Theories of motivation try to explain methods that are used so as to encourage employees to perform highly. Motivation is the inner drive that makes employees want to come to work and perform as expected by their employers or according to their needs (Miner 1994).
A well motivated workforce is a source of competitive advantage given that employees require an extra push in order for them put in additional effort towards the achievement of goals. There are many motivation theories that have been identified by scholars and these are explained in this presentation.
The theory of scientific management proposed that employers have a natural dislike for work and therefore management ought to closely monitor, supervise and control activities within the organization (Hoffmann 2007). This theory encouraged employers to provide adequate training and working tools then pay employees according to what they achieve.
The Human Relation School of thought through the Hawthorn experiment discovered that employees perform higher when their social needs are met (Holt & Wigginton 2002). This proposed that managers show interest to employees and also treat them as valuable assets of the organization.
Maslows hierarchy of needs theory focuses on psychological needs of workers and proposes that employees are motivated to achieve more only when their lower level needs have been met. This differentiates workers based on the level that they are in the hierarchy of needs structure.
The two factor theory of motivation proposed that workers could be motivated by either motivators or hygiene factors. Motivators are concerned wit the job itself while hygiene factors lower motivation if they are absent.
Modern theories of motivation include goal setting theory, acquired needs theory and the expectancy theory. The goal setting theory proposes that workers get motivated when they set challenging goals which guide their activities (Green 1992; Robbins 1994). This advocates for the setting of challenging goals by employers and workers themselves so as increase the drive and effort put in order to achieve them.
The acquired needs theory is related to Maslows hierarchy of needs theory which explains how workers get motivated to achieve more when they have acquired lower level needs (Beck 2004). The expectancy theory on the other hand proposes that workers get motivated when they expect that their effort will bring about a valuable reward (Pride, Hughes & Kapoor 2012).
The best motivational theory in relation to the case of Thailand would be the expectancy theory given that the Thai already have a lot of expectation about bonuses. They expect that after reporting to work for a period of time they will receive bonuses at the end of the year regardless of the results achieved (Deresky & Christopher 2002).
This indicates that it would be difficult for a different theory of motivation to work in the country since the workers already demand monetary incentives in order to work. Goal setting theory would not be effective since goals without bonuses would not successfully make the Thai workers to put in more effort.
The expectancy theory can therefore be applied strategically so as to ensure that workers are lured into putting effort with the expectation of higher bonuses at the end of the year. Since Thai workers naturally expect to earn bonuses at the end of the year, employers can simply attach targets which if achieved at an earlier date can lead to issuance of higher bonuses.
Reference List
Beck, RC 2004. Motivation: Theories and Principles, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Deresky, H & Christopher, E 2002. International Management: Managing Culture Diversity, (2nd Ed), Pearson Australian, Sydney.
Green, TB 1992. Performance and Motivation Strategies for Todays Workforce A Guide to Expectancy Theory Applications, Quorum Books, London.
Hoffmann, S b2007. Classical Motivation Theories- Similarities and Differences between Them, GRIN Verlag, Munich.
Holt, DH & Wigginton, KW 2002. International Management, Harcourt College Publ, Fort Worth, TX.
Miner, JB 1994. Role Motivation Theories, Routledge, Abington, OX.
Pride, WM, Hughes, RJ & Kapoor, JR 2012. Business (11th Ed), South- Western Cengage Learning, Mason, OH.
This research will revolve around establishing the level of employee satisfaction as influencing organizational performance in five organizations across the UAE. The research will be carried out in stages.
The first stage will involve establishing the research objectives after which empirical literature will be located to understand the current position of the research topic. The last part will involve actual research, interpretation of the findings, and relation of the findings to the empirical literature.
Research background
Despite the fact that employee motivation and satisfaction are significant elements in the optimal performance matrix for an organization, the aspect of balance has always been very challenging in most organizations in the UAE.
Through a relevant program training model, the concentration evaluation should remain active in developing dependence of interest attached to an activity, creating proactive relationships, and monitoring interaction with physical aspects of team evaluation. Eventually, this pays off since that individual will learn to appreciate the essence of learning and need to stay active (Bohlander & Snell 2007).
Thus, despite training coordination being rated as a high self management assessment strategy, actionable planning is of essence to create solution oriented task and strategy implementation secession for quantifying performance levels. This paper will attempt to establish the link between organizational efficiency and employee motivational level.
Research problem
Reflectively, the motivational and energy aspects of appreciation functions simultaneously at micro and macro levels to facilitate optimal functionality or productivity (Bohlander & Snell, 2007).
When properly incorporated within and without different departmental segmentations as an active component of the company goals and vision, the complete interaction between the management and other staff will contribute to value addition, good performance, and healthy working environment (Hellriegel & Slocum 2011). The main problem is that some assessment systems are not fair enough for employees.
As a result, most organizations employee evaluation programs are stress-inducing for supervisors and employees. Evaluation policies and standards come from top management (DeCenzo & Robbins 2007). It is important to establish the strategies that may be applied by organizations to reverse the above trend.
Rationale of the research
The need for employee motivation and satisfaction obliges more research in the area of human resource management strategies that organizations apply. It is for these reasons that the research will attempt to provide a framework for organizational success as determined by the level of employee satisfaction and motivation (Harrison & Wicks 2013).
At the end of the research, case study companies, which want to further improve their employee motivation strategies, will be in possession of the ideal strategies for sustainable employee motivation and performance.
