Work Motivation
In any organisation, people work not only for money, but also for job satisfaction and happiness. The manager has to communicate and lead and also motivate his subordinates to work. To a large extent, the success of the manager's leadership abilities depends upon his ability to motivate his people to work. Motivation is a force or an impulse which makes a man move physically and mentally to achieve certain goals. Individual motivation is very important for group motivation. Although it is true that “Money makes the mare go’’ in modern business organizations, money is not the only motivating factor and has its own limitations. Money is only a means to satisfy wants. Motivation is something beyond that. Overall, the basic perspective on motivation looks something like this:
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| Motivation |
In other words, you have certain needs or wants (these terms will be used interchangeably), and this causes you to do certain things (behavior), which satisfy those needs (satisfaction), and this can then change which needs/wants are primary (either intensifying certain ones, or allowing you to move on to other ones).
Definition
Work motivation is a process to energize employee to the work goal through a specific path.
- Process - This is not an object rather method or technique or art
- Energize - Developing inner urge to put effort on successful performance.
- Employee - Person employed to exchange his cognitive, affective and co native domains for achievement of organizational goal for salary etc. as contracted by the organization.
- Work goal - This is well defined, achievable and measurable
- Path - Specific roles and job responsibilities are measurable and related to goal achievement.
Importance of Motivation
- Employees' performance is a result of their abilities and willingness.
- If and when the employees are able, but not willing, it is necessary to motivate them.
- Motivation is the force that moves a person physically and mentally to achieve goals.
- Individual motivation plays an important role in group motivation.
- Happiness and job satisfaction are functions of not only money but also needs and drives.
- It involves (influence of the leader + ability of the followers + role perception of both).
Barriers of Work Motivation
- Attitude to employees - Considering employee as cog of the machine rather as a human system having unique needs, abilities, personality traits, values, aptitudes, skills etc.
- Work Goal - Undefined, unachievable and unmeasurable
- Path - Job responsibilities are undefined, unachievable, unmeasurable and unrelated to work goal.
- Leadership - Leadership failure in manipulation of incentives.
- Third party - Influence of informal communication systems through colleagues, unions and family members
Strategies to Overcome Barriers
- Job Analysis - More emphasis on personnel specification and regression analysis to determine weight age on job related individual characteristics.
- Human resource accounting - Accounting IQ, EQ, personality traits, aptitude profiles of each employee
- Selection - Selecting right man for right place at the right time.
- Attitude change - Employee as human system having specific needs, aptitudes, temperament, attitudes towards job and the organization
- Role clarity - Well defined job description and work roles. Introduce role drama for role understanding for both lower level employees and the managers.
- Training - Periodical training to the employees about up gradation of skills, work role analysis and to the leaders about leadership development (communication, manipulation of incentives, decision making etc.).
- Survey - Periodical survey to study level of employee satisfaction, attitude towards organizational health and their relations to individual productivity and quality of working life for organizational diagnosis.. Introduce organization development Programmes for attitude change in considering results of regression analysis.
- Work culture - Introduce quality circle, suggestion box system, and intermingle organization to the life style of the employees.
The Basic Theories of Motivation
Basically, the theories of motivation can be classified as follows:
- Traditional theory - This theory is based on Scientific Management by F W Taylor who advocated that it is the manager's prerogative to decide the quantity, quality, the method of doing jobs and the system of financial compensation for work.
- Human Relations Theory - This theory is based on the research studies of Elton Mayo and Associates at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Co. near Chicago (US), who proved that the output of employees does not depend only on extrinsic factors like working conditions alone, but also on the intrinsic factors of satisfaction of their social and psychological needs.
- The Human Resources Theory - This theory is based on the studies conducted by 20th century management experts including Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, David McClelland, Douglas McGregor, Peter Drucker, etc. who believed that people are motivated to work, not only by money alone, but also by the satisfaction of their higher order needs for authority, responsibility, achievement and meaningful work.
