2.4 Motivation Flashcards
Motivation
The intrinsic and extrinsic factors that stimulate people to take actions that lead to achieving a goal
Extrinsic motivation
Comes from external rewards associated with working on a task, for example pay and other benefits
Intrinsic motivation
Comes from the satisfaction derived from working on and completing a task
Indicators of poor staff motivation
Absenteeism
Lateness
Poor performance
Accidents
Labour turnover
Grievances
Poor response rate
What are the 5 motivation theories?
Taylor’s scientific management
Maslow’ hierarchy of human needs
Herzberg’s two factor theory
Adams’ equity theory
Pink’s theory
What was Taylor’s principle factor in motivation?
Workers are motivated by cash
Productivity can be improved by relating output/productivity to pay
Known as ‘economic man’
What were Taylor’s seven steps to improve worker productivity?
Select workers for a task
Observe them performing the task and not the key elements of it
Record the time taken to do each part of the task
Identify the quickest method recorded
Train all workers in the quickest method and do not allow them to make any changes to it
Supervise workers to ensure that it is being carried out
Pay workers based on the results
Taylor’s piece rate
Paying workers a certain amount for each unit produced
Encourages high output
Limitations of Taylor’s theory
Ignored non-financial motivators
Non-physical contribution may not be quantified
Repetitive and monotonous work – job dissatisfaction
Quality may not be as good
Workers will vary output depending on their economic need
Not accept change in case of losing money
Very autocratic leadership
What was Maslow concerned with?
Trying to identify and classify the main needs that humans have
What are the 5 human needs according to Maslow
Self actualisation - reaching one’s full potential
Esteem needs - respect from others, status, recognition of achievement
Social needs - trust, acceptance, friendship, belonging to a group
Safety needs - protection from threats, job security, health and safety at work
Physical needs - food, shelter, rest
How can a business reach self actualisation?
Challenging work that stretches the individual - give a sense of achievement.
Opportunities to develop and apply new skills will increase potential
How can a business reach esteem needs?
Recognition for work done well - status, advancement and responsibility will gain the respect of others
How can a business reach social needs?
Working teams or groups and ensuring good communication to make workers feel involved
How can a business reach safety needs?
A contract of employment with some job security - a structured organisation that gives clear lines of authority to reduce uncertainty. Ensuring health and safety condition are met.
How can a business reach physical needs?
Income from employment high enough to meet essential needs
Limitations of Maslow’s approach
Needs cannot be quantified
Money may be necessary to meet the levels such as status and esteem.
Self actualisation is never permanently achieved
Not everyone has the same needs or importance of each level
What was Herzberg’s two factors that affect motivation
Hygiene factors
Motivating factors
Hygiene factors
Aspects of a worker’s job that have the potential to cause dissatisfaction.
Eg: pay, working conditions, status and over-supervision by managers
Motivating factors
Aspects of a worker’s job that can lead to positive job satisfaction.
Eg: achievement, recognition, meaningful and interesting work and advancement at work
What did Herzber believe about money?
A business can offer higher pay, improved working conditions and less heavy handed supervision of work which would remove dissatisfaction, but would be quickly taken for granted.
If work is not interesting, rewarding or challenging, then workers will not be satisfied or will not be motivated to offer their full potential whatever the pay level offered to them.
What did Herzberg believe were the motivating factors?
Assign workers complete units of work - giving workers the job of doing a small part of the finished product has been shown to not be fulfilling or rewarding and leads to it being repetitive and boring.
Provide feedback on performance - gives recognition for work well done, gives will to achieve even more
Give workers a range of tasks - challenge and stretch the individual even some being beyond the workers’ current experience.
Criticism of Herzberg’s theory
Does not apply to low skill, low wage jobs
Some workers may not like the increased workload in job enrichment
His research was only on 200 professionally qualified workers
Consequences of Herzberg’s theory
Team working is more widespread because of Herzberg’s findings, with whole units of work being delegated to groups.
