Employee Motivation

Employee Motivation

Employee motivation plays a pivotal role in present volatile market as the motivation is directly linked with the performance of the organization and there is a positive relationship between employee motivation and organizational effectiveness. Various drivers contribute to the employee motivation towards high levels of organizational performance (Dobre, 2013). There are many more theories pertaining to the employee motivation and this blog attempts to discuss the employee motivation highlighting Mcgregor’s X and Y theory which will be further elaborated.

The term motivation has been derived from the Latin word “movere” which means to move and accordingly motivation is what moves the employees of an organization from boredom to interest (Islam and Ismail, 2008). As per  Bartol and Martin (1998) motivation is a powerful tool that reinforces behavior and triggers the tendency to continue. And also, motivation is an internal drive which leads to satisfying an unsatisfied need and to achieve a certain goal.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Employee motivation can be classified as intrinsic or internal motivation and extrinsic or external motivation (Staw, 1976).  According to Amabile (1993) individuals are intrinsically motivated when they seek enjoyment, interest, satisfaction of curiosity, self-expression, or personal challenge in the work. Individual pleasure or interest in the work drives the intrinsic motivation and intrinsically motivated employees do not carry out their tasks for the sake of external rewards and these employees’ main concern is the feeling of inner pleasure. Intrinsic motivation drives the employees to perform the organizational tasks without anticipating any external incentive. I work for a leading diversified conglomerate in Sri Lanka and the senior managers who have been there for more than 15 years in the company appears to be intrinsically motivated due to the feeling of belongingness to the company due to the long service.

 Whereas, individuals are extrinsically motivated when they are engaged in the work in order to obtain some reward through goal accomplishment. Extrinsic motivation is the opposite of intrinsic motivation and it is regarding performing tasks in anticipation of external rewards or benefits. The source of extrinsic motivation is from an individual physical environment and higher salaries, incentives and job promotions are some of the external rewards which leads to extrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1993). According to Deci (1972) extrinsic motivational factors are money and verbal rewards which are mediated outside of a person. For example, the organization which I work, a leading diversified conglomerate in Sri Lanka is trying to extrinsically motivate the sales force of the company by way of offering external rewards such as incentives, allowances, salary hikes and job promotions.

However, Amabile (1993) argues that employees can either be intrinsically or extrinsically motivated or even both. According to Story et al. (2009) individuals who are high in intrinsic motivation mostly appear to be preferred challenging cognitive tasks who are capable of self-regulating their behaviors and there won’t be a significant impact on the performance by offering rewards, settling external goals.

Phases of Theories of Motivation

During the past years, many psychologists and management gurus have conducted extensive research on various aspects of employees’ motivation and according to Bartol and Martin (1998) the major theories of employee motivation can be classified into three categories as follows.

•    Needs theory
•   Cognitive theory
•   Reinforcement theory

The most popular Needs theory is well known as Maslow’s motivation theory of hierarchical needs which includes five basic levels of needs which should be satisfied consecutively (Stephens, 2000).Alderfer (1972) proposed an alternative to Maslow’s theory known as ERG theory which consolidated five levels of Maslow’s hierarchy into three levels namely existence (E), relatedness (R), and growth (G). Herzberg et al. developed the two factor (motivators and hygiene factors) theory in employee motivation and Herzberg argued that eliminating the cause of dissatisfaction (through hygiene factors) would not result in a state of satisfaction (or motivation). But satisfaction would occur only as a result of the use of motivators(Oscar,Ali and Erdener,2005). In the meantime, McClelland (1985) studied three types of needs namely achievement, affiliation and power.

As far as the cognitive theories are concerned, one of the best known cognitive theories can be mentioned as the expectancy theory of employee motivation by Vroom (1964) who initially argued that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual (Robbins, 1993). Hence, Equity theory of motivation identifies that individuals prime concerns are not only the actual rewards they receive for their efforts, but also with the relationship of this amount of rewards what others get. Especially, when the employees perceive that there is a mismatch or an imbalance in their outcome versus input compared to the others, tension is created. Equity theory revolves around three main assumptions and firstly, it is assumed that employees build their own beliefs about constituting a fair and equitable return for their contributions of their jobs. Secondly, it assumes that people tend to compare what they perceive to be the exchange they have with their employers. The other assumption is that when employees believe that their own treatment is not equitable relative to the exchange they perceive others to be making, they will be taking necessary measures which they deem appropriate (Carrell and Dittrich,1978).According to the goal-setting theory, to motivate employees, they should be given specific, measurable, challenging, time bound and attainable organizational goals for which there should be rewards for the goal accomplishment (Locke and Latham,2006).

The reinforcement theories proposed by Skinner (1938) represents the inverse of cognitive theories which suggests that the theories do not relate with human cognitive process. According to reinforcement theory, employees’ behavior can be explained by the consequences in the environment and owing to that it is not necessary to look for cognitive explanations. Instead, it is highly relied on a concept called the law of effect, which states behaviors having pleasant or positive consequences are more likely to be repeated and behaviors having unpleasant or negative consequences are less likely to be repeated (Bartol and Martin, 1998).

Theory X and Theory Y

According to Mcgregor, organizations especially which has a centralized decision-making process and a hierarchical pyramid are based on several assumptions about human nature or the employees and motivation. These assumptions are called Theory X and Theory Y by Mcgregor and it is all about two different viewpoints about the employees by the superiors or the management (Dobre, 2013).