Research aims and objectives
This study attempts to explicitly review the human resource management strategies in promoting employee motivation and satisfaction. The primary aims and objectives of this research paper will be;
To provide sufficient information on human resource management strategies that ensures employee satisfaction in the five case study organizations.
To establish the views of the employees of the five organizations on what is to be done to ensure that they are motivated.
Research questions
What is the effect of employee satisfaction and motivation on organizational progress?
How are the five organizations different in their employee motivation programs?
What factors of human resource management strategies are ideal in employee motivation?
Significance of the research
This research will enable different organizations to create systems that ensure employee satisfaction as a prerequisite for optimal performance. The research will offer a combination of the best practices that ensure optimal employee performance within the case study organizations. The research will also offer comprehensive recommendations to ensure that the employee satisfaction programs are sustainable.
Literature review
The paper will be based on empirical literature from past case studies and secondary literature on employee motivation and satisfaction. The secondary literature used will be within the UAE.
Research methodology
This research will be conducted using research survey study approach. The researcher chose the qualitative approach. The qualitative approach is best suited to gain proper insight into the situation of the case study. Besides, qualitative data analysis is more detailed than a quantitative one.
Moreover, this approach will create room for further analysis using different and divergent tools for checking the degree of error and assumption limits (De-Rada 2005).
This research will target employee of 5 companies within the UAE. A sample space of 10 participants will be interviewed. The study will opt for open and close-ended questionnaire in data collection since it is economical on time, finance, and energy unlike qualitative method which may not be economical especially when the sample size is put into picture (Mason 2005).
The collected quantitative data will be coded and passed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences. In order to quantify the relationship between the independent and dependent variable, the paper will use ANOVA and correlation analysis (Denscombe 2002).
Expected findings
It is anticipated that the employee motivation strategies, that will be recommended, will ensure optimal performance and sustainability of the case study organizations. The improvement in employee motivation and satisfaction will be quantifiable through comparing the periodic feedback within the five organizations with the performance after three months into the implementation stage.
References
Bohlander, G., & Snell, S. (2007). Managing human resources. Mason, OH: Thomson Higher Education.
DeCenzo, D., & Robbins, S. (2007). Fundamentals of human resource management (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Denscombe, M. (2002). Ethics: Ground rules for good research. Buckingham, UK: Open University.
De-Rada, V. D. (2005). Influences of questionnaire design on response to mail surveys. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8(1), 61-78
Harrison, J., and Wicks, A. (2013). New ways of measuring company performance. Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organization, 61(4), 653-667.
Hellriegel, D., & Slocum, J. W. (2011). Organizational behaviour (13th ed.). Mason, OH: South- Western Cengage Learning.
Mason, J. (2005). Designing qualitative research. London, UK: Sage.
A study carried out by a researcher among middle level public officials in one of African states established that they had a problem of job and work avoidance. The study linked the problem to interferences from senior officials, lack of decision-making abilities, monotony, lack of feedback among others causes. Middle level officials resorted to job and work avoidance because they lacked a sense of owning the work, never got any credit for their outstanding performance, and lacked feedback.
In this context, job and work avoidance covered absenteeism with no explanations, lateness, and irregular signing out. During working periods, public officials had tendencies to concentrate on activities not related to their duties. These tendencies included politics, long lunch and coffee breaks, serving the public reluctantly and more often, procrastinating duties.
Job characteristics theory
Public officials lack autonomy in their jobs. They do not feel personally responsible for their work, and thus they do not own the outcomes. This is due to both internal and external interferences in tendering processes from their senior level counterparts and influential politicians. Furthermore, they lack decision-making abilities to control projects within their level of work. They feel that their personal efforts are not worthwhile (Latham 120).
Task identity due to interferences no longer exists among the middle level public officials. They do not see a distinct sense of beginning and ending in their works. Middle level public officials are unable to identify with their work as a whole task. Hence, there is no sense of pride they derive from their work outcomes. For instance, in the evaluation of tendering processes, senior level officials tend to interrupt the process by introducing their preferred bidders. Therefore, middle level officials do not see the task from its beginning to end, and there is no satisfaction they get from such tasks.
Some middle level officials consider their tasks to be of limited significance to the ministry. These are mainly officials who moved up in the job grade but never changed their roles. For instance, the clerk at the ministry store claims that his job almost lack significance in relation to his peers jobs. Therefore, he only derives low level motivation.
Most middle level public officials have multiple skills for performing a job. However, their lines of duties are rather monotonous. For instance, a clerk at the ministry store does not use his computer skills to keep his records. This is because his department has no computers. Therefore, he is unable to apply his various skills to perform a task resulting into low level of motivation.
Feedback from work gives the middle level officials awareness of their effectiveness in converting their efforts into performance. Occasionally, they do not get involved in works from beginning to end. They rarely get the knowledge outcomes from the work. For instance, senior officials mar the bidding processes by favoritisms, which they do in secrecy. As such, middle level officials cannot get any knowledge outcomes in such processes. Therefore, they lack the vital feedback information which they can use to improve on their performances (Daft 283).
In short, the theory anticipates that job performance, satisfaction, and attendance should be higher when the above five characteristics are present. In fact, it clarifies that all the five must be present for these consequences to accrue.
