(4), pp.01-08.

Ahmad, F., Abbas, T., Latif, S. and Rasheed, A., 2014. Impact of transformational leadership on employee motivation in telecommunication sector. Journal of management policies and practices, 2(2), pp.11-25.

Facer Jr, D.C., Galloway, F., Inoue, N. and Zigarmi, D., 2014. Creation and initial validation of the motivation beliefs inventory: Measuring leaders’ beliefs about employee motivation using four motivation theories. Journal of Business Administration Research, 3(1), p.1.

Ganta, V.C., 2014. Motivation in the workplace to improve the employee performance. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences, 2(6), pp.221-230.

Kuranchie-Mensah, E.B. and Amponsah-Tawiah, K., 2016. Employee motivation and work performance: A comparative study of mining companies in Ghana. Journal of industrial Engineering and Management, 9(2), pp.255-309.

Lau, C.M. and Roopnarain, K., 2014. The effects of nonfinancial and financial measures on employee motivation to participate in target setting. The British accounting review, 46(3), pp.228-247.

Lazaroiu, G., 2015. Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, 14, p.97.

Lazaroiu, G., 2015. Work motivation and organizational behavior. Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice, 7(2), p.66.

Miner, J.B., 2015. Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge.

Norton, T.A., Parker, S.L., Zacher, H. and Ashkanasy, N.M., 2015. Employee green behavior: A theoretical framework, multilevel review, and future research agenda. Organization & Environment, 28(1), pp.103-125.

Shahzadi, I., Javed, A., Pirzada, S.S., Nasreen, S. and Khanam, F., 2014. Impact of employee motivation on employee performance. European Journal of Business and Management, 6(23), pp.159-166.

Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., Johns, R., O'Leary, P., Robinson, J. and Plimmer, G., 2015. Managing employee performance & reward: Concepts, practices, strategies. Cambridge University Press.