In this dissertation newspaper I am going to provide a description of inspiration, describe and explain the dissimilarities between current and traditional approaches to desire and identify and summarize all motivation ideas including content, process and reinforcement theories. I am going to explore just how motivation influences performance and explore ways in which professionals can create a feeling of meaning and importance for employees of their working environment.
ACKNOWLEGMENTS
In this paragraph I have the need to communicate my deepest appreciation to all the individuals who in a single way or another contributed in the gathering of information and successful completing of the dissertation newspaper.
First of most I would like to give thanks to my tutor please condition the name of your teacher, whose continuous advising and guiding has offered me riches of knowledge and support throughout my years of study.
I would also prefer to thank my internship and at the time work supervisor, for displaying me that theory can be put into practice and although there might be difficulties in applying academic theories, results compensate for all your effort that is devote these activities.
Last but not least I would like to thank my parents that offered me the opportunity to continue my studies as of this academic level and have supported my efforts, both morally and financially, throughout all my years of study.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Motivation is not a new managerial or leader's tool. It's been used for years and therefore lots of motivation ideas exist, current and traditional ones. However applying motivational theories in practice makes us run into difficulties which have to do with each individual staff. Personality, needs and goals are factors to use in mind before applying any motivational theory to a group of employees in order to ensure that excellent results with are based on this work.
Daily change makes its appearance due to either market switches or technological successes. Every industry faces changes and in most cases mature employees become outdate and reduce their production. Younger and more vigorous employees become their professionals, leaving them with no other personal goal somewhat than to wait for their pension.
So companies attended to a spot where, what used to be after the most effective part of their manpower stop producing. Even if the new employees fill up the space of the reduced production (or sales) the company still is at loss and this has to be corrected.
During this work to make a realistic and actual solution to this problem, I came across the strongest restriction I could ever encounter. Motivation, as well as all the factors it requires cannot be noticed directly. All theories and their analysis derive from the ultimate outcome of someone's activities. However our observation of that consequence makes the steps adopted previously seem rational and make sense. Nonetheless it is not before final result is measured that people actually know if the method used was the right one or the most efficient one.
So, in order to provide a solution I will present the info collected from my research and try out an evaluation that will provide a volume of proposed solutions. I can not declare that this paper includes new motivational theories and principles. However, I think that it depicts, analyzes and offers solutions to a problem of out time.
The inspiration Concept
"Motivation refers to the causes either within or external to a person that arouse passion and persistence to pursue a certain plan of action. " Richard L. Daft, 2006.
Every day, from the morning we awaken, we are involved into activities. We go to university, or to work, we have a certain tendencies, but it's very rare for concerning question the reason behind, us liking some activities more than others. For example why do we enjoy one class more, or certain jobs at work draw out the best of us. However our action is always determined by something.
The following desk will help us indentify what hides behind our patterns.
Model of Drive. Source Modified from Video games H. Donnely, James L. Gibson, and john M. Ivancevich, Basic principles of Managemnet, 3rd edition, p. 185, 1978, by Business Magazines, Inc.
The needs we feel rely upon our recent activity. For instance, some one who's attenting a meal event and has just consumed, may not feel hungry but yet wishes to connect and entertain. Alternatively someone who is just going back from work and experienced no meal during the day, is eager and probably does not have any mood for communal interraction until he/ she eats. So, what we wish (our goals) depends on our
approaches to gratifying our needs. Why don't we remember that the method of satisfying one's need may seem logical to the person involved, but bizarre to someone who has other must fulfill.
The next thing is to follow a certain action that will lead to reaching our goals. This work might tow different outcomes. An example may be the goal's accomplishment which gives reviews that the tendencies used to fulfill the needs is succesful. However a continious effort without success provides frustration, in which particular case the person involved may either try a new constructive behavior (actually includes new search action, goal indentification and goal-directed habit). If again numerous attempts do not be successful, psychological security is put to use, meaning that the person involved avoids considering and sense of the need even though it is not fully or by any means fulfilled.
When an objective is achieved a person received sort of incentive, that indicate that the habit followed was the correct one and is to be used again in the foreseeable future. You will find two types of rewards.
The instrinsic pay back, which derives within the individual included and has do more with the sense of self fulfillment. As well as the extrinsic prize, which is distributed by one third person a supervisor or supervisor and could be a promotion, or reward. Both types of rewards are important for an employee. Successful professionals help their workers reach their intrinsic reward, and will be offering them extrinsic rewards too. It has been observed that the most innovating and high performance employees will be the ones that find pay back in the work itself.
