Discuss The View That There Is No One Ideal Method To Motivate Staff, Because Everyone Is Different.

1. Introduction

Motivation as defined by Professor Herzberg, is the will to work due to enjoyment of the work itself. Others think of motivation as the desire to achieve a result (Marcouse, I., 2007, P218). Obviously motivation plays a significant role in the human resource process. Personally, I think motivation also can be reflected as the restriction or the satisfaction according to people’s demand and desire.

Motivation theory means the writings of industrial psychologists and sociologists which shed light on the factor determining the satisfaction and motivation of employees. The ideas can be divided into two parts: �needs’ theory and �expectancy’ theory (Wall, N., 2000, P183). There are mainly five types of motivation theories: Maslow and hierarchy of needs, Elton Mayo and the human relations approach, McGregor’s theory, Herzbery’s two factory theory, as well as Taylor and scientific management.

With the dramatically increased economic globalization and then improvement of people’s living standards, a multitude of changes have taken place in our daily life. In this day and age, people and most of the companies face fierce competition and suffer from great pressure. In order to improve the productivity which is a measurement of the efficiency with which a firm turns production inputs into output (Wall, N., 2000, P217), make profits and possess more market share, motivating staff correctly is getting more and more important to the business organizations. Motivating employees therefore become a key issue for most managers and they nowadays are inclined to pay more attention on this issue so that can achieve a high level of performance and productivity.

Ample evidence shows that the productivity of every person in the firm depends centrally on their level of motivation. There are a variety of methods, including single way and mixed way can be used to motivate staff, some people hold the opinion that there is definitely no one ideal method to motivate staff because everyone is different and different employees need different motivation., whereas others enthusiastically advocate that there is a proper way to motivate staff no matter how different staffs are. In this essay, I am aiming to find out the causes and effect of the cons and pros of this issue and analyse the factors of both points of view.

2. Discussion

2.1. Analyse the characteristics of motivation

From my point of view, there are some characteristics of motivation should be considered. Firstly, the motivation can be seen as an external factor which is made on people and make those staff generate their real desires to concentrate on the jobs. For instance, if a company would like to reach its target, the manager would like to devise a way to motivate staff and make them have passion and motivation to do their word hardly. Because of the motivation, people would transfer the thoughts from �I need to do’ to �I want to do’ and that might be the actual essence of the motivation.

Moreover, I think the same power of the motivation could have different effects because of the different people. Although the power of the motivation might have a positive relationship with the person who are motivated, people’s attitudes and personalities would be a vital factor.

Furthermore, people’s motivation is variable which could also be changed at any time. Thus, managers could use some proper methods to control and regulate towards the relevant people in the appropriate time. To make matters better, if companies could find out what the staff need and their purpose of working, it is possible to have an ideal method to motivate them generally.

2.2. Analyse the functions of motivation

As we know, motivation can be an effective way to develop human resource. First and foremost, it could enhance employees’ confidence and develop their positive attitudes towards their work. According to a survey conducted by Professor William James from the University of Harvard, it can be easily for employees to keep their work if they just develop 20%~30% of their personal abilities, whereas they can develop 80%~90% of their abilities if they are motivated greatly. Sometimes, when companies is facing crisis, they might be firstly think about the improvement of the equipment and working condition, however, it might be turned out the completely different if managers could motivate more promising staffs. Therefore, if a person with a high qualification but lack of motivation, he might not have good performance while he might make a great contribution to the company if he was motivated but with common ability.

Secondly, great motivation can improve the quality of the staff. I believe that prize and punishment should belong to the way of motivation. As McGregor said, Theory Y managers believe staff putting effort into work as natural as play or rest and they want to shoulder more responsibilities. So, manager should prize to those who are working hard, such as empowerment. Empowerment means having more power and control over your working life. Empowered staff not only has the authority to manage a task, but also some scope to decide what that task should be (Marcouse, I., 2007, P227). It may cause greater risks being taken, but also cause opportunities being identified and exploited so that it should definitely aid motivation. Giving punishment to those who would avoid responsibility and have little ambition is also important because it can set an example to deter the other staff. Theory X managers believe staffs like this kind of people and therefore the managers tend to be autocratic to control and force, even punish these staff.

In addition, the whole organization could be encouraged to get together by those motivational people. Some surveys suggest that personal motivation can lead to motivate the whole group of people. That is to say, motivation could form a competitive atmosphere among the staff which might influence the organization largely. A typical case is happened in a post office in America. An employee bought air ticket and brought a special mail to the customer’s home in 24 hours after he found this mail is missed. The company gave the favourable reward to him afterwards because of his responsibility and he became a model that every staff would simulate. Great cohesive force therefore was gained and the company’s reputation got a remarkable improvement.

2.3. Opponents

Motivation