Motivational Theories and Organizational Performance Relations

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Equity Theory
Expectancy Theory
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Motivation
Motivational Theories at Belcher limited
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Remuneration and reward of employees are some of the ways that can be used to retain employees. By reward we mean that the efforts of the employee are recognized. Singling out and rewarding workers inspires them to look for ways of undertaking their tasks effectively and lack of it can completely dishearten them. A reward system has to be effective and able to instil the desired behaviour for efficient performance.

The reward system can either use financial mechanism or non-financial. People need to be encouraged and appreciated in order to achieve their mission and that of others. Motivation is the act of encouraging someone to carry out a task better than he intended to. It is common for employees to take up jobs because of the motivation they get. Failure to motivate employees may result in poor performance of a company.

There are generally many forms of motivation, for instance, some employees are motivated by the challenges they encounter while carrying out their tasks, others are motivated by the attention they attract, while majority are motivated by the amount of money they expect to earn.

The last factor plays a great role in the success of every person, most people stay in jobs because of the pay scale, the incentives, and rewards they get from their employer. This paper will look at some motivational theories as it tries to relate them with an organizational performance.

Equity Theory

Equity theory is one of the theories of motivation. It is used to describe the relationship between employees and the motivation they get to work hard and their perception about fair treatment in the work place. For a long time, employers have considered their employees as just inputs to be used for the production of goods and services.

However, this perception is gradually fading as employers get more and more enlightened about motivating their employees. From research, it is clear that, employees are not only motivated by money, but also their attitudes. The equity theory was first developed by John Adams in early 1963.

Adams was a behavioural psychologist who held that, employees are always seeking for equity between the outcomes they get out of their efforts and the inputs they bring into a company.

An employee inputs are the positive contribution he makes for the betterment of an organization including the work he does, his skills, behaviour, and experience while outcomes are the rewards he gets out of his hard work, this may be in the form of appreciation, promotion, incentives, salary rise, to name but a few (Jonathan 650).

Fair treatment is a virtue that motivates employees to work hard for an organization and also to maintain a good working environment with their co-workers. When employees perceive themselves as being over or under rewarded, they may experience distress which may cause the organization to bring back equity in the relationship.

Equity can be computed in terms of individual employee’s contribution and the accrued benefits (Anon. “Adams’ Equity theory” 2). This means that, the partner who contributes less (in terms of investment, or other financial resources) receives fewer benefits (in terms of financial rewards, love, or financial security).

Lack of equity, in the form of underpayment may provoke anger whereas overpayment results in guilt. The major point of concern is the pecuniary reward received (whether in the form of wages or salary) and it is thus the central cause of equity or lack of the same (Diefendorff 489).

When an employee feels that his contributions are not recognized in terms of pay, he tends to become hostile towards the organization and his performance drops. He no longer works to boost the performance of the organization but just to maintain his job position.

This is when employees starts taking sick leaves or searching for other jobs. Having realized this, all organization should give priority to employee satisfaction since they are the ones responsible for its success (Denise 20).

Expectancy Theory

According to Taylor (117), the expectancy theory is concerned with the mental processes that an employee goes through before making a choice. It tries to describe the relation between rewards and performance. Employees perceive that they should be given rewards that consummate with their organizational performance.

It is a form of organizational behaviour that holds that, employees are likely to perform better if they perceive their rewards to be high. This motivation theory was proposed by Victor Vroom, a management specialist in Yale.

It predicts that, majority of employees will seem to be motivated if they suppose that the reward they expect to get is directly proportional to the work done, and if they value the rewards expected from the organization (Swamson 6).

This theory emphasizes on the need to base reward on an individual’s performance. These rewards should be able to offset the work done by the employees. It is only through this considerate rewarding that employees are motivated to work even harder because they expect the rewards to rise as their performance rises.

Expectancy theory can also be used to describe employee’s behaviour in the work place. If an employee is not well competent in a given area, no reward mechanism can motivate him to perform better. It is therefore important for all organizations to consider the individuals’ personal factors before deciding which reward mechanism to use on them.

This is because, an organization may increase the expected rewards for a particular employee as a way of motivating him to work harder but, if the respective employee does not possess the qualities needed for the job; the increase in rewards will not result in comparable improvement in performance (Lawrence 190).

According to Vroom, there are three variables in the theory of expectancy, these are: Expectancy denoted as E, Valance (V), and instrumentality (I). Expectancy is the belief held by an employee that a specific action will result in a given level of outcome, valance can be defined as the strength of an individual towards achieving a preferred outcome (Smith and Mazin 60).

This valance has to be positive if the individual expects to achieve the preferred outcome. On the other hand, instrumentality can be defined as the extent to which the achievement of first level outcomes determines the achievement of the second level.

All these factors describe the relationship between employee’s behaviour and the level of expected outcome. The higher the level of outcome, the better the behaviour of employees and the reverse is true (Richard 243).

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory

Abraham Maslow (a researcher), explored the connection between reward and motivation and came up with a theory called Maslow’s hierarchy of need. Maslow discovered that human beings have different types of needs that they want to be met. They include; basic needs security, self esteem, self actualization, and group needs. To fulfil these needs, sets of motivating rewards have to be used.

Some of the basic needs can be fulfilled through provision of good standards of living by means of honest pay structures (Anon. “Human needs and rewards” 1). Provision of secure working environment coupled with training on safety and health issues can assist in meeting the security needs of the employees.

On the other hand, reward systems on job promotion based on employee’s efforts, skills, and experience can help in raising their self esteem and meet the needs that come with it. Employees’ team working groups that are well structured with good communication help in fulfilling the group needs.

