Literature Review: Effect of Employee Motivation
on productivity in an organisation
Employee Motivation
Organisations require a number of resources, strategies and techniques in order to succeed. From capital, to a business site and to employees, all of these are essential for a business to work. While these components are significant, values, particularly motivation, is also recognised as a vital business element, especially in enabling organisational transformation and enhancement. Motivation permits the business owners and employees to be resourceful, responsible and productive in performing daily business tasks, which in turn helps in uniting the business with its consumers. By means of motivating the employees, managers are able to encourage them to work towards a common goal. This business principle also helps the employees to become more productive, enabling enhancement and transformation to place.
According to Creech (1995), motivation is typically defined by psychologists as a stimulation that causes the creation of aroused, sustained and directed behavior. This behavior in turn leads individuals to work and perform towards goal achievement. Several authors had also studied on the principal concept behind motivation. Kreitner (1995) for instance, has defined motivation as the psychological process that results to a directional and purposeful behavior. Motivation is also defined as the tendency to behave in an appropriate manner to attain certain needs (Buford, Bedeian & Lindner, 1995).
The introduction of several researches on employee motivation has also introduced a number of theories explaining the factors that motivate employees. These theories include the need-hierarchy theory and the two-factor theory. The need-hierarchy theory of Maslow (1943) is among the first motivation theories that had been introduced. In this theoretical model, Maslow noted five levels of employee needs, which include the physiological, social, ego, safety and self-actualising needs. From his work, Maslow is a challenging process and that motivation basically works through a series of needs that are arranged in a certain level. Hersberg on the other hand (Hersberg, Mausner & Snyderman, 1959) had classified motivation into two factors. These two factors are motivators and hygienes. Intrinsic or motivator factors pertain to recognition, achievement and attainment of job satisfaction. Alternatively, extrinsic or hygiene factors refer to job security and payments.
Based from these theoretical perspectives, it is clear that employees would have to receive something in return in order to encourage them to work productively towards transformation and enhancement. There are many specific ways on how the theories of motivation can be applied in actual work settings. Granting due promotion is one example. Benham (1993) stated that promotion is also synonymous to career success where employees are given higher responsibilities or place on higher authority levels. Promotion is considered an important element of human resource management as it encourages employees to perform with quality. This also represents a significant aspect of the internal selection system. The organisational members’ affective reactions towards their job and to the company are also influenced significantly based on their promotional opportunities (Johnston et al., 1993). As explained by the theories of Maslow and Hersberg, motivation can help in drawing out the best each employee can provide; this can be achieved by promotion.
Another means of applying the theories of motivation is through the employment of business coaches, a role which managers themselves can play. Similar to sports, a business coach helps in making the business grow and succeed. The business coach is one who serves as the mentor, counselor and tutor of an organisation. They are very much related to motivations theories as they act as inspirations for the employees to improve and remain challenged (Halle, 1999). According to Nyman and Thach (2002), business coaching can be done through holistic coaching, performance coaching, content coaching or through manager as coach. Furthermore, the process can be done in various setting such as one-on-one coaching, focus group coaching or organisational coaching.
Halle (1999) noted that business coaching has a number of significant purposes in the organisation, particularly in relation to transformation and enhancement. For instance, this technique helps in motivating the employees, especially when problems or issues arise. Through business coaches, the essence of teamwork is emphasised. Moreover, by providing polite criticisms to the employees, they are able to realise their weak points, resulting to developed and more efficient workers.
The ability of business coaches to guide the employees also helps in bringing about transformation in their working skills and performance; this transformation occurs as business coaches stimulate the workers to search for new skills and methods that would help them cope with various business challenges. Business coaches also help in identifying the strong points of the workers and assist in enhancing them further. Business coaching is also related to the enhancement factor as it utilises the concept of constant evaluation. By monitoring both the strengths and weaknesses of the employees, business coaches are able to send in the right feedbacks to each employee, which would allow for continuous enhancement in their skills and work attitudes (Halle, 1999).
References:
Benham, P 1993, ‘Developing Organizational Talent: The Key to Performance and Productivity’, SAM Advanced Management Journal, vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 34+.
Buford, JA, Jr., Bedeian, AG, & Lindner, JR 1995, Management in Extension, 3rd edn, Ohio State University Extension, Columbus, Ohio.
Creech, R 1995, ‘Employee Motivation’, Management Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 33+.
Halle, R 1999, ‘Coaching in a teaming environment’, Program Manager, (March-April), p. 38.
Johnston, M et al 1993, ‘An exploratory investigation into the relationships between promotion and turnover: a quasi-experimental longitudinal study’, Journal of Management, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 33-49.
Kreitner, R 1995, Management, 6th edn, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
Maslow, AH 1943, ‘A theory of human motivation’, Psychological Review, (July), pp. 370-396.
Morgan, G 1997, Images of Organization, Sage Publications Thousand Oaks, CA.
Nyman, M & Thach, L 2002, ‘Coaching as a new leadership development option’, SuperVision, vol. 63, no. 9, pp. 3-6.
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