Theory X believes that employees want to be directed, they do not want to assume responsibility by trying to evade responsibility and value safety above all (Dobre, 2013). Further, it is believed that employees are motivated by financial rewards and by the threat of punishment. Managers or superiors who possess Theory X viewpoint on their subordinates tend to execute rigorous supervision and control over the employees due to the belief that rigid external control should be executed when dealing with irresponsible employees (Dobre, 2013). According to Dobre (2013) Theory X could be applicable to employees whose physiological and safety needs are not satisfied. There could be instances where a directive and controlling behavior is required to assist in developing some employees until they become creative and self-directed. Hence, there are employees who are motivated in the work with higher commissions (Tietjen and Myers, 1998).For instance, the organization which I work, a leading diversified conglomerate in Sri Lanka is having a Credit Controlling Division in which there are several newly joined employees who do not have much working experience. These employees are more sensitive for extrinsic rewards such as incentives and salary increments and need to be closely monitored and guided until they are self-directed.

However, Mcgregor himself began to question the validity of Theory X, especially in the contemporary context and democratic society. Consequently, Mcgregor has concluded that Theory X is not universally applicable, as the assumptions about human nature may not be accurate in all the circumstances (Dobre, 2013). In addition to that, most of the management practices developed based on Theory X assumptions were not able to motivate individuals to work for attaining the organizational goals (Dobre, 2013). In a leading trading company in Sri Lanka, imports and Procurement division’s head heavily relied on Theory X and as a result of it the labor turnover of the Imports and Procurement division went up.

Theory Y practices concentrates on creating a pleasant work environment and aligning the individuals’ goals with the organizational goals. Theory Y believes that people are energetic, reliable and fond of work. It further assumes that people are self-directed and creative if the employees are properly motivated. In this context, employees become more productive since the employees are carrying out their duties willingly and tend to take responsibilities (Dobre, 2013). According to Theory Y, employees do wish to work and be productive and the act of doing well at work is itself a strong motivator and employees look for responsibilities and ways to be productive once the employees are allowed to work on their own.  The managers or superiors who embrace the  Theory Y are the effective leaders who could fulfill the psychological contract of employees (Mohamed and Nor,2013).One of the main challenges for the management is to exploit the full potential of each employee and the motivated employees will achieve their own goals by driving themselves towards goal achievement (Dobre,2013).

Conclusion and Recommendation

• Employee motivation is crucial for organization’s performance and employees should be motivated using different strategies. One employee may be motivated by an extrinsic reward such as higher commission, while another employee may be motivated intrinsically through job satisfaction or a better work environment.

•  Many extensive researches have been conducted on various aspects of employees motivation during past and major theories emerged from these researches regarding employee motivation can be segregated into three main phases namely Needs theory, Cognitive theory and reinforcement theory.

• Theory X and Theory Y by Mcgregor describes two main attitudes towards employees and a conclusion cannot be drawn that Theory X is bad and Theory Y is good since all depend on the various circumstances.

• However, theory X has been considered as a negative way of dealing with employees since managers influenced by theory x generally tend to get poor results.

• Managers or superiors who embrace theory Y produce better performance and results whilst allowing people to grow and develop. Fulfillment of Psychological contract in employment is closely related to theory Y management style which has a positive impact on the performance and the productivity since employees become more productive when more trust and responsibility is delegated to them.

List of References

Amabile, T.M. (1993) Motivational synergy: toward new conceptualizations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the workplace. Human resource management review, 3 (3) 185-201.

Bartol, K.M. and Martin, D.C. (1998) Management. 3rd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Carrell, M.R. and Dittrich, J.E. (1978) Equity theory: the recent literature, methodological considerations and need directions. Academy of Management Review, Volume 3 pp 202-10.

Deci, E.L. (1972) The effects of contingent and non-contingent rewards and controls on intrinsic motivation. Organizational behavior and human performance, Volume 8 pp 217-229.

Dobre,O.I. (2013) Employee motivation and organizational performance. Review of Applied Socio- Economic Research. 5 (1) 53-60.

Islam, R.and  Ismail,A.Z.H. (2008) Employee motivation: a Malaysian perspective. International Journal of Commerce and Management, 18 (4) 344-362.

Locke,E.A. and Latham, G.P. (2006) New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory. Current directions in psychological science, 15 (5) 265-268.

Mohamed,R.K.M.H and Nor,C.S.M. (2013) The Relationship between Mcgregor's X-Y Theory Management Style and Fulfillment of Psychological Contract: A Literature Review. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 3 (5) 715-720.

McClelland, D.C. (1985) Human Motivation. Glenview: Scott.

Oscar,W.D. Ali,K. and Erdener,K.(2005)Determinants of business student satisfaction and retention in higher education: applying Herzberg’s two-factor theory. International Journal of Educational Management, 19(2) 128-139.

Robbins, S. (1993) Organizational Behavior. 6th edition. Englewood Cliffs:Prentice Hall.

Staw, B.M. (1976) Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation. Morristown: General Learning Press.

Stephens, D.C. (2000) The Maslow Business Reader. Abraham H. Maslow. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Story, P.A. Hart, J.W. Stasson, M.F. and Mahoney, J.M. (2009) Using a two-factor theory of achievement motivation to examine performance-based outcomes and self-regulatory processes. Personality and individual differences, 46 391-395.

Tietjen, M. A. and Myers, R. M. (1998) Motivation and job satisfaction. Management Decision, 36 (4) 226-231.

Vroom, V.H. (1964) Work and motivation. New York: Wiley.