It is merely natural to summarize, enen though studies have also proven it so, that employee motivaton contributes to powerful nad increases output and earnings.
motivation approaches
There are four inspiration techniques and the professionals form the way they use determination and rewards corresponding the motivation approach they choose to follow.
The Traditional Approach
Frederic W. Taylor was the first who examined employee motivation to be able to increase their work efficiency. The rewards of this approach are just financial. The staff is paid more matching the to quality and level of the task produced.
The Human Relationships Approach
The human learning resource approach takes a step further that the traditional approach. For the very first time employees were examined as people and professionals attempted to provide rewards that protected communal needs as well, which appeared more important that monetary rewards.
The Human Learning resource Approach
This way brings both previous contacted to a new level. This theory actually identifies employees as sophisticated human beings that may be motivated in more than one way. Based on the human resource methodology, working a vital activity for every person. This is actually the basis of the modern-day approach.
The Modern day Approach
Three types of ideas dominate the modern approach. The content theories explain the employees' needs and help managers identify them and match them in the working environment. Process ideas are focused on the habit the employees adopt in order to reach rewards within the work place. The third and final will be the reinforcement ideas that concentrate on how employees will be trained into a certain kind of behavior, within their working environment that will lead them to the desired result and so the compensation as well.
Content theories on motivation
Understanding what motivates employees is a key facet of management and can assist in achieving high performance specifications and organizational development. Content ideas seek to identify what people need at the job and additionally that they try to meet these needs. Professionals need to understand all of the needs employees are trying to fulfill and design work in such way concerning help them fulfill these needs but at the same time reach organizational goals as well.
So, this theory focuses on the needs that drive employees. People have all sorts of needs, at onetime or another, from basic needs such as food and clothing to achievement and money rewards. Content ideas help identify the needs that become motivators and make people choose behaviors that will lead them to accomplish these needs. So, all management must do is to create jobs that will meet theses needs and promote desired work behaviors.
The Hierarchy of Needs Theory
Developed by Abraham Maslow, the hierarchy of needs theory may be the most famous theories and identifies that folks have multiple needs which are put in hierarchical order.
According to Maslow individuals needs form a pyramid, at the bottom of the pyramid are most basic human being needs, also is aware of are physiological needs. They entail eating food, drinking water, breathing air. Within a working environment these needs signify salary to ensure success as well working condition up to sufficient warmth and air supply.
Just above will be the protection needs that represent the needs for a safe and secure environment. Following are the belongingness needs and they are the need of feeling part of a group, having good relationships with other co employees and generally being accepted as a team member.
Then come the esteem needs that mainly have to do with receiving identification and positive attention, being loved and determined by receiving compliment, promotion and much more responsibilities. Last come the personal actualization needs that symbolize the need for personal fulfillment. In a organization self applied actualization is come to when employees are provided with opportunities for growth, creativity and training.
According to Maslow the needs at the base of the pyramid must be met, prior to the one at the very top are satisfied. Once one level of needs is satisfied then the person seeks to fulfill the next in hierarchy degree of needs.
The ERG Theory
The ERG theory is "an adjustment of the needs hierarchy that proposes three categories of need: life, relatedness and progress. " (Richard L. Daft, 2006). This theory was developed by Clayton Alderfer that actually revised Maslow's theory.
He simplified the needs and set the tree below categories:
Existence needs, will be the needs of physical wellness including food, normal water, air, heat, safe practices etc.
Relatedness needs, are the needs to have marriage with others.
Growth needs, are needs that emphasis mainly on someone's development.
This theory also suggest that when an employee fails to satisfy a higher level need, as the need of personal progress, then turns back and focuses on an already fulfilled need, as the need to earn more money.
This theory points out why companies are working so hard in order to find ways to show acknowledgement and encourage involvement of employees in decision making. Associated with that employees that add ideas and feel appreciated feel valued, devoted and motivated. Additionally it is important to note that when an employee's idea is really integrated the positive have an effect on of motivation influences not only the worker involved but the complete employees, that sees expect their work to be regarded and loved as well.
It is also important to notice, at this time that other activities such as offering job overall flexibility enhance inspiration within organizations. Such activities include telecommunicating, flexible time, and job sharing, permits employees to have significantly more control over their work and responsibility because of its organization. Job overall flexibility is considered an important gain which makes employees more focused on the business they help. Also companies have attempted to make employees feel that there is connectivity between their personal and working life, by seeking to add the element of fun at work, making less strict guidelines and making work something more pleasant and personal.
The Two-Factor Theory
The two-factor theory was developed by Frederic Herzberg, who after interviewing large numbers of employees figured there are two factors that effect work motivation.
