The Meaning of Motivation in the Workplace

1. Introduction

The work of the manager at the workplace is to make operations to happen as they ought to. For this to happen he or she has to motivate the staff. Motivation practice and theory is a complicated process that is based on a number of sections in the workplace.

The motivation of employees has been a core issue for leaders and managers. Staffs that are not motivated are bound to take little or less energy in their work, evade the workplace quite often, and leave the company in the first rise of a chance and poor performance. Similarly, staff that staffs that are motivated in the workplace are bound to be persistent, creative and performing in terms of quality of work. Studies have been done by a number of researchers on tendencies of varied sections of people aiming to get why staff does not get their performance up and the result has been quite different. The best answer is that each and every staff has varied means of being motivated (Valencia, n.d.). The managers are able to know their staff and apply varied methods so as to motivate them on a personal basis.

Motivation is defined as the inner feeling that individuals have which controls them to something. The motivation may not be the same. Additionally it may be said that it arises, in the present theories, from desires, values, objectives, and expectations. Since motivation is an inner feeling, managers have to inculcate and control the motivation that their staff has.

Motivation is an inner feeling like an idea, notion and desire. The individuals that are more focused in motivations are managers of their staff as they may offer an insight into why individual perform at the level they do and effectively offer managers with methods to elevate worker productivity.

This paper looks to assess the motivational practices that are used at the workplace, the theories that arise, the performance problems and solutions. It generally looks to focus on the importance that is attributed to motivational practice and how to manage varied issues that arise from it at the workplace.

2. History Perspective

The principles of effective motivation have a long past. The historical past states the start of a history with industrial age, leaders and managers of age that got the meaning of motivation and applied in varied ways.

The classic theories of workplace management were made in 1800s and 1900s. They were limited in focus of worker motivation than methods of control. The business was a model that was applied to produce goods. According to Fredrick Taylor, work was a means of association, made for maximum success and less for staff to judge (Hill, 2013). This method was based on a staff’s point of view who could be motivated by way of wages and fear to be let out of job. Sometime later, Douglas McGregor included the human attribute in the Theory X method to management (Hill, 2013).

Theory X has two motivation models: the carrot and stick – greed and fear. It is attributed to prodding by the leadership, tight rules of staff and loosely specific jobs.

May had done tests to determine what motivated the staff to success, he acquire that the staff’s performance was better when the top leadership showed interest in the enhancements (Hill, 2013).

Presently, the Hawthorne effect stated that productivity is of advantage to a company that forms when offer regard to their staff and handle them better. This goes to affect the social attributes, communications between staff and top leadership. Mayo’s study went on to spark focus into new area of focus on what motivates a person in the workplace (Hill, 2013). The theory X has led to theory Y which states that a person is generally lazy but accepts responsibilities and brings about good outcome. This theory upholds what is known to as participative management, meaning that the staff has a choice to think and act to work strategies.

3. Literature Studies

A number of studies have been done in the past and have concluded that motivated varies due to the varied aspects in the workplace, comprising of evaluation expectation, real performance response, reward, freedom and the form of work. Additionally, theory and research have posed that motivation to work has been divided into two forms; intrinsic motivation that arises from an inner desire of the workplace for a person and extrinsic that arises from an inner need to acquire a certain result different from the work.

When staff have a high sense of freedom, acquire response their performance and have a vital piece of work that needs skill variation, they may experience feelings and hence intrinsic motivation to go on doing well.

There is the Motivation-Hygiene theory that was advanced by Fredrick Herzberg based on the theory of worker fulfillment and discontent. The result of this researcher’s work stated that hygiene elements like wages, benefits and work set ups may hinder discontent from the staff, though they do not motivate the employee (Valencia, n.d). He went on to state that motivators like success, recognition, duties and high contentment from the workplace motivates one to improved effort and performance. Fredrick and other theorist were impacted by the work of Abraham Maslow who assessed what human look out for in their lives and advanced the Needs-Hierarchy factor. This theory was the most influential. It bisects motivating aspects into two aspects; motivators that are based on the work and Hygiene element that is connected to the setting.

Motivating aspects may involve the responsible work, autonomy and contentment from doing challenging work. Hygiene elements are wages, security and work settings. The hygiene elements act basically as de-motivators if they are not enough. Workers are contented and perform better if they are well motivated.

Another model by Hackman Oldman (job-characteristics theory) states that job success can be acquired if there is an increase in the skill variety, task identity, and freedom and response levels.

A good number of these attributes of the workplace, more so autonomy and competence are termed to as intrinsic motivators. They tend to happen when a person feels that is self-motivated and competent. Additionally, a person feels competent if they get response that shows that they are progressing or state that there is an increase in what they do.

The Deming’s theory is based on the thinking of a company and the clients of a company as a model. This model is managed to bring about optimum value to the ones that are comprised in it. The profound knowledge is a model (Valencia, n.d). Deming noted four connecting aspects to this model appreciation, knowledge on variation, theory on knowledge and psychology.

There is lastly the need-achievement theory of motivation. This theory is based as of high validity and it is vital in the use of world work.

4. Workplace Performance Problems

Managers do not commonly look into workplace performance issues so that they may resolve them. Most of the managers are of the thought that the limitation in job expertise is to blame. This is actually not the real thing, most of the workplace performance problems are brought about by varied elements;

There is the absence of machine or process aptitudes. This accord the staff less ability to meet their needed duties that would have otherwise has brought about high performance. In other areas, the machine may be there but in limited use hence one takes a lot of time to complete a task hence bringing about inefficiency in performance at the workplace. Another issue is faulty instructions where a staff is issued with instructions that do not correlate or connect wrongly with what is needed, here the outcome will be disastrous hence a decline in job performance (Valencia, n.d). This goes hand in hand with poor scheduling that leads to unfinished operations or poor outcome. Lastly there are poor relations between the manager and his or her staff. This makes the employees to less open to their supervisors and leaders leading to poor communication that in the end result to poor performance from the top leadership and the staff. These factors are some of a number of them that tend to impact the performance of an employee at the workplace.

5. Workplace Performance Solutions

The right method to handle these problems in performance would be solving them. The right method would help to reduce wastage of resources, for instance if there is limited skill, money that is used on training would be a waste as they would be of little relevance.

The manager has to assess the skills of the staff in undertaking their duties. If a task has been done and no change has been noticed as was done in a past time then there is likelihood of absence of skill. This would call for training.

There is also focusing on motivation issues. The employee has to be trained on the relevance of a task to the company and the group (Valencia, n.d). In most cases, motivation issues connect to elements like timing or significance or poor relations with the top leadership.

Evaluation of staff performance expectations connects to the staff’s absence of comprehension of the elements or levels or performance. Managers in most cases are of the assumption that staff knows the performance standards while they do not know. Training and close connection has to be established so that the staff that informs the managers of the needed tools and aspects connected to the work in place.

6. Conclusion

Motivation in the workplace is a very important aspect that is tightly connected to the performance of the organization. It is hence the work of the managers to establish a close connection with the staff so as to know the varied way that they can be motivated. The paper has been able to look at this practice and the theories connected to it as well as the performance problems that arise and how to solve them. The importance of the workplace motivation is hence relevant to every business setup that looks to succeed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Hill, B., (2013). Motivation: The Not-So-Secret Ingredient of High Performance. Boston:    Harvard Business School Press.

Valencia, C. (n.d.). Motivation and Productivity in the Workplace. Acquired from:             http://www.westminstercollege.edu/myriad/index.cfm?parent=2514&detail=4475&content=4798