Chapter 15: Motivating Employees Flashcards
Define Motivation.
The process by which a person’s efforts are energized, directed, and sustained toward attaining a goal.
–Is the result of the interaction between the person and the situation.
–Motivation works best when individual needs are compatible with organisational goals.
What are the early theories of motivation?
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- McGregor’s Theories X and Y
- Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
- McClelland’s Three Needs Theory
Explain Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
•Maslow’s theory that within every person there is hierarchy of five needs — physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization.
•Individuals must satisfy lower-order needs before they can satisfy higher order needs.
•Satisfied needs will no longer motivate.
•Motivating a person depends on knowing at what level that person is on the hierarchy.
–Lower-order (external): physiological, safety
–Higher-order (internal): social, esteem, self-actualization.
What are the five needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory?
- Physiological needs - food, drink, shelter, and other physical needs.
- Safety needs - security and protection from physical and emotional harm, as well as assurance that physical needs will continue to be met.
- Social needs - affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship.
- Esteem needs - internal esteem factors (e.g., self-respect, autonomy, and achievement) and external esteem factors (such as status, recognition, and attention).
- Self-actualization needs - growth, achieving one’s potential and self-fulfillment; the drive to become what one is capable of becoming.
Explain McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y.
- Theory X – (negative view) the assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, avoid responsibility, and must be coerced to perform.
- Theory Y – (positive view) the assumption that employees are creative, enjoy work, seek responsibility, and can exercise self-direction.
Explain Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory.
- Two-factor theory (motivation-hygiene theory) - the motivation theory that claims that intrinsic factors are related to job satisfaction and motivation, whereas extrinsic factors are associated with job dissatisfaction.
- Hygiene factors – extrinsic (environmental) factors that eliminate job dissatisfaction, but don’t motivate.
- Motivators – intrinsic (psychological) factors that increase job satisfaction and motivation.
Explain the Three-Needs Theory (McClelland).
•Three-needs theory - the motivation theory that sites three acquired (non-innate) needs (achievement, power, and affiliation) as major motives in work.
–Need for achievement (nAch) - the drive to succeed and excel in relation to a set of standards.
–Need for power (nPow) - the need to make others behave in a way that they would not have behaved otherwise.
–Need for affiliation (nAff) - the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships.
What are the Contemporary Theories of Motivation?
•Goal-setting theory - the proposition that specific goals increase performance and that difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher performance than do easy goals.
•Three factors that influence goals-performance relationship: (1) goal commitment, (2) adequate self-efficacy, and (3) national culture
•Self-efficacy - an individual’s belief that he or she is capable of performing a task.
•Reinforcement theory - the theory that behaviour is a function of its consequences.
–Reinforcement theory ignores factors such as goals, expectations and needs.
•Reinforcers - consequences immediately following a behaviour which increase the probability that the behaviour will be repeated.
–People are more likely to engage in desired behaviour if they are rewarded for doing so; these rewards are most effective if they immediately follow a desired response; and behaviour that is not rewarded, or is punished, is less likely to be repeated.
Explain designing motivating jobs.
•Job design - the way tasks are combined to form complete jobs.
–Job scope - the number of different tasks required in a job and the frequency with which those tasks are repeated.
•Job enlargement - the horizontal expansion of a job that occurs as a result of increasing job scope.
•Job enrichment - the vertical expansion of a job that occurs as a result of additional planning and evaluation of responsibilities.
–Job depth - the degree of control employees have over their work.
•Job characteristics model (JCM) - a framework for analyzing and designing jobs that identifies five primary core job dimensions, their interrelationships, and their impact on outcomes (productivity, motivation and satisfaction).
•The five core dimensions are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback
What are the Redesigning Job Design Approaches?
- Relational perspective of work design - an approach to job design that focuses on how people’s tasks and jobs are increasingly based on social relationships.
- Proactive perspective of work design - an approach to job design in which employees take the initiative to change how their work is performed.
- High-involvement work practices - work practices designed to elicit greater input or involvement from workers.
How to motivate a diverse workforce?
- Men desire more autonomy than do women.
- Women desire learning opportunities, flexible work schedules, and good interpersonal relations.
- Independence and exposure to different experiences is important to Gen Y employees
- Older workers interested in highly structured work opportunities.
How to motivate a diverse workforce through flexibility?
–Compressed workweek
•Longer daily hours, but fewer days
–Flexible work hours (flextime)
•Specific weekly hours with varying arrival, departure, lunch and break times around certain core hours during which all employees must be present
–Job Sharing
•Two or more people split a full-time job
–Telecommuting
•Employees work from home using computer links
How to motivate professionals?
–Characteristics of professionals
•Strong and long-term commitment to their field of expertise
•Loyalty is to their profession, not to the employer
•Have the need to regularly update their knowledge
•Don’t define their workweek as 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
–Job challenge ranked high as motivators. Like to tackle problems and find solutions.
How to motivate contingent workers and low skilled, minimum-wage employees?
• Motivating Contingent Workers
–Opportunity to become a permanent employee
–Opportunity for training
–Equity in compensation and benefits
• Motivating Low-Skilled, Minimum-Wage Employees
–Employee recognition programs
–Provision of sincere praise
How to design appropriate rewards programs?
- Open-book management - a motivational approach in which an organisation’s financial statements (the “books”) are shared with all employees.
- Employee recognition programs - programs based on personal attention and expression of interest, approval, and appreciation for a job well done.
- Pay-for-performance programs - variable compensation plans that pay employees on the basis of some performance measure.
- Employee share ownership plan (ESOP) - A compensation program in which employees become part-owners of the organisation by receiving shares as a performance incentive.
