Motivation Theories

Who, today, begins employment with a view to remaining in that organisation for the next five years, let alone until retirement? We are living in a time in which short-term employment and self-managed careers are the norm. Employees have taken charge of their own destiny, often moving from company to company to advance their careers, and employers are having to fight harder to keep their staff. The cost of replacing an employee has been estimated by the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD) at up to Ð'Ј15,000, depending on the experience and skills of that individual . As well as the direct costs of advertising, recruitment and training there are indirect costs such as lost production, reduced performance levels, unnecessary overtime and low morale. Therefore, it becomes obvious that people are the foundation of organisational success. However large or small a company is, it is employees at all levels that can make or break it. Without a capable and motivated workforce, an organisation will struggle to survive in today’s fiercely competitive business climate. Winning the competition for skills is the first step to winning the competition for customers.

Pinder describes work motivation as the set of internal and external forces that initiate job-related behaviour, and establish its form, direction, intensity, and duration. Work motivation is a middle-range notion that deals only with events and facts that concern people in a work context.

Motivation is connected with goal-directed behaviour. People are motivated to do something if they believe it will benefit them. The process of motivation is set off by someone recognizing an unfulfilled need. A goal is then instituted which, it is thought, will satisfy that need, and a course of action is established which is expected to lead towards the accomplishment of that goal. Therefore, management and managers motivate people by offering them means to satisfy their unsatisfied needs. A way of achieving this is by offering incentives and rewards for attainment and effort. However, the needs of individual employees and the goals that are of interest to them differ so broadly that it is difficult to predict accurately how a specific incentive or reward will influence individual behaviour.

TYPES OF MOTIVATION

Motivation at work can take a two-fold form. First, people can motivate themselves by seeking, finding and carrying out work, which satisfies their needs or at least leads them anticipating that their goals will be met. Second, management can motivate people through various methods. Armstrong describes the following two types of motivation:

пÑ"? Intrinsic Motivation: refers to factors about work which self-motivate employees to achieve certain goals. These intrinsic rewards might include having responsibility, autonomy, challenge and advancement with the organisation or chosen career.

пÑ"? Extrinsic Motivation: refers to what others do to motivate employees; this includes increases in pay, promotion and praise and also punishment and criticism.

The extrinsic motivators can have an immediate and forceful consequence, but they do not guarantee an everlasting influence. The intrinsic motivators, which are concerned with the quality of the work environment, are more likely to have a fundamental and meaningful effect because they are inherent in individuals and not forced from the outside.

MOTIVATION THEORIES

Management writers and social scientists use theories in order to make the complex world of organisations, markets and employee relationships understandable. A theory draws on evidence from research and constructs a reality, which represents the general picture of what is occurring in the economy or society. Similarly, when one examines motivation theories, must understand how reward functions in producing output from employees.

Instrumentality theory

In 1911 Frederick Taylor, the father of scientific management, stated that people only work for money. By employing a psychological background one can be based on the idea of reinforcement, that is, when behaviour receives a positive feedback it will strengthen the person’s belief that analogous behaviour will result to the same reward. It seems that at the time of the statement, Taylor’s approach expressed the ideas which suit at those times. Nevertheless, one could argue that Taylor’s scientific management symbolizes a view of employees which, even if it was correct in his time, is certainly far too simplistic for the type of work many people do in today’s time. The days of intensive human productive effort in factories are not over yet though, and the concept of Taylorism is still вЂ?used’ by many managers and employees in some industrial situations. A research conducted by Watson Wyatt revealed that money is still the most important incentive вЂ" paying more and in the right way can improve shareholder value by up to 3.7%. An opposing view, among many others is the one given by Fisher who argues that cash is the least successful way to get people to work harder or be more productive.

Modern theories of motivation can be classified as “Needs” or “Content” theories and “Process” theories. The former are concerned with “what” motivates people, what people need or want (e.g. money, affection, challenging work and leadership). The latter are concerned with how these needs translate into action, for example how two persons with the same needs could behave very differently under the same circumstances.

Needs Theories

One of the best-known “Need” theories is the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow in 1954 argued that human needs are arranged in a hierarchical order from physiological needs (food, warmth, etc) at the lowest level, through security, social, and esteem needs, to “self-actualisation” вЂ" realizing one’s full potential as a human being вЂ" at the highest level. A lower level need has to be satisfied before the higher level need would motivate. Extrinsic motivators are likely to be more effective for lower level needs; intrinsic motivators are likely to be necessary to satisfy higher level needs. This theory of Maslow seems to have a practical aspect in contemporary business environment as managers, through the use of various means, seek to satisfy some of the higher level needs of their employees.

The recognition and praise by peers and/or management is one of the higher level needs that the administration