Solutions to the problem
Lack of autonomy among middle level public officials arises from both internal and external interferences. Senior public officials should stop meddling in the job of their juniors such as evaluation of tendering processes and making recommendations. The ministry should review job descriptions of different management levels and provide and reinforce clear cut job functions of each official. In order to ensure job autonomy, middle level officials should make decisions on bidding and awarding of tenders, evaluation of the bidding processes until the task is complete.
The ministry should introduce computers in the department to enable the incumbents exploit the varieties of the task skills they have to deliver on their job performances. Officials should also combine tasks e.g. a secretary can combine her clerical and administrative skills with training new secretaries, and getting the ministry annual reports published. Finally, job interferences prevent middle level officials from owning their jobs from start to end. Consequently, officials do not get feedback to use in the future for task performance. For instance, official should be involved in procurement processes from gathering of information, requesting for tenders, background reviews of selected firms, negotiations, tender fulfillment to tender renewal in the future.
Works Cited
Daft, Richard L. The Leadership Experience, 5th Edition. Mason, OH: Southwestern Publishing , 2008. Print.
Latham, Gary. Work Motivation: History, Theory, Research, and Practice. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2007. Print.
The case of Fred Maiorino as presented is mainly an issue of poor employee motivation and an inappropriate management style. Fred had once been the top sale person for his company but through a series of events, he found himself without an income or a job. Fred had joined Schering-Plough in 1956. He made his way to the top by completing a variety of successful assignments mainly in western New Jersey. In 1984, Fred was assigned a new area in South Jersey responsible for promoting the companys asthmatic products.
Fred succeeded in this area also. A medical profession noted that unlike other salesmen, Fred was able to quite effective in his job he could enter an office and conclude his business in minutes while other sales rep would be sitting in the waiting room for hours on end (Buller & Schuler, 2003, p. 237). Despite the dynamic nature of the drug industrys environment, Fred was not only effective but very successful. In 1987, Fred was the best sales representative in his district and was quite successful until he was assigned James Reed as his manager some months later.
Reed instituted various management tools that were meant to improve the overall effectiveness of the sales representative. He implemented a new performance rating system and a coaching system that was meant to motivate the employees. This management changes, however, hurt Freds ability to produce results.
Major Issues
The major issue, in this case, is Freds lack of motivation which was as a result of several issues that include: Reids poor coaching attempts, inappropriate techniques of motivation older workers, the impacts of instituting a performance evaluation system, resistance to change, negative response to pressure, the issue of equity and procedural justice and finally the violation of the psychological contract.
Poor Performance Appraisal System and incentives
After Reed was made the general sales manager in Fred District, his first order of business was to institute a new performance appraisal system quota system previously used. This new system used two different measures to evaluate the employees performance. The first measure was quantitatively objective while the second utilized critical incidents of the sales representative actions as behavioral benchmarks (Buller & Schuler, 2003, p. 241).
The companys rationale for using the behavior anchored rating system was that it was more accurate in evaluating the employees performance. It was argued that the bottom line approach of using only the sales results did not take full consideration of other factors important to performance. The BARS system was meant to provide feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the employees.
Under the new system, Fred performance on job competency was high but on the behavioral component, he received a lower rating of good. During the application of this new performance rating system, Fred appeared to be performing very poorly. Under reeds new system, performance goals were set based on historical records.
One main problem of the BARS system is that the system is more activity-oriented rather than result-oriented. A sales representative following all the required activities in sales may be ranked higher than the one who shows results. In Freds case, he was a top sale person with one of the highest turnover in his district. Under the new system, he was ranked among the lowest in his district.
Fred used connections that were developed over time. He had knowledge of his companys drugs and knowledge about the weaknesses of the competitors products. He did not use visual aids and presentations as the company required. This plus other small company requirements made him fail in the new rating system. We can thus see that the new system was not fully objective as it failed to consider other behavioral factors that made Fred competent in his work.
The development of a new appraisal system must follow a given sequence of steps to be effective. In the case of the BARS system, the steps involve; choosing the critical factors, conversion of critical incidents into performance dimensions, retranslation of the behavioral examples into physical dimensions by experts in the job, use of experts to rate the behaviors and finally developing the final rating document. Reed in his quest to introduce a new system did not follow these regulations.
While the critical factors chosen were good, Reed did not involve the employees in the process of developing the document. The Fred had no idea how he was being rated and what exactly was expected from him. According to Roberts (2003), an effective appraisal system should involve the employees in every step of the. He argues that employees have intimate knowledge of appropriate performance measures that the rater may not have. Reed took upon himself to develop the document and impose it on the employees. Reed also did not offer feedbacks to Fred instead he took the results to his bosses who did not bother talking with Fred but gave him an ultimatum.
Employee involvement and feedback is very important in the appraisal system. The lack of these two factors may cause the employees to view the appraisal system negatively and thus reject it as an unwelcome intrusion (Locke & Latham, 1984). When Reed tries to offer Fred advice about his analysis of his performance, Fred politely declines his suggestions and assures him he has always done well before.
Reeds Poor Coaching Attempts
Coaching is one way of employee motivation that has been proven to be effective and produce results. Due to the dynamic nature of many businesses, coaching is very important as a form of employee development and training. Reeds attempts to coaching Fred did not yield any results. Reed at one time laments that despite all he has done to improve Freds performance he was hurt to see that Fred was not making any effort (Buller & Schuler, 2003, p.244). Several factors may have led to the bad reception of Reeds coaching methods.
