Motivation in Practice Flashcards
The Role of Money
Money is the most commonly used reward in organizations
Money helps some needs get met
money is not every employee’s top priority
- some emphasize
Relationships in the workplace
Opportunities for development
Linking pay to performance
Link incentive plans to performance for effectiveness.
Variable pay
a portion of the employees pay that is based on a measure of performance
Piece rate
- per unit of production
- Common in production
- A basic hourly wage + piece rate differential on top more common in production.
Potential Problems
- Quantity over quality
- Differences in resources to be avoided as expectancy relp impacted
- Individual reward’s impact on group cooperation
- Restriction of productivity (artificial limit on output)
Merit Pay Plans
systems that attempt to link pay to performance on white collar jobs
Potential problem with merit pay plans
Potential problems with merit pay
- Stimulates performance but usually not very effectively used in org. Many use other metrics linked to pay in reality, e.g. Seniority
- Managers don’t differentiate between good and poor performers
- Perceptual errors, esp if subjective measures of perf
Reward Follies
Reward follies occur when organizations “reward A while hoping for B”
e.g., want to encourage teamwork but reward the “best” individual team members
Reward Follies - why they happen
Stuck in old patterns of rewards and recognition
Don’t look at the big picture
Focus on short-term results
Make assumptions
Cognitive Evaluation Theory
Allocating extrinsic rewards for behavior that was previously intrinsically rewarded tends to decrease the overall level of motivation.
Cognitive Evaluation Theory Why does this occur?
Loss of control over behavior
Internal changes to external explanation
It was interesting” to “I did it for the money”
Some key points about rewards
- Recognize Individual Differences
- Employees have different needs.
- Don’t treat them all alike.
- Spend the time necessary to understand what’s important to each employee.
Link rewards to performance
- That which gets measured/rewarded gets done.
- Expectancy theory can provide insight into how to make rewards effective
- Make sure the rewards are “fair”
- Provide feedback and allow employees to participate in decisions that affect them
Job characteristics theory (JCT)
- Job design as an intrinsic motivator
- Core job characteristics – have a strong potential to affect motivation
Core job characteristics
- skill variety
- task identify
- autonomy
- feedback from job
Profit sharing
the return of some company profit to employees in the form of a cash bonus or a retirement supplement
Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)
incentive plans that allow employees to own a set amount of a company’s shares and provide employees with a stake in the companies future earnings and success
Gainsharing
a group pay incentive plan based on productivity of performance improvements over which the workforce has some control
Skill based pay (pay-for-knowledge)
a system in which people are paid according to the number of job skills they have acquired
Job design
the structure, content, and configuration of a persons work tasks and roles
Job scope
the breadth and depth of a job
Breadth
the number of different activities performed on a job
Depth
the degree of discretion or control a worker has over how work tasks are performed
Stretch assignments
challenging assignments and projects that are larger in scope than one’s current job and involve more responsibility
Job rotation
rotating employees to different tasks and jobs in an organization
Different functional areas
Critical psychological states
core job characteristics affect meaningfulness, responsibility, and knowledge of results in a systematic manner
Outcomes
more motivation - high quality productivity
Moderators
Moderator - growth need strength - refers to the extent to which people desire to achieve higher order need satisfaction by performing their jobs
Job Enrichment
the design of jobs to enhance intrinsic motivation, quality of working life, and job involvement
- Involves increasing the motivating potential of jobs via the arrangement of their core characteristics
Problems with enrichment
Poor diagnosis - not looking at the needs of the organiazation
Job enlargement - increasing job breadth by giving employees more tasks at the same level to perform but leaving other core characteristics unchanged
Work Design
attributes of the task, job, ans social and organizational environment
Task variety
the degree to which a job requires employees to perform a wide range of tasks on the job
Relational architecture of jobs
the structural properties of work that shape employees opportunities to connect and interact with other people
Prosocial motivation
the desire to expend effort to benefit other people
Management by objectives (MBO)
an elaborate, systematic, ongoing program designed to facilitate goal establishment, goal accomplishment, and employee development
