Analysis Of Motivation Theories And Their Implementation In Real-life Organizations

Four Motivational Theories

Assessment Tasks:

“Employees who are adequately motivated to perform will be more productive, more engaged and feel more invested in their work.  When employees feel these things, it helps them, and therefore their managers, be more successful.

It is a manager’s job to motivate employees to do their jobs well!”  Lawrie Mullins.

“It is a widely accepted notion that motivation is a primary driver of behavior.  Human motivation theory describes motivation as effectively laden anticipations of desired situations that guide human behaviours toward these situations.” McClelland, 1985.  

There are a number of key motivational theorists (as discussed in lectures).  You are required to prepare a report for submission in week 8.  The report should include the following factors:

1. A discussion of four motivational theorists of your choice.
 
2. An assessment of the techniques used to implement each of these theories to a real life organization of your choice.
    
3. Demonstrate and determine the effectiveness of the implementation of these theories at these organizations.

(this could include the implementation of any of the elements below:

• Discuss the degree to which the company has managed to achieve set targeted outcomes through the implementation of the motivational theory.

• The degree to which the company has improved its business performance in terms of market share, sales volume, profitability, customer satisfaction.

• The increase of employee satisfaction.

• The decrease of employee turnover.

4. Prepare a range of recommendations as to how the implementation of these techniques could be improved in the future at your chosen organization.   

Motivation is the process which leads, instigates and helps to uphold behaviors for achieving a particular goal. Motivation involves the cognitive, social, biological and emotional forces that make a person to behave in a positive manner. Today motivation has become an integral part of every human being due to increasing challenges and stress that affects the heath of a person. Every organization needs to motivate their employees..

The study focuses on four theories of motivation and their pragmatic application in organizations. It would depict that how motivation in a company helps their employees to be more productive in their performance thus contributing to the successful operation of a company. There are thirty-eight theories in motivation that helps us to understand how motivation works and to what extent they help in increasing the productivity.

Herzberg (1984)

This theory is also known as two factor theory proposed by Fredrick Herzberg a renowned psychologist. He interacted with employees of an organization in order to know the level of satisfaction and through their responses he proposed the Hygiene theory (Hughes, Kapoor and Pride, 2013). In his research he found that certain features of a job are related consistently to the satisfaction of a job. There are various factors that contribute to the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of a job. They are as shown in the table below:-

Table 1.1: Hygiene factors.

Factors determining satisfaction	Factors determining dissatisfaction
Responsibility	Relationship with peers and supervisors
The nature of work	Condition in workplace
growth	status
achievement	security
Recognition	salary
Advancement	Company policies

These two factors are the motivating and demotivating factors that the management should keep in mind so as to increase the efficiency level. But there are certain advantages and disadvantages of this theory.

Assessment of Hertzberg theory in Melbourne IT company

The advantage of this theory is that it provides a clear vision of the reasons of dissatisfaction and satisfaction of employees. With the help of this theory a company can make effort for motivating their employees like trying to establish a good relationship among every member of the organization (Dessler and Varkkey, 2011).

 There are certain limitations to this theory they are:

• The theory tends to overlook variables which are situational.
• The research stressed on satisfaction more than productivity.
• The raters of this theory can spoil the research by analyzing same answers in a different method.
• Sometimes too much of responsibility turns out to be stressful so it may lead to job dissatisfaction.
• This theory is more of an abstract and bias view it does not clearly define what negative outcomes it may have due to job dissatisfaction.

The theory proposed by Taylor had a simple idea about how much people are motivate din their work and the money they receive. This theory is also known as theory of scientific management.  There were basically three assumptions:

• Humans are economic rational who tries to maximize their economic gain.
• People respond individually
• Human can be treated in standardized fashion.

The implications of the theory for the behavior at work were:

• Linked to output, high wages are main form of motivation
• The function of a manager is to instruct employees about their job
• Workers should do according to the instructions

Through this theory Taylor explained the fact that one who delivers more than expected target should be paid more than one who delivers less than expected target.

This theory also has its advantages and disadvantages, they are:

The advantage is that with a temptation of higher wage worker would get a self-instigation for working hard and increase their work within time. A good salary provides the basic necessity along with extra benefits so it depends upon the choice of the employees. This form of motivation is not a forceful action by the organization it depends on the willingness of the workers (Schermerhorn, 2010).

This theory encourages unethical practices and many other forms of mismanagement. They are:

• Labor exploitation
• Problem of unity of command where the worker has to report to one boss and cannot consult others or other boss won’t be able to interfere.
• This approach was more mechanical based and did not focus on the marginal productivity of labor.
• This theory is made on individual basis but as a whole it is not effective.
• This theory highlights the division from planning to doing, but in reality they cannot be separated.