According to Lindborn (2007), to get the required results, coaching should be linked with the core competencies of the organization. The core competencies are a set of principles meant to guide decisions and shape behavior past just the bottom line center of attention (Lindborn, 2007). Freds only focus was that he applies his best to sell as many products as possible. It can be seen that Fred was very good in the sales of some product but he was very weak in the promotion of other products such as Proventil in which he was among the last in the country. Reed was however not concerned with the number of products moved but on what products and how they were moved.
Reed coaching style involved giving Fred medical journals to improve his understanding of his products, written encouragements and increasing the number of runs they made together. One of the first errors Reeds made was that he did not discuss with Fred about the process and no specific targets were set. Gabris & Simo (1995) note that during the initial application of a coaching regime, it is important that the manager and employee discuss the main areas of weaknesses to be covered and agreement on the coaching regime be made between the two.
Reeds boss at one time commented that according to him it was not clear as to what precise goals had to be achieved and the time frame with which these goals were to be achieved was also vague (Buller & Schuler, 2003, pg 244). Lindbon (2007) observes that for a company to institute an effective coaching program, it should lay down specific standards for how the process should be conducted. The program should also include the precise behaviors and expected results from the process. Reeds coaching method did not do anything to improve Freds abilities rather they involved a ride-along that was mainly meant to evaluate how Fred carries out his job. Coaching involves a transfer of skills from one member to another. Reed was mainly in the office and had very little field experience. Reed was therefore not qualified as a coach as he could not offer Fred any new skills.
Another important aspect of coaching lies with the provision of regular feedback during the process (Stone, Russell & Patterson, 2004). During the period Fred was having difficulties, he got very little feedback on his progress and reed made no efforts at discussing with him areas in which he showed weaknesses. When Reed observed that Fred had not targeted the big prescribers sharks , he reprimanded Fred through a memo instead of explaining to him face to face why it was necessary to target all the sharks in the area.
Coaching is a one-on-one activity whereby a coach tries to identify the main areas of weakness of an employee and take the appropriate actions to direct the employee on the right path (Lindborn, 2007). Reeds technique of coaching can be described best as negative psychological KITA. Herzberg (1987) explains that negative psychological KITA is the process whereby a manager uses psychological violence as a means to motivate an employee. This involves verbal and written reprimands meant to put the employee in fear or at unease. While Fred defends himself that he did apply most of the Reeds suggestions, it can be seen that Reed did not notice the effort and was quick to point out how Fred had failed in identifying the sharks.
Proper coaching involves good communication between the parties involved, active participation by the parties and setting appropriate behavioral targets and process goals. Reed failed in all these activities and for that reason was unable to effectively motivate Fred.
Motivating older workers
In the court case, the company was accused of discriminating against older employees. The company had instituted an enhanced retirement program meant for employees older than 55 years of age. The company then went ahead and hired over 75 younger sales representatives before the retirement program was successful in eliminating the older sales rep. This move was not only mean spirited but also affected the morale of the older generation. At one time Fred was told he was a fool for not taking this deal and after this Fred felt that Reed began his witch hunt to get rid of him (Buller & Schuller, 2003, pg. 245)
Motivating older workers is much more complicated than motivating young workers. The monetary incentives given by the company were not effective in eliciting the appropriate response. According to Kanfer & Ackerman (2004), older workers are usually more hesitant to engage in new skills training than younger workers. The duo observed that older workers also preferred collaborative tasks rather than competitive task. Reed main management technique was based on fostering competition between the workers to improve output. Reed explains that I have the right, in my judgment, to motivate representatives, to coach, to teach, to counsel, and 1 find that competition is a very strong motivating force (Buller & Schuller, 2003, pg. 246).
In this case, Fred had been working for a long time using the same techniques that had granted him recognition in the past. Although the drug industry was changing and new technological tools that could help in his promotion had been developed, he was unwilling to change his techniques and adopt the new ones. According to various studies, it was noted that older employees have a gradual decline of fluid intellectual abilities that include attention, abstract reasoning, working memory, and processing new information (Wechsler, 1944).
Giving Fred medical Journals did not help him rather it might have added to his growing frustration. According to Kanfer and Ackerman (2004), older employees are less active and less inclined to new experiences. They are also less sociable, less anxious but are highly conscientious. Reeds warnings about dismissing Fred from his job may have only added more stress t him but did nothing to motivate him to improve his job. The older generation needs to be motivated concerning their abilities and not in competition with the younger employees.
Kanfer and Ackerman (2004) noted that in jobs that require higher cognitive powers, the older generation with compensate for the loss of cognitive abilities with higher effort. This can be seen in Freds case whereby although he could not attract the younger prescribers (sharks) he applied all his efforts on the clients he already had and performed very well in some of the drugs he sold.
Freds resistance to change
In this case, Fred had been a model employee for over 32 years before Reed was posted as his manager. He had applied techniques that had worked and given him several awards, big commissions, and respect in his field of work. When Reed was brought in, he instituted changes that did not make a lot of sense to Fred and on top of that his new performance appraisal techniques revealed that Freds performance was below par.
