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Motivating and Rewarding Employees - Coggle Diagram
Motivating and Rewarding Employees
Brief Introduction
Successful managers understand that what motivates them personally may have little to no effect on others.
Effective managers who get employees to put forth maximum effort know how and why those employees are motivated and tailor motivational practices to satisfy their needs and wants.
Motivating and rewarding employees is one of the most important and challenging activities that managers do.
To get employees to put forth maximum work effort, managers need to know how and why the employees are motivated.
Motivation
1.
Definition: Motivation
refers to the process by which a person’s efforts are energized, directed, and sustained towards attaining a goal.
2.
This definition has
three key elements:
Energy
Direction
Persistence
The energy element
is a measure of intensity or drive. A motivated person puts forth effort and works hard. The quality of the effort must be considered as well as its intensity.
High levels of effort don’t necessarily lead to favorable job performance unless the effort is channeled in a
direction
that benefits the organization.
Effort that’s directed toward and consistent with organizational goals is the kind of effort managers want from employees.
Lastly, motivation includes
persistence
. Managers want employees to persist in putting forth efforts to achieve the organization’s goals.
Motivation Theories
Early Theories of Motivation:
During the 1950s and 1960s, several theories on motivation were developed. Four specific theories created during this time period probably still are the best-known explanations of employee motivation.
However, since that time, these theories have been criticized and questioned many times.
The Four Main Motivation Theories:
Hierarchy of Needs Theory
Theories X and Y
Two-factor Theory
Three Needs Theory
Other theories that are possibly more valid have arisen since these four theories were developed, but these four main ones usually are the basis for the others and many managers still use these four main theories for motivation.
The best known of the four main theories probably is the
Hierarchy of Needs Theory
, developed by Abraham Maslow.
This theory claims that within every people a hierarchy of five needs exists.
These five needs are:
Physiological needs
Safety needs
Social needs
Esteem needs
Self-actualization needs
Explanations of the Five Needs:
Physiological- food, drink, shelter, and other physical requirements;
Safety- security and protection from physical harm, as well as assurance that physical needs will continue to be met;
Social- affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship;
Esteem- internal esteem factors such as self-respect, autonomy, achievement and external factors esteem factors such as status, recognition, and attention;
Self-actualization- growth, achieving one’s potential, and self-fulfillment, the drive to become what one is capable of becoming.
The theory argues that each level in the needs hierarchy must be substantially satisfied before the next need becomes dominant. An individual moves up the needs hierarchy from one level to the next.
The lowest need is Physiological and the highest is Self-actualization. All the rest are ranked in between.
In regards to motivation, the theory says that, to motivate someone, a manager needs to know what need level that employee is on and focus on satisfying needs at or above that level.
Although the theory is widely recognized and applied in organizations today, no empirical study has ever proved its validity.
Theories X and Y
was developed by Douglas McGregor who proposed two assumptions about human behavior.
Theory X:
a negative view of people that assumes workers have little ambition, dislike work, want to avoid responsibility, and need to be closely controlled to work effectively.
Theory Y:
a positive view that assumes employees enjoy work, seek out and accept responsibility, and exercise self-direction.
McGregor believed that, by applying Theory Y to management, employee motivation would be maximized.
However, there is no evidence that the theories in general are valid and using only Theory Y to manage employees works.
Frederick Herzburg developed the
Two-Factor Theory
. The theory proposes that intrinsic factors are related to job satisfaction, while extrinsic factors are associated with job dissatisfaction.
In the theory, the intrinsic factors were called motivator factors and the extrinsic factors were called hygiene factors.
According to the Two-Factor Theory, when hygiene factors are adequate, people won’t be dissatisfied. However, they won’t be satisfied either.
To motivate people, the theory suggested emphasizing motivators. These are the intrinsic factors having to do with the job itself.
The Three Needs Theory
claims that there are three acquired (not innate) needs that are major motives in work.
The three needs include:
Need for Achievement- the drive to succeed and excel in relation to a set of standards,
Need for Power- the need to make others behave in a way that they would not have behaved otherwise,
Need for Affiliation- the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships.
Of the three, the need for achievement has been the one researched the most.
People with a high need for achievement are striving for personal achievement rather than for the trappings and rewards of success.
However, a high need to achieve doesn’t necessarily lead to being a good manager, especially in large organizations. That’s because high achievers focus on their own achievements, while good managers emphasize helping others accomplish their goals.
According to the theory, employees can be trained to stimulate their achievement need by being in situations where they have personal responsibility, feedback, and moderate risks.
Research also has indicated the best managers tend to be high in the need for power and low in the need for affiliation.