This theory proposed by Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs which states that people tends to meet their basic requirements and tends to move upward following the pyramid of basic needs. It can be explained with the help of the pyramid:

Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy model

• Self-actualization: this includes problem solving, morality and creativity.
• Esteem: this includes respect, self-esteem, confidence and achievement.
• Belongings: it comprises of intimacy, love, family and friendship.
• Safety: It includes security related to resources, health, property, employment and environment.
• Physiological: this factor comprises of food, water, sleep, shelter, air without which humans cannot survive.

This theory gives an overview of the human needs which can be used for understanding the employee’s wants and needs. If the basic needs are not satisfied one cannot go to the higher needs of the employees. This also helps to understand the requirement of the employee on where he stands (Liem, McInerney and Walker, 2011).

• The theory lacks the extrinsic needs of the individuals.
• It becomes difficult to identify the need level for the management.
• The theory is not supported on empirical basis because of certain inconsistencies.
• The basic needs may not require for satisfaction in order to acknowledge the hierarchy’s higher needs.

What Elton Mayo proposed in his theory is that there were basically three factor that motivates an employee, they are:

• The conditions of work.
• The workers skills
• The incentives provided in their work.

This theory also examined the workers social needs. He instilled on the fact that pay is not the only motivational factor for an employee (Lussier, 2011). He emphasized on the fact that the social needs should also be considered for the workers and workers should be given care. Mayo conducted a series of experiments inside the factory of Hawthorne where he isolated two groups of female workers and observed the effect on the levels of productivity of factors which are changing like working conditions (Reviews, 2014). Through his experiment he found that

• Workers get motivated through better communication, especially between employees and managers.
• With greater extent of involvement of the managers workers positively responded on their level of attention.
• Workers also got motivated while working in a unified form. In a group they were more involved than at individual tasks.

• Clear identification of the workers concern.
• In a long term basis and sustainable basis it helps in solving the issued related to productivity if it is conducted accurately and properly.
• The working situation assessment is operated consistently that helps the management to carry out envisioning of long term.

• The theory makes it difficult to comprehend the significant working environment characteristics because some are intrinsic like dynamics of the organization.
• The relation of the factors is not clearly stated.
• Apart from communication, teamwork and management attention other factors like the management structure, work culture and work environment also motivates the workers. The theory does not highlight on the productivity at individual basis.

Herzberg theory in Melbourne IT company.

Melbourne IT Company is one of the leading companies charted in the top ranks of Security exchange of Australia (Melbourneit.info, 2015).  The major services of this company are web hosting VPS web design and email hosting. Their employees are highly qualified and follow a daily disciplinary routine for their work (Sutton, 2014). The value of Melbourne IT is their Behaviors which administers the way their employees behave to guarantee success for their customers and their company (McFarlin and Sweeney, 2012).

Techniques implemented

A group of thirty people were asked questions based on their motivational and engagement level in the company and the procedure was divided into two.

The interviews were done on a personal basis on the managers and the employees so as to understand the degree of motivation they have or they receives. Not all the employees and managers could provide sufficient time for interview so the technique of collecting information was divided on interview basis and survey basis. Five managers were interviewed and twenty-five employees were surveyed.

• To review the role of promotional motivation like appraisal or appreciation in the company.
• To understand the demotivating factor of condition of workplace
• To understand how company policies are motivating or demotivating to their employees.

The findings were analysed on Liker scale basis:

Table 1.2: the survey results out of 30 people.

Question	Strongly disagree	disagree	Neutral	agree	Strongly agree
The appraisals are motivating	8	5	3	10	4
The relationship between colleagues are good	–	–	5	10	15
The company policies are demotivating	10	2	9	3	6
Supervisors are motivating	6	–	10	4	10
The job itself is motivating	6	2	–	12	10
The pay scale is satisfactory?	9	10	1	3	7

• The Herzberg theory applied here were found that,
• The appraisal policies or the recognition criteria of the employees were found to be a factor of dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction.
• The relationship with peers and subordinates were satisfactory
• The policies of the company is not a factor of demotivation because the policies were not restricted to a great extent, rather it provided a better work environment.
• The job itself does is not giving a sense of satisfaction to the employees
• The salary offered is not satisfactory.