Although Fred moved a lot of drugs, his performance on the most important drugs that the company was producing was very low. Reed also discovered that Fred had not identified the big prescribers of the most important drugs as he usually stuck with those clients he had gotten used to (Buller & Schuler, 2003, pg 243). Reed intended to help Fred achieve better results and thus took to coaching him. Reed provided Fred with medical journals went with him in some of his sales runs and gave him several pieces of advice on how he can improve his sales. However, Fred responded with a letter that said I have opted not to do this at this time, but would like to make the following statement instead: I have always, during my long career with Schering, strived to do the best that I can do, be the best that I can be, and that is all anyone can expect of me. Of course, this is nothing new as I will, as in the past, continue to do the same (Buller & Schuler, 2003, pg.244).
This response was Freds attitude towards the change that was being imposed on him. According to Washington and Hacker (2005), several factors may cause resistance to change. These factors include fear of the change, lack of understanding about the changes being instituted, negative feelings about the change and how the change might affect a persons career. Resistance to change is usually a healthy reaction brought about by fear of the unknown (Coghlan, 1993). Resistance to change may also be brought about by poor communication in which the employees fear of reduced job security, reduced recognition and changes in economic stabilities might be amplified (Caruth et al., 1985).
Fred was an older worker in an organization that required results from its workers. Fred had for a long time been able to yield these results. When Reed first instituted the new management system, Fred was told that he was not performing as per what was expected of him. This sudden change, from Hero to Zero , might have made shocked Fred making him insecure about his position in the firm. Fred was also old and thus was not willing to let go of the techniques that he had used for so long. Older workers have difficulty adapting to change within an organization. Due to the volatility of the situation the company was in, Fred could not risk trying to learn a new method and then fail.
Reed did not handle this situation well as he did not have a meaningful conversation with Fred in all of this time. He did not meet with Fred face to face to explain why he thought that Fred should at least try his methods. In doing this, he did not give Fred a chance to voice his concerns about the new system and why he felt that he had to refuse to change.
Fred Unethical Response to Pressure
Freds unethical response to pressure was mainly because he felt he was being singled out. Considering the events, it was purely reasonable for Fred to be on edge. The company had hired more workers than they could handle and needed to lay off some workers. The retirement program they instituted was a failure and therefore, they had to find another way to get rid of the older employees. This was what Fred might have been thinking and when Reed gave him a negative review on his performance assessment, Fred might saw it as a means to discredit him so as he can lose his job.
McShulskis (1997) noted that the main cause of unethical behavior in most organizations is the pressure to meet unrealistic goals or deadlines. The study noted that in most corporations, employees who may have never indulged in unethical behaviors may turn to them due to the pressure imposed on them. Hosmer (1987) added that competition for position or power might also lead to employees acting unethically.
In this case, Fred was being pressured to improve his performance. Their environment was competitive and Fred was not particularly strong in some areas. When confronted about it, Fred became defensive and angry. Hosmer (1987) notes that when employees are insecure about their job position, they become defensive and may engage in unethical behavior in an attempt to impress their superiors. Although Fred did not wish to impress his superiors, he felt as if he was on trial and thus any mistake on his part would be considered sufficient justification to fire him. He thus reported that he worked full days, refused help as it showed he was weak and had emotional outbursts because he felt cornered and that Reed was out to get him. This was mainly due to the poor condition in which the whole issue was handled.
Psychological contract Violation
The contract sets the dynamics on what is expected from the employee and what obligations the employer has to the employee. According to Robinson and Morrison (1995), perceptions that a breach of the psychological contract has occurred usually result in; reduced trust by the employee, reduced sense of obligation, reduced job satisfaction and in-role performance.
Robinson and Morrison (2000) argue that the two main causes of perceived contract breach might be due to Incongruence and reneging. Reneging occurs when managers and other company agents recognize that there exists a contract but deliberately fail to meet that obligation. Varying views on an obligation expressed by the employee and the agent results in incongruence.
In Freds case, there seems to be feelings of a breach in the psychological contract at several times. When Fred was hired, he expected to be able to work until he was seventy-five. But before he got to this age, the company instituted an advanced retirement program meant for employees over 55 years old and without waiting to see how many employees will accept the program, they went ahead and hired replacements for the older employees.
When Fred was told about this program, he refused to partake and was called a fool. It was at this moment that Fred started to notice that they were after him. This is one of the cases were perceptions of breach of contract exist. Fred expected to be allowed to work until he was unable to do so. The company knew that they had an obligation to Fred and other older employees. However, reneged on this obligation when they hired the younger workers to replace the older ones without the older ones having accepted the retirement package.
Another case was when Fred felt that the actions of Reed constituted spying. At one particular time, Reed had told his employees that they had to be flexible about their work habits. He explained that the sales reps had complete freedom to plan their call schedule and all was expected was that they complete a full workday (Buller & Schuler, 2003, pg.246). When Reed reports that he had seen Freds car in the driveway during work hours, he was going back on his deal since he neither confronted Fred to find out if there was an explanation and he also did not know when Fred finished his workday. This is also reneging of the psychological contract by Schering.
According to Robinson and Morrison (1995), reengaging may occur when the company has is unable to carry out its obligation or when it is unwilling due to limited resources. Feelings of contract breach may arise either because the company has been performing lower than expected or when the employee performance has been lower than expected. The employee interprets this contract breach on not only the outcomes but also the situation in which it occurred (Wong & Weiner, 1981). If the perceived breach is as a result of reneging, the employees will be more emotionally affected than if it was due to incongruence.