The first group of factor is also called hygiene factors. Are the factors that produce an employee unhappy, but not dissatisfied with the working environment. They include work condition, repayment and interpersonal romantic relationships. When the cleanliness factors are low then your employee is much more likely to be dissatisfied. It's important to note that good health factors only remove dissatisfaction, but do not provoke satisfaction.
The second group of factors are called motivators. They are mainly focused on the higher degree of needs, such as popularity, achievement, personal development and responsibility. The lack of motivators causes, with good health factors cause natural feeling towards work.
The conclusion of this theory is very interesting. It demonstrates dissatisfaction and satisfaction for your work result from totally different factors. So professionals need to properly focus their efforts towards both factors to be able to have not only, not dissatisfied employees, but also motivated ones that increase their performance.
Acquired Needs Theory
According to David McClelland, some needs people acquire throughout their life time. These needs are not at the foundation of Maslow's pyramid of needs and people are not delivered with them, but rather learn to have them. More specifically these needs are:
The dependence on Achievement.
The dependence on Affiliation
The dependence on Power
Life activities are responsible for the acquisition of such needs. After 20 years of review McClelland concluded that people with high needs for accomplishment are mainly business people, while people that have high need of affiliation make good coordinators and build good working romantic relationships. People that have high need of ability are most probably the methods to choose pathways that will cause them to managerial positions.
PRocess ideas on motivation
Process theories of motivation seek to comprehend the complex marriage between the many variable that motivation consists of. Managers need to comprehend what initiates habit, and exactly how it is directed and sustained.
There are two main process ideas. The collateral and the expectancy theory.
Equity Theory
The collateral theory is " the process theory that focuses on individuals' perceptions of how quite they are cared for relative to others" (Richard l Daft, 2006).
J. Stacy Adams, who developed the idea, claims that people are encouraged by seeking social equity. If people believe they are compensated around others for a member of family equal contribution, then they would feel that they are quite treated. To be able for people to measure equity they use a ration of inputs (that are work, education, experience and capacity) to outputs (that are acknowledgement, payment, offers and benefits). Collateral is achieved when one's person's ration equals another's person's ratio. Within an operating environment that inequity is recognized there is pressure and a strive to bring equity back.
The methods most commonly used to improve inequity are:
Change inputs. For instance a person that is overpaid may increase work while a personal that is underpaid may lower it.
Change outcomes. For instance a worker or a union may request a raise or better working conditions to be able to equal input with output, relatively to better paid employees.
Distort perception In such instances, people artificially believe and make others think that their job position is more important than it truly is, or that someone else's benefits are not so important as they might sound. This brings a delusional balance.
Leave the job. For example individuals who feel that there is no collateral will seek another working environment that is more well balanced.
Expectancy Theory
According to the expectancy theory, determination be based upon individual's targets about their ability to perform responsibilities and get desired rewards. It is concerned with the thinking process people use in order to be rewarded. Predicated on individual effort and performance it entails the following:
Whether your time and effort which will be put into an activity will lead to the required performance level.
Whether the successful performance provides the desired outcome.
Whether the worthiness of the results is highly respected by the staff as well.
High expectancy and high respected outcome brings about high motivation, in any other case drive level is low. So actually this model theory is not worried about the needs people have and exactly how they become motivators. It focuses on they way employees think in order to attain rewards. Since each staff is a personal with different personality, their goals varies as well and seek to fulfill different needs.
This personalization of needs brings implications for management. Because the goal of the management team is to help employees meet their own goals but at exactly the same time meet up with the company's goals as well, professionals need to make certain that personal talents match the work demands and at the same time that each employee is given the time, equipment and support needed to reach the goals establish.
The Goal Setting Theory
It has been seen that employees appear to be more motivated when specific goals are given to them to attain. The goal needs to be specific, attainable and accepted by the employees. The very last and one of the main components of his theory is responses. Performance feedback is essential to be able to support desired work patterns, though determination.
According to Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, who came up with this theory, goal setting increases motivation since it helps employees focus on their energy and work towards one direction. Concern is another key motivator, when asked to attain difficult goals, that drives employees into putting in more effort to attain their goal accomplishment.
Reinforcement ideas on motivation
The encouragement theory does not involve approaches based on the needs and means of thinking about the employees. It is merely based on the partnership between patterns and outcomes.
The rules of affect is what rules over this theory. A behavior that is compensated is commonly repeated when a behavior that is punished tends to be corrected. So an optimistic reinforcement, is a nice rewarding for an employee's working habit and may consist of praise, advertising, more responsibility, work versatility, social acknowledgement. This tool of reinforcement theory demonstrates non financial incentives are actually as powerful as the financial ones.
