Job Motivation

JOB MOTIVATION

Introduction

I have been with several different employees in my career, and with all of them I have gone through two similar stages of employment being;

- Why I left my previous job to take on a position with a new employer, and

- The reason I stayed with that employer over a period of time.

For this journal I want to look at what motivated my decisions to change or not to change in relation to those two particular stages in my employment.

Leaving en employer for a new position

Thoughts of leaving an existing employment usually come about when, for some reason, I am not happy with the way things are or where they are going. Such things have included a lack of stimulating tasks, few advancement prospects, deteriorating work climate, no new or expanding challenges, little or no pay raise and generally not having any fun. When one or more of these factors have been become apparent, it has led

me to start looking for employment somewhere else. Some of these factors would be considered Maintenance factors in Hertzberg's Motivation theory, such as salary and work climate, while others are more Motivational factors such as task stimulation, advancement and challenges (Reece & Brandt 2005).

Let's look at the maintenance factors first. I have come to realise that the prospect of achieving a higher salary definitely have had influence on my decision to change employer. Although the other factors are important as well, the feeling of not being adequately compensated for the work I was doing, did awaken my interest in changing scenery. The work climate at a new employer may be difficult to evaluate unless you know somebody at the potentially new employer already. However, if the current work climate has deteriorated and it would not feel as encouraging as it once used to, then that would naturally contribute to my wish to change work places. Therefore, in regards to Hertzberg's motivation model, I agree that these maintenance factors may not be a motivational factor in themselves, but the lack of their presence have led

me to look for employment elsewhere. Hence, I have then started to look for positions where I would find work responsibilities that I would enjoy, and had a salary level that I would find acceptable. In this sense, the salary level has been at least a short term motivational factor for me wanting to change jobs.

Staying with the company

With the maintenance factors in place, I have still held positions where I felt something where missing, i.e. I wasn't enjoying my employment as I would like to. This something usually resulted from a lack of stimulating tasks over time, few challenges, no real feeling of possible advancements and the lack of fun. My positions might have started out with both challenging and stimulating assignments, but over time they became repetitious and thereby somewhat tedious. If the assigned tasks did not evolve and recognised my increased experience and growing expertise in a particular area and through that development gave me a feeling of improvement and worthy of further challenges, my interest would slowly decrease. If the matter was not dealt with over time, I would start looking for other opportunities of employment. In the same way, if there was little or no prospect of advancing in the company, my desire to continue with the same employer would soon fade. Even if the salary level would increase and the work climate was good, the work itself had to feel rewarding in a non-monetary sense and enjoyable to make me want to keep working at the same place. Again, I would have to agree with Hertzberg that without the motivational factors in place, I have experienced a loss of interest in the job I was doing