Self actualization needs can be fulfilled by encouraging employee developments by use of appraisal tool where employees gauge their performance. The HRM should use a reward system that helps in meeting most of employees’ needs. This will encourage employees and motivate them to work harder to achieve the organizations goals and objectives.

Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Motivation

Herzberg’s two factor theory was developed after carrying out an interview among 203 American employees. Each employee was asked whether they were satisfied in any of the jobs they had taken. They all gave some positive and negative sides of each job and commented that, one is faced with different challenges when he changes the work environment.

Herzberg wanted to know whether there are other factors for employee satisfaction other than rewards (Storey 61). He found out that, employees are normally satisfied (or dissatisfied) with their job because of the motivators put in place (such as recognition).

There are other factors called hygiene factors (such as job security, salary, and other benefits) which do not give positive satisfaction although their absence normally results in employee dissatisfaction.

Motivation factors are used to motivate employees to work harder for better performance whereas hygiene factors are necessary in ensuring that an employee does not get dissatisfied with the work done.

They are merely put in place to provide a favourable atmosphere for the employees but do not necessary motivate them to work. However, both factors have to be present if an organization has to perform well in the ever changing global market (Bohlander 40).

Motivational Theories at Belcher limited

The boss of Belcher Limited, Mr. Smith, did not use any of the motivational theories discussed above. For instance, Miss Emily was not given a fair salary merit. She had made a lot of contributions in her first year of employment which was not given recognition. Mr. Smith did not even approve some of her ideas and gave no explanation for the decline. This disheartened Emily and discouraged her from coming out with new ideas.

It is clear that, Mr. Smith did not use the equity theory of motivation; all the employees in the accounts department were given equal salary merit (6 percent) irrespective of the contribution they had made in the company. To make it worse, one of the employees (who had been hired recently) got the highest salary merit (10 percent) simply because he was a favourite of the boss.

We have seen that, the kind of reward given to any employee should be equivalent to the contributions made since this is one of the ways of motivating employees. Giving the new employee a ten percent salary merit did not only discourage the others, but also was not a prudent move on the part of the company. This is because reward scheme should be positively related to the work done, individual’s experience, and skills.

Expectancy theory suggests that, employees make choices on how to work depending on the reward they expect to get at the end of the day. If an employee is assured of getting a higher reward for the efforts he put, then there is a likelihood of him performing better (Likert 80). However, this is not the case at Belcher limited, the reward system seems to be static and is not influenced by individual performance.

Emily received the same salary merit as all the other employees although her performance was far above the others. This discouraged her and she was not even sure of what to expect in her second year of employment. This changed her organizational behaviour and general perspective of her work, she choose to take few days sick leave even though she was not sick.

She even declined from giving more ideas to the company and chose to remain silent just like the others. This is a clear indication that, if an organization wants to succeed, it must recognize and reward the efforts of the work force, failure to do so results in poor performance which in turn lowers production of the organization (Halepota 18).

Emily was satisfied with her job not because of the motivation it gave her, but because of the hygiene factors. She was assured of a fixed salary, job security, and other benefits including sick leave. She just enjoyed working like the others, making friends, taking some time off but was not motivated to put an extra effort.

She even started looking for another job where she could get the motivation she needed because she knew that, she had a lot of potential that needed some recognition and motivation. If Belcher wants to retain its employees, it has to use all the motivation theories discussed above.

As the employees meet the organization’s expectations, it is important for the organization to realize that the employees also have their targets that they want to be met. The employee must be appraised appropriately to enable the human resources department recognize the areas that need to be improved (Bratton and Gold 100). Those who have attained the expectations of the management should be rewarded accordingly

Conclusion

Few are the times when supervisors recommend employees for any task well done. They forget that employees are normal beings who feel good if appreciated. Research has proved that, recognition and praise from supervisors and managers is one of the most important reward mechanism for motivating employees.

Employees feel motivated when their contribution to the organization is noticed and appreciated. Supervisors should recognize the value of employees in the organization and the importance of thanking them either through writing or verbally for their precise contributions.

Works Cited

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Anonymous. Adams’ Equity theory. Balancing employee inputs and outputs. Web.

Bohlander, George & Snell, Scott. Managing Human Resources. London: Cengage Learning, 2009.

Bratton, John and Gold, Jeffrey. Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 2001.

Denise, Weiss. Motivational interventions and their effect on corporate performance. University of South Alabama, 2005. Database: ABI/INFORM complete.

Diefendorff, James M. Motivational traits. Encyclopaedia of industrial and organizational psychology, 2007, Vol. 2 p489-492.

Halepota, Hassan Ali. Motivational theories and their application in construction. Cost engineering, 2005, Vol. 47 Issue 3, p14-18.

Jonathan, Klein. Feasibility Theory: A resource-munificence model of work motivation and behaviour. Academy of management Review, 1990, Vol. 15 Issue 4 p646-665.

Lawrence Walker, R. beyond Expectancy theory: An integrative motivational model from health care. Academy of Management Review 1982, Vol. 7 Issue 2, p187-194.

Likert, Rensis. Motivational Approach to management development. Harvard Business Review, 2009, Vol. 37 Issue 4 p75-82.

Richard, Oliver. Expectancy theory predictions of salesmen’s performance. Journal of marketing research (JMR), 1994, Vol. 11 Issue, p243-253.

Storey, John. New perspectives on human resource management. London: Cengage Learning EMEA, 1998.

Swamson, Richard. Foundations of Human Resource Development: Easy read Large Edition. San Francisco: ReadHowYouWant.com, 2009.

Smith, A. Shawn and Mazin, A. Rebecca. The HR answer book: an indispensable guide for managers and human resources professionals. New York: Amacom Div American Mgmt Assn, 2004.

Taylor, Michael. Employee recognition schemes- do they work? China Staff. 2008, Vol. 14 Issue 6 p117.

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