Another tool is negative reinforcement, that mainly suggests that a negative consequences will minimize after the desired tendencies is adopted. Abuse is another tool that shows that an undesirable working tendencies suffers results, however this tools does not point out the required or "correct" behavior, since it provide only negative type to the staff. The last encouragement tool is extinction, that involves the withdrawal of positive rewards such as praises, pay increases.
Reinforcement Schedules
There are five basic types of reinforcement schedules, according to that your timing and rate of recurrence of support have the required impact on employees.
Continuous encouragement is one method, suggesting that each and every time the desired tendencies occurs it is strengthened. This strategy is especially effective in the first stages of learning desired working conducts.
Partial reinforcement shows that positive encouragement occurs only following the repeating the desired behavior many times.
Motivational ideas
No uncertainty, we 're going through some turbulent times. Organizations seek ways to increase performance and by employing new, young and highly ambitious employees, that are highly motivated to attain new, increased sales and production goals. They sit as professionals of older employees with important experience and understand how.
So from the main one hand we have highly motivated young managers and on the other we've low motivated older employees. What goes on to them is that the seconds weary in their job and somewhat complete their time, until retirement. The loss for the organization is greater than suspected, because the under fruitful employees, apart from their own efficiency, influence the productivity of their whole group or team.
Their behavior derives from the lack of motivation. The brand new, young and inexperienced employees are put to positions above the elderly people, getting the same or higher payment. This an obvious case of inequity, that influences the performance of the once best performers are constantly under accomplishing even though they know they still have too much to offer. A good manager should make an effort to keep thoughts of equity in balance in order to keep the entire labor force motivated.
Empowerment
Empowering visitors to meet higher needs is an excellent way where management can provide motivation. Inside our circumstance of the senior workers empowerment would mean power posting, and even if new and more youthful employees were put in managerial positions, authority could be shared with senior employees. This way, the managerial job description would be a little modified, however senior employees wouldn't normally be hostile into the junior managers and would try to work together with them as a team. This is also a way for the mature employees to put themselves on the test and check if they could, within the current market conditions, lead their team to successful results. These employees already know the can execute a good job and so empowerment at this stage only releases a drive that already is accessible. Employee empowerment entail four elements that need to get to employees to allow them to have the ability and attain their job.
Information. Employees acquire all information about company performance. Usage of the business's financial and functional information gives the feeling of power and importance to the worker.
Knowledge. Training programs are placed mutually, made accessible to all employees, making sure that everyone gets the knowledge required to contribute to organizational performance but also match the need of personal growth.
Power. Employees have the energy to make substantive decisions, influencing organization performance, within personal directed work clubs.
Reward. Employees are compensated based on the companies performance. This kind of praise inspires more team work and operates as a very powerful motivator.
Giving Meaning to Work
Another way to motivate employees is to help them identify intrinsic rewards from their own work. For instance regarding the senior employees, let them give talk to seminars for new management trainees also to speak and lead trainings at meetings on district professionals, aiding them fulfill high level esteem and do it yourself actualization needs. Mentoring interactions could also be allowed to help for the same path.
Another way to provide meaning to the task for the mature employees could be to put them in organizations that keep close communication and make sure they are compete on real results.
Using these techniques and actions will help senior employees feel reputed, respected, important and empowered within the business, shooting their motivation and thus their performance to the sky.
conclusion
Now that we have meticulously seen what motivation is and how it is applied it's time to answer fully the question of how will motivation actually impact performance.
Traditional and modern day motivation ideas as analyzed before suggest that there's a strong hyperlink between motivation and performance. That which we actually need to do is to comprehend the type of motivation. An individual staff may question the motivation theory, by simply asking "Why should I perform harder?".
Is there cement evidence that inspiration is linked to performance? In order to answer this question we need to look to this issue from another perspective. Since motivation and the factors involved with it, can't be directly witnessed and it is only the final result that can be evaluated, let us observe what happens to performance in the lack of any determination activity. Taking in mind the content theories of drive there are obvious hygiene factors, such as working conditions, repayment and basic safety, that if not fulfilled will lead to extremely low performance.
Accordingly factors such inequity or rare encouragement also show an extremely low performance level. Nonetheless it is very hard to expect worker behavior to check out a certain routine and also hard to suggest from what extend a every year or semi annual appraisal will ensure that desired working patterns is achieved on a regular basis.
The role of the manager nowadays is never to control the labor force but more to determine the environment where the workforce will learn, contribute and increase. Their role also contains channeling employee motivation toward the success of organizational goals, by causing the best out of every employee's unique skills, talents, hobbies and needs.
