Employee Motivation

 

"Your Employees Are Your Company's Real Competitive Advantage. They're The Ones Making The Magic Happen - so Long As Their Needs are Being Met - Richard Branson"

Introduction

Definition of Employee

In simple language, an employee is an individual who was hired by an employer to do a specific job

 

Definition of Motivation

Motivation is a psychological force within an individual that sets him in motion for achievement of certain goals or satisfaction of certain needs (Manisha Pillai, IJRASET 2020). Psychologists assumes that if we can bracket what motivates a person, we can understand the person. It is the zeal that gives them the stability to get up and keep progressing even when things are not in their favour (Deci and Ryan,1985).

Motivation is the force that energizes, directs and sustains behavior. High performance is achieved by well-motivated people who are prepared to exercise discretionary effort, ie independently do more than is expected of them. (Armstrong, M., 2017). 

  

Employee Motivation 

Is one of the vital, in fact, the most significant success factors of all private and public organizations. Motivated employees play a key role in driving towards achieving their personal goals, organizational goals and to a certain magnitude the success of their nations.

 

It is therefore important to understand what motivates an employee to work better for the overall benefits of the organization. At different stages of the employee cycle, their expectations, satisfactions, and motivational factors may widely vary (Hierarchy of needs Maslow, 1954).

 

Figure 1. depict a clear correlation between employee expectations, years of service and their job and overall satisfaction levels.

Figure 1 . (Adapted from Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs,1954) 

 

Extrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic rewards are usually financial and are the tangible rewards that organizations provide employees, such as salary, bonuses, promotions, and benefits (Singh, 2016). Since they are majorly financial it is external to the task itself and external bodies control its size and whether it is awarded.  

 

During the early stages of employment (1~2 years), employees are more likely motivated by extrinsic rewards. They are mostly looking for fair pay, job security, how to fit into the organizational culture, learn to do what’s assigned, build trust among the team. Therefore, organizations won’t see much of expectations coming from new hires during this period. 

 

The more time an employee stays with an employer, the more their expectations become. They tend to look for extended extrinsic rewards such as salary increase, bonuses for merit bases, compensatory time off, subsidized meals, company paid health insurance, employer pension, travel allowances and employee profit sharing. 

 

It is therefore vital for employers to establish a key matrix to understand what employee expectations are and how to properly evaluate and reward them. Saari and Judge (2004) pointed out that rewards are important for staff acquisition and retaining its staff and, (Puwanenthiren, 2011) highlighted that the reward system should comprises all organization components - people, process, rules, and decision-making activities involved in the allocation of compensation and benefits to employees in exchange for their contribution to the organization.

 

Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is a level of personal accomplishment an employee feels because of completing an assigned job well. The intrinsic reward occurs when an employee is given a higher authority to make clear cut decisions, handed more hard tasks or attains a higher position within the company hierarchy (Jacobsen & Thorsvik, 2002)

 

Intrinsic reward systems encourage employees to take pride in their work, empower employees to take on more responsibility, promotes overall sense of teamwork. Employees are motivated mostly motivated by non-monetary incentives such as recognition, flexibility of work, reward and personal wellbeing.  Motivational levels within the workplace will have a direct impact on efficiency, productivity, competitiveness, and profitability. 

 

It is therefore important to have a rewarding system that addresses a combination of both Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivational factors.

 

References:

Armstrong, M. (2017) Armstrong‟s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 14th edition. London, Kogan Page, P.169 

Jacobsen, D-I., Thorsvik, J. (2002) Hur Moderna Organisationer Fungerar, Lund, Student Litteratur 

Manisha Pillai - International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET), May 2020, Volume 8v, P.2932

Maslow, A (1954) Motivation and Personality, New York, Harper & Row 

Puwanenthiren, P., (2011), Reward system and its impact on employee motivation in Commercial bank of Sri Lanka Plc, in Jaffna district. Global Journal of Management and Business Research, 11(14), 32-55.

Saari, L.M., & Judge, T., A. (2004). Employee attitudes and job satisfaction. Human Resource Management. Wiley: L.J press. 

Singh, R., (2016). The Impact of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators on employee engagement in information organizations. J. of Education for Library and Information Science, 57(2), 34-44.