Presently the company has improved its motivational factors in which the performance of the company has contributed in the increase of its share. In order to motivate their employees the company has made the training and development budget equally availed to all the employees. They have aimed to remunerate their members responsibly and fairly with increasing their fixed salary (Nelson and Quick, 2012).

After applying the motivational factors in change in management and salary the employees turned out to be more productive and finally it achieved to be the leading company in the ASX largest share.  This has not only resulted in increased employee satisfaction but also a decrease of employee turnover by creative employee benefits (Kim, 2013).

The David Jones is an early operating departmental stores also known as DJs, in majority states of Australia, it has around 39 stores. According to the motivational theory of Taylor, David Jones pays their employees on hourly basis for their part-time and full time employees. David Jones is currently David Jones pay 12% above the market (Limited, 2015). The incentive scheme is also attractive because it is directly linked to team and individual performance of the employees. thus they have flexible salaries. As a result of this strategy many employees are opting to do their job in this company. The customer satisfaction of service has also increased which turned out to have a total net profit of around A$1.85 billion during 2013.

Maslow hierarchy model and Woolworth limited:

It is a leading retail company operating in New Zealand and Australia. It is also one of the largest food retail stores in Australia. Maslow’s theory stated the hierarchy of needs of an employee according to their needs (Lee, Yong-Seung, 2010). In this concept Woolworth has considered the employee motivational factors and provided certain benefits which contribute to their success. But the Woolworths limited had provided employee benefits like:

• Association of employees, this serves to the belong needs of an employee.
• Discount card for staffs ‘comes under the extra benefits.
• Purchase plan of shares for their employees is a kind of job security.
• Leave for parental purpose also comes under belonging needs that the company has taken care of.
• Employee assistance program is a self esteem need satisfying criteria
• Reward and recognition is also a self esteem need it also comes under self actualization needs of employees.
• Long term incentives this is a safety need that the employees get.

These factors motivate the employees for better productivity especially the plan of long term incentive.

The employee’s productivity is not only of a good quality but also is very innovative. According to Woolworth sustainability also means keeping the priority of employees. Around 50,000 people are located in rural regions which show the work diversity amongst them. The sales have increased from 3.9 percent to 5.9 percent in 2014 (Woolworthslimited.com.au, 2015). The company also won back to back awards for customer satisfaction in 2013 (Woolworthslimited.com.au, 2015). This has also led to a decrease in the employee turnover in the following year. Following Taylor’s theory the incentive planning would have been the sole factor for employee motivation but in reality there are multiple factor that made Woolworth limited a good example for work motivational practices (Zoogah, 2013).

Mayo and Myers:

Elton Mayo proposed that employees get motivated through Better communication, team work and employers involvement. This theory is applied in Myer an Australian department chain of stores. The number of employees involved is more than nineteen thousand and the customer service has been one of the important features of Myers (Nasser and Saadeh, 2013). Myer believes in team work and understands the importance of communication in organizational hierarchy and the management also guides their employees which establishes the example of a good leadership practice. Not only communication is considered important inside the organization but the communication with customers is also an integral part of the organization. Myer assures its employees,

• A smooth running of operational communication between the employer and employees and also in between employees.
• They emphasizes on team work and development and training needs.
• They had maintained an informal relationship in between the hierarchy of the organization. The leadership style followed here is democratic and so workers get enough scope to take guidance from their managers.

The employee satisfaction level is high and it can be seen from the low turnover ratio of MYER. Apart from that Myers has got some loyal customers which stated the level of customer satisfaction also. Presently the company=y is earning a revenue of A$3.14 billion.

The four companies though have good motivational effects on their employees following the theories of motivation yet some companies need to provide extra benefits except from that of their salaries. Motivation is of course a factor of increasing the productivity of workers we have already understood that motivation is not necessarily verbal motivation. There are certain recommendations that need to be inserted by these companies, they are:

• The companies need to provide satisfaction in terms of break, none of the theorists has suggested the importance of having a break from work.
• The companies should not focus only on providing incentives because after a certain time if an employee fails to earn his incentive it then he feels demotivated.
• The basic needs definitely need to be emphasized on but they are not applicable in this generation of high Pay scale. Now the standard of life has increased.

Conclusion:

The theories discussed in this study are based on the twentieth century and the work condition differs from that of today’s work condition. Even the competition between companies has also increased. So it has become a compulsory factor that employees need to be productive as well as efficient. Motivation is what controls maintain and energizes behavior. So far it is clear why motivation plays a vital role in the workplace. But measuring empirically the role is is challenging in order to capture an individual’s drive in metrics of quantitative so as to determine the amount to which elevated motivation is accountable for higher productivity.

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