Breach of the psychological contract affects the ability of the employee to trust the organization and thus will not be ready to offer his best performance to the organization. In some cases, breach of the performance contract may lead to feelings of violation in which the employee may react unfavorably. Fred felt violated when he learned that Reed was checking upon him. He felt his right to privacy violated has the company had given them leeway to set up their schedule hence it was unthinkable that he was being checked at home. He was thus distracted, angry and harbored negative feelings against Reed and the company in general. His performance was being affected by the emotional pressure he was under and thus he could not yield good results.
Equity and Procedural Justice
Greenberg (1987) described organizational justice as the perception and reactions of an employee to fairness within an organization. An employees reaction to organizational justice can influence his or her performance and attitudes. The main premise behind organizational justice is derived from the equity theory which holds that judgments of equity are as a consequence of contrasts between ones self and others based on work efforts and results (Adams, 1965)
Organizational justice exists as distributive justice, procedural justice or interactional justice where distributive justice refers to the fair distribution of resources and the making of decisions. Barsky, et al. (2011) found out that emotions and effects are usually the responses of perceived injustice. Studies have proved that the more an employee feels that there is injustice towards him/her, the more negative emotion he or she experiences. A persons perception of justice can be weighed by the trait level (Barsky & Kaplan, 2007). The causes of perceived organizational justices have been listed as employee participation in decision making and other company processes, effective communication with employees and influence in the organization environment.
In the case of Fred, the first evaluation that Fred got was poor as compared to other younger employees. Although Fred had much more sales than the other, the performance evaluation carried out by Reed resulted in him being given a lower salary raise than the other employees (pg. 238). This might have been the source of Freds feelings of Injustice.
The suspensions that Fred was given might also have fostered his perception of injustice. Reed directly reported Fred to the head office without giving him a chance to explain. Fred later explained that he requested the specific dates of his alleged tardiness but Reed refused to give him the information. Fred also claims he was following Reeds advice to be flexible and set his schedule. The suspension was thus against procedural justice and might have led Fred to perceive that the company was being unjust to him.
Fred probationary program might also have causes perceptions of injustice. According to Fred, Reed never informed him that he was on probation until it was almost over and during all this time he had no idea what was expected of him. When he realized what was going one, it was too late to effectively turn around his performance to meet the expected results. The lack of communication between Reed and Fred might have been the precursor to these feelings of organizational injustice.
The perceptions of organizational justice might result in a lack of trust. According to DeConick (2010), most employees feelings of trust are based on the fact that since the organization is acting fairly at the moment, future decisions and processes might also be fair. Perceptions of trust affect the employees performance, job satisfaction, and commitment according to Hubbell & Chory-Assad (2005). The inability of Fred to perform better might have resulted from his perceived feeling of injustice. A pharmacist observed that Freds attitude had changed and commented that Fred was an outgoing, happy-go-lucky guy, but you could see he was getting upset. The problem, he said, was his boss (Buller & Schuler, 2003, pg 246).
Alternative Methods
There are several steps that Reed and the management team at Schering could have taken to motivate Fred and avoid the unfortunate events that occurred later. These options are Leader behavior, proper incentives, coaching, managing resistance to change and avoiding the violation of the psychological contract.
Leader Behavior and Appropriate coaching techniques
One of the main reasons that resulted in the unfortunate conditions was Reeds poor leadership behavior. There are several good leadership models that Reed could have adopted for the dynamic drug industry especially when dealing with sales representatives. Two of the most appropriate leadership models are transformational leadership and servant leadership. Servant leadership is a management philosophy which involves a complete examination of employees quality, work, and community spirit. A servant leader is the one who can be able to consider the needs of his employees and also be able to challenge himself to provide solutions and encourage personal development. A servant leaders main focus is the people since only satisfied and motivated employees can fulfill the specified objectives and targets.
When Reed first began working as Freds boss, he intended to improve Scherings sales. To do this, he instituted a new performance evaluation system that was to boost competition in the hopes of improving sales. This methodology mainly failed because he did not consider the people working there. Servant leadership exceeds employee-related behavior and requires a reconfiguration of the hierarchical relationship between subordinates and their leaders. The responsibilities of the managers are mainly employee satisfaction and performance promotion. By understanding and supporting employees, a servant leader can get the full picture of why an employees performance is low and together they can find a solution to improve performance.
A servant leader should possess certain qualities. First, He should be a good listener. He should have good communication skills and be able to listen to the problem his employees have and in the process help them in decision identification. Second, a servant leader should have empathy. He should be able to put himself in others shoes to understand their situation and help them achieve clarity. Third, a servant leader should have foresight.
He should be able to foresee the possible outcomes of a given situation. Finally, a servant leader should be committed to people. A servant leader is the one who believes that employees have an intrinsic value that exceeds their work contributions. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, is a management philosophy that aims at instilling changes in social systems and individuals. Its main aim is to generate change in the subordinates with the main goal of turning followers into leaders. When applied correctly, transformational leadership boosts morale, motivation and overall performance of subordinates.
The mechanisms used in transformation leadership include: uniting the subordinates sense of identity to the organization and the mission at hand, taking the role of a role model with the ability to inspire, understanding the weaknesses and strengths of the subordinates and challenging the subordinates to take on greater ownership for their work. Transformational leaders are not only intelligent but are also charismatic. They can create a vision and to push their subordinates to question the status quo and share the vision of the future (Tatum & Eberlin, 2007).
