Workplace Motivation Paper

PSY 320

Workplace Motivation Paper

What can be done to motivate the employees? How can I increase the productivity of the department? These are just a few of the questions many managers have asked his or herself. People are the most important asset for many organizations today. Without employees to perform a job many organizations and companies would not be able to produce a successful product. The product, however, is not the only part of the company that must be fine-tuned. A company is not truly successful until the company employee's are positively motivated to be productive, highly successful individuals. Motivating employees to meet company productivity standards can often be a challenging task. Being that every person is different, one person may be motivated in a way totally different from the other person. Management is responsible to find that specific motivating factor in each employee. This paper will examine how various motivational strategies affect productivity at Quest Diagnostics, organizational efforts made in an attempt to improve performance and the reaction from the employees.

The Front-end billing department at Quest Diagnostics has a very high demand for productive employees. This department handles the whole initial billing process for the north Florida region. Employees in this department touch the lives of thousands of patients each day. Employees need to work smart and quickly to meet the department production standards. As a way to motivate employees, management implemented an incentive program. This program is based on production levels of each individual team. The team works together to come up with an area for improvement. For example, the Miami team noticed an increase in the amount of requisitions holding due to lack of insurance information. Clearing up a large portion of these requisitions could mean a huge reduction in the amount of money holding. The team collectively decided to reduce the amount of requisitions by 1,000. If the goal were met then management would reward the team through a monetary incentive. The strategy used by management worked. Employees were motivated to reach the goal for many various reasons. For one, the monetary incentive involved gave each employee a reward to works towards, employees also felt empowered by being involved in setting the goal, and each employee did not want to let his or her teammates down. One bad apple in the bunch could mean potential failure for the team so team members worked even harder in an attempt to not let the other team members down.

Ensuring employee satisfaction within the department was another way management encouraged production. The call center at Quest Diagnostics employs over 200 representatives who each handle at least 120 calls a day. The production level has been substantially lower than the call center standards. Representatives are not attending work on time, calling in on the busiest days, placing calls on hold for long amounts of time, and not demonstrating empathy to the patients who call in. In response to the low production levels management implemented an employee satisfaction position. The employee in this position was required to raise the level of satisfied employees. Management believes that satisfied employees mean higher production levels for the call center at Quest Diagnostics. The employee satisfaction representative performed an employee survey to try and find out why employees were not satisfied with his or her job. The survey showed several areas for improvement by the department. Employees were interested in more training and development opportunities, incentive programs, and an open line of communication.

Based on the survey results management implemented training and development opportunities through a, personal development plan for each employee. The development plan gave the employee a sense of personal achievement. The team leader and employee would sit down on a monthly basis and discuss the employee's achievements and set future goals. Bi-weekly team meetings were set to discuss team issues,