The Magic of Motivation in Business Organizations – GRIN

Table of Contents

Introduction

Employee Motivation

Benefits of Motivation

Types of Motivation

Relationship between Rewards, Motivation, Performance and Employee Turnover

Theories of motivation
Instrumentalist Theories
Content Theories
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs
Cognitive Theories
Goal Theory
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory

Relationship between Motivation and Equity

Relationship between Motivation and Organizational Justice

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Motivation refers to the encouragement given to employees in order to improve their performance or accomplish specified objectives. Motivation can also be defined the power that gives the route to behavior, strengthen or trigger the tendency to work hard (Manzoor, 2012). According to Manzoor (2012), motivation refers to forces within an individual that can affect his/her intensity, persistence of voluntary behavior and intensity. Direction refers to the path while the intensity is the amount of effort allocated towards achieving a certain goal. Motivation is also an internal drive exerted to satisfy an unsatisfied need. Lack of motivation is manifested by low productivity, low morale, and high incidences of absenteeism, a high number of accidents, tiredness and increasing number of defective products. Based on the above definitions, employees must be satisfactorily energetic with cut objectives. Effective motivation must stimulate both the psychological and physiological want for certain objectives. Motivation must be able to support goal-oriented behaviors. Various theories have been developed to explain motivation in an organization. For instance, the natural versus model tries to explain whether human cognition is related to natural forces such as needs, desires, drives or any kind of rationality.

Employee Motivation

Seemingly, employee performance is influenced by many factors such as compensation, satisfaction, appraisals, training, job security and organizational structures among others. Manager are supposed to improve effectual job management among it employees. A motivated team of employees are responsive of the definite objectives, goals he/she must accomplish hence they dedicate their efforts in that direction (Manzoor, 2012). Researchers assert that provoked employees are always looking for emerging practices to do their jobs hence motivation is vital in almost all organizations. Through motivation, employees can execute their duties even under strenuous circumstances. Employee motivation is affected by several factors. Firstly, it is the desire of every employee to earn a reasonable salary and payment related to the qualification and skills of their work. Evidently, money is one of the core inducement factors. No other motivational or incentive technique comes even close to the money with respect to its influential value. Money has the supremacy to magnetize employees, motivate and maintain high performance in an organization. According to Manzoor (2012), money is the most fundamental factor in improving moral of industrial workers towards attains high levels of productivity.

Additionally, reward is another essential tool used to motivate employees. Precisely, rewards cause satisfaction and influence performances of employees. Many organizations use promotions, pay bonuses to encourage high performance and motivate individual or groups of employees. In order for an organization to use salary as the effective motivator among its employees, it must evaluate salary structures and the importance of the individual; job to the organization. Salary motivation is also influenced by performance, fringe benefits, special allowances and pensions among others factors (Abbah, 2014).

Leadership is an essential tool in realizing the success of any organization. Leaders must ensure that employees have their trust in order to execute their duties effectively. Motivated employees have high trust for their leaders and organizational structures. Essentially, followers and leaders raise one another to high levels of motivation and morality (Khan, Farooq & Ullah, 2010).

Motivation empowers employees hence fostering a sense of belonging and pride. Succinctly, motivation established Win-Win connection between employees and their organization. Senses of belonging enable employees to execute their thoughts and novelties with enthusiasm and delight (Khan, Farooq& Ullah, 2010). Thus, managers are supposed to give their employees appropriate information on sentences of their actions. Other factors that can keep workforce motivate include; joint decision making, inspiration, safe working conditions, communication and quality supervision (Khan, Farooq& Ullah, 2010). This paper analyses the impact of employee motivation in business organization, types of motivation, and how it is relates to equity and organizational justice.

Benefits of Motivation

Motivation improves the level of efficiency among the employees. Notably, the gap between an employee qualification and the willingness must be addressed in order to improve his/her performance. This will result to high productivity, low cost of operation and overall efficiency in their places of work (Khan, Farooq& Ullah, 2010).

Motivation also places human resources into action. Ideally, every concern requires financial, physical and human resources in order to accomplish their goals. Motivation ensures full utilization of human resources. This can also be achieved by developing willingness to work among the employees (Abbah, 2014). Willingness to work ensures best possible utilization of organization resources.

Motivation builds friendly relationship between employees and their organization. Managers are supposed to keep in their mind and frame incentive plan that can benefit their employees. Managers are supposed to initiate incentives such as promotion opportunities, monetary and non-monetary incentives. The development of sound incentive plan will reduce unrest and industrial disputes and aid in offering a smooth concern in line with the individual and organizational interests (Abbah, 2014). As a result, such organization will realize profit maximization through increased productivity.

Effective motivation also leads to the stability of the workforce. Goodwill and reputation are vital in ensuring stability of the workforce (Abbah, 2014). Research indicates that employees can remain loyal to their organization only when they are afforded a participation in the management. Efficiency in management will allow employers and employees build a good public image in the market. Subsequently, qualified and competent people are attracted in joining such organization.

Motivation enables an organization to achieve it goals. It is vital to note that the organization goals are achieved only when there are cooperative working environment and proper utilization of resources (Abbah, 2014).

Types of Motivation

Motivation in an organization can be divided into categories namely: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is driven by the interest of employees in carrying out a certain task rather than relying on external pressure or the desire for rewards. Researchers argue that the intrinsic motivation is one f the critical element in physical, cognitive and social development. Evidently, motivated employees tend to engage in their duties willingly improving their skills and capabilities (Ali & Ahmad, 2009). Some of the leading intrinsic motivation used in organizations include; work promotions, job appraisal, favorable working conditions and improved employment terms. It is vital to reward employees internally in order to boost their will-to-work and commitment in their roles. Intrinsic motivation is essential in employee retention since they develop a feeling of accomplishing designated projects of actual value in their organizations. According to Ali & Ahmad (2009), intrinsic motivation has the ability to energize employees towards accomplishing the set purposes in their organization. Additionally, intrinsically motivation inculcates a sense of ownership among the employees towards their organization, making them retain their jobs in the long-run. Therefore, it can be concluded that intrinsic factors are not only effective strategies towards improving productivity, but also reduces turnover rates of the workforce (Ali & Ahmad, 2009). This is because intrinsically motivated employees will be unwilling to abandon their current jobs in favor of other companies.

On the other hand, extrinsic motivation refers to those performances that come from outside an individual. Some of the extrinsic motivations are rewards such as money for showing a certain behavior and fear of punishment following a wrong doing. Competition is an essential factor in extrinsic motivation since it encourages the performing employees workout in outdoing the rest (Ali & Ahmad, 2009). Extrinsic motivation can be defined to tangible and physical compensations given to employees such as housing facilities monetary bonuses and good salaries. Today, majority of corporate organizations consider financial benefits as an essential motivation towards work. Evidently, when employees are extrinsically motivated, they tend to show more commitment in their duties as an indication of reciprocating the benefits they get from their roles in terms of monetary bonuses and better salaries (Ali & Ahmad, 2009).

Notably, there are three levels of intrinsic motivation that can be determined by the efficiency of the any reward programs adopted by an organization. These levels include; high range scorers, middle scorers and low scorers. For instance, ‘high-range scorers’ should be motivated based on efforts they exert on their jobs (Khan, Farooq & Ullah, 2010). This motivation will make such employees more energized towards their duties and hence improving their commitments. Research indicates that employees with this level of intrinsic motivation have low rates of turnover. This is because such employees value their jobs and remain highly engaged in their specific tasks.

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