For transformation leadership to be effective the employees must be able to copy the beliefs and personal values of the leader (Humphreys & Einstein 2003). Tatum and Eberlin (2007) propose that a transformational leader should be fair, able to promote respect, make decisions based on the needs of their subordinates and the society and able to foster a culture of trust. Reeds should, therefore, have tried to emulate either servant leadership or transformational leadership in his management style. In this case, he imposed rules and conditions, gave orders and ultimatums without any consideration of his employees such as Fred. He was mainly unable to motivate Fred since his leadership style did not have any motivational aspects.
Managing Resistance to Change
When Reed requested that Fred take a different approach, Fred was not only reluctant but blatantly refused Reeds proposals. Reeds approach to induce the change was faulty at best. He used an impersonal means to notify Fred about the changes needed. Upon discovering that Fred was reluctant to change his techniques in favor of those he proposed, Reed reported him to the head office where Fred was punished through a two-day non-payable suspension.
According to Caruth et al. (1985), some of how managers might foster change is through proper communication, listening to the employees opinions, setting a good example and offering incentives to facilitate the change. If Reed could have explained his rationale for the need for change to Fred, they might have a discussion and come up with an amicable solution. Geller (2002) noted that educating an employee before training or coaching is a powerful cure for resistance to change. In a research, Washington and Hacker (2005) observed that individuals who knew all the details about the change were more likely to support the change and had less fear that the change might fail or make them look bad.
Palmer (2004) argues that the leader and his subordinate must first communicate about the change before it is put into action so that they can look at different alternatives for the employee depending on the situation or environment. Accordingly, Caruth, et al. (1985) notes that incorporating employees in the discussions about change creates a feeling of involvement, provides the manager with insight about the true capabilities of his employee and provides the manager with a full perspective of the issue or problem. Heifetz and Halle (1996) also add that employees require time and multiple opportunities to struggle with important changes.
Avoiding violation of the psychological contract
The company together with Reed should have taken care not to violate Freds psychological contract. Zhao et al. (2007) noted that breach of the psychological contract can be linked to several job outcomes that include effects, job behaviors and attitudes. The above outcomes have are related to the social exchange theory and affective events theory. The social exchange theory holds that people interact with each other because they are motivated by expectations of receiving incentives from the other party (Blau, 1960). In the work environment, if employees perceive that their contributions are not being reciprocated, they respond emotionally through frustration or anger.
Reed did not consider that for a long time Fred was the best sales representative in his district. By instituting an evaluation system that labeled Fred as incompetent though he still had the best sale, he broke the psychological contract between Fred and the company. Fred missed out on the salary raise he deserves and thus began getting frustrated. Reed should have discussed with Fred explaining the new system after which he should have used the previous rating system until the years end after Fred had performed knowing that a new evaluation system had been installed.
The hiring of new younger sales representatives should also have occurred after the company was sure that the older generation had received the retirement program positively. By hiring new employees, the company had informed the older sales representatives that their services were not required anymore. The older sales representatives, therefore, worked in frustration as they were not confident about keeping their jobs. Robinson (1996) argues that the obligations of the employers take precedence over his fulfillment. This is because contract breach might have future ramifications on the work environment. The employees will work under frustration, anger, and indifference affecting productivity in future times.
The manager should be able to foster positive feelings in hi employees and thus should strive to understand the employees perception of the psychological contract. In some cases, there is a misunderstanding of what constitutes the psychological contract in the organization. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the employer to ensure that there is no confusion on what the obligations of both sides are.
Ensuring Organizational Justice
Organizational justice involves both equity and procedural justice. Fred was given a lower raise that the younger sales representative because of an evaluation that was not truly objective. Fred was also subjected to a different performance standard that others did not have to meet. These disparities are against the principle of equity in an organization.
Before Reed had instituted the new evaluation system, he should have made sure that everyone understood what it implied and only after that, should have the next sales been evaluated with this system. In Freds prohibitory period, his standards should have been set according to the best sales representative in his district and not the market share gains. Subjecting Fred to his standards greater than what others are subjected to, is also not fair and would lead to perceptions of injustice which would then trigger emotional responses such as anger, frustration, and complacency (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001).
Employees will try to restore justice by changing their output in a given task. DeConick (2010) added that an employees commitment to the organization is greatly affected by perceptions of procedural justice. The commitment to the organization diminishes rapidly the greater the perceptions of injustice prevail. Employers should, therefore, ensure that employees perceive the environment as just. According to Johns (2001), absenteeism is also a likely result of perceived injustice.
However, if this feeling is not fostered, employees feel that they do not have to put the same effort since the organization does not care about them rather, it is too concerned about the bottom line. Reed did not seek to find out the reasons of Freds tardiness. He should have communicated with Fred to find out what was going on before deciding to report him. Organizational justice is fostered through the development of an organizational culture based on trust, understanding and effective communication. The processes in this organization have to be open and all the employees should be subjected to the same standards. These steps should have been applied to Schering before Fred was subjected to the difficult situation he was in.
Conclusion
The issue of employee motivation has been researched extensively. There are several issues connected to employee motivation that should be taken into consideration. Motivation is not purely through monetary incentives or promotions. It exists in almost every facet of the organizational processes. One of the ways to motivate employees is through proper management techniques. Two techniques that have been identified to be very motivational are servant and transformational leadership. This leadership methods are not concerned only with the bottom line but are mostly linked with understanding and improving the people.