Workers often made more responsible for the quality of their work rather than being closely supervised on their quality.
A lot of firms are looking for ways to improve effective communication, and group meetings allowing two way communication.
What did Adam’s believe demotivated his employees?
If employees felt that their inputs are greater than their outputs.
Inputs include effort, loyalty, commitment and skill.
Outputs include financial rewards, recognition, security and sense of achievement.
What was Adam’s belief of motivating employees?
Making the employee’s inputs and output balanced
Will make the employee feel like they are treated fairly
Will respond with a positive attitude and high levels of motivation
What are the three elements that motivates people according to Pink?
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Autonomy (Pink)
Giving people real control over various aspects of their work - whether it is deciding what to work on or when to do it
Mastery (Pink)
Sense of progress in work and ability
Tasks must not be too hard or too easy to foster improvement without causing boredom or frustration
Named it the Goldilocks tasks
Purpose (Pink)
Contributing to a greater cause
Purpose and vision must be communicated
What are the most common payment systems?
Salary
Wage: time based wage rate and piece rate
Commission
Performance related pay and bonuses
Profit related pay
Employee share ownership schemes
Fringe benefits (perks)
Salary
Fixed annual rate paid on a monthly basis
Time-rate payment
Gives security of income
Suitable where output is not measurable
Little incentive to work hard due to consistent pay
Difficult to reward better workers
Can be improved by using appraisals
Time based wage rate
Payment to a worker made for each hour worked
More income security than piece rate
Speed of work is not rewarded
Piece rate
A payment to a worker for each unit produced
Encourages greater efforts and faster working
Able to set a price for the product
Requires output to be measurable and standardised
Leads to worse quality and safety levels
Little security over pay level
Commission
A payment to a sales person for each sale made
Pays workers based on percentage of sales or output contributed rather than a fixed amount per unit like piece rate
Similar advantages and disadvantages to piece rate
Profit related pay
A bonus for staff based on the profits of the business - usually paid as a proportion of basic salary
People believe profits should only go to the shareholders
Employees more committed to the success of the company
Employee share ownership schemes
Giving shares for free or at a discount
Usually only given to senior management
Impractical for most companies
Employee share ownership schemes
Giving shares for free or at a discount
Usually only given to senior management
Impractical for most companies
Quickly sold by workers
Fringe benefits (perks)
Meets employee’s safety needs (Maslow) at a cost
Includes medical insurance, bonus schemes, company car, subsidised meals, discounts
Difficult to know the effect on productivity
Non financial methods of motivation
Job enlargement
Job enrichment
Job rotation
Team working
Empowerment
Job enlargement
Horizontal expansion by increasing scope of work required
Enhances employee pride in work, feeling of responsibility
May lower productivity or quality because of higher workload
Job enrichment
Provides employee with more complex and fulfilling tasks
Adds sense of control, pride, and achievement
Job rotation
Shifting of cross trained workers to other tasks
Allows understanding of different operating areas of business
Can reduce fatigue, since new tasks are assigned
Employee empowerment
Employees are delegated tasks assigned to managers
Increases employee motivation and productivity
Managers must share:
Decision-making power
Rewards (based on organizational performance)
Knowledge/expertise needed to enhance performance
Employees must be highly skilled, motivated, and competent
Managers are ultimately still liable for whatever they delegate
Teamworking
Staff work together on a task
Reduce boredom, build sense of belonging, greater flexibility
Adair Model
3 parts or effective teams
Tasks – must engage whole group
Team – must work collectively
Individual – needs of the individual are met
Advantages of non financial methods of motivation
Everyone has an interest in higher profits
Likely to attract better recruits
Does not add business costs
If successful can increase business productivity
Disadvantages of non financial methods of motivation
Reward not related to individual effort - might be demotivating
Schemes can be costly to set put and operate
profit shares at the end of the year unlikely to promote motivation throughout the year
Can dilute the value of existing shares