Another method of motivation is through ensuring that organizational justice is fostered. Organizational justice includes equity and procedural justice. An environment where employees perceive injustice has very little motivation to contribute to the overall well being of the unjust organization. Organizational justice can be preserved by instilling a culture that is based on trust and understanding and also through effective communication between the employees and the leaders.
Motivating older workers is usually a challenge as they are not driven by the same goals as younger workers. Monetary incentives may not attract the required response from older workers. It is therefore important to understand what exactly the older workers want and how it can be used to motivate them. Older workers cannot effectively navigate a competitive task. They usually like to engage in collaborative task and thus motivation has to be in the form of teamwork or other collaborative efforts. Older workers usually compensate for the declining cognitive abilities with hard work and dedication. Motivation activities should, therefore, be directed at giving them tasks that do not require a lot of learning and adaptation but require previous knowledge and a lot of attention.
Schering approached the situation with Fred in many bad ways. They should have considered Fred not only as an important human resource but also they should have realized that he was an older worker, good in his job and very loyal to the company. By dismissing him without much thought they destroyed his sense of purpose resulting in a case suit that might cost the company a lot of money.
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Motivation is simply what drives people and organizations towards achieving certain goals (Hansen, Smith & Hansen, 2002; Hong et al., 1995). Motivating employees is the role of human resource managers, as well as other organizational leaders.
Giving employees the right motivation increases their productivity and eventually the performance of the organization (Poole & Jenkins, 2005; Creaby-Attwood, 2010). Managers at Foodco apply theory X in managing employees. According to this theory, employees are considered to be lazy and do not like work.
As a result, workers must be forced to work and cannot be trusted with responsibility. Employees seem not to be adequately motivated by the HR department. The employees are said to have a limited involvement in the organizational work technology.
This indicates that the managers do not encourage the employees to make contributions or to involve themselves in work technology activities. One way through which an employee can be motivated is involving them in the organizational activities.
Employees also need to be given good positions in the organization. They need to be recognized for their duties. The case suggests that the employees position in Foodco is weaker compared to that of the management. This does not help in motivating employees.
As a result, productivity at Foodco is likely to be below par (Beadle & Knight, 2012). This will have a negative impact on the general performance of the organization (Taylor & Earnshaw, 1995).
Employee motivation requires a well experienced and knowledgeable human resource officer. The HR officer currently at Foodco does not have the qualifications. This means that the HR department does not function as it should be; thus there is failure on the side of human resource productivity.
There is no qualified person who can carry out proper employee appraisal. In addition, employees who need to be directed do not have someone they can go to. Their morale is likely to be affected if they cannot be directed when they need directions.
This further proves the assumption that employee motivation in this organization is low. The failure in organizational competitiveness may have also contributed to the loss of employees morale.
When employees are working in an organization that is showing the urge to be competitive, they also feel that they are responsible for any failure that might result. This motivates employees to work harder. In addition, a competitive organization tries to motivate its employees so that they can be more productive.
The assumption on the nature of people is that women are not able to perform the craft duties satisfactorily. For this reason, the craft duties are given to men. In addition, most women are employed on a temporary basis and are paid on an hourly basis.
This leads to the assumption that women are not given chances in the organization for reasons that are not clear from the case. It is possible that women are discriminated on the basis of their sex. There is a great deal of inequality in this organization (Weick, 1966).
Further, white collar employees seem to be more respected than the craft workers. The assumption here is that craft workers are people who cannot make significant contributions to the organization, especially when it comes to decision making.
Women are capable of doing whatever men can do. Therefore, it is not to the best interest of the organization for women to be denied equal chances with men. This is an issue that might negatively affect the performance of the organization since there is no motivation for women, and their productivity is affected.
Non-financial rewards
One of the ways that an organization can motivate its employees is through rewarding them (Bloom & Milkovich, 1995; Brown, 2008).
It is important for an organization to establish a reward system that is effective and one that gives motivation to the employees since this is a sure way of increasing productivity (Singh, 2002; Milkovich, 1987).
A reward system can either be financial or non- financial. The two can be applied together or separately. It is said that money is not enough; therefore, it is not the only way that managers can make employees become productive (Arrowsmith & Marginson, 2010).
A non-financial reward system can be highly effective compared to the financial reward system. Non-financial rewards can be defined as the benefits that employees are given when they perform well or when they are seen to be loyal to the organization (Nurse, 2005; Dunfee, 2011).
Examples of non- financial incentives include holidays or reduced working hours, team events, and training sessions that are not related to work among others.
The best way to select a non- financial reward system depends on the employees response to various rewards (Creaby-Attwood, 2010). Some employees will respond positively to a certain reward, while some will be negative to the same reward.
At Foodco, non- financial rewards are not embraced. Employees are always rewarded in form of cash. However, this has not been effective since the performance and productivity of the workers has not improved. The organization is said to be making loses despite the fact that it has been increasing wages every week.
However, Foodco seems to be changing its culture of pay rise and financial rewards as the only way of rewarding its employees. The finance director says that they had been negotiating pay rise and extra weeks holidays as a method of reward.
The employees seemed not to appreciate these forms of reward, and the finance director indicates this by saying it is as if they were talking to deaf ears. The organization is composed of mostly old people. The group of people who are usually excited by holidays is that of young employees.
Therefore, the management should come up with a different system of rewarding employees using non-financial means. Since the financial position of the organization is not very good owing to poor performance, it might be difficult to increase the employee wages annually.
The organization should, therefore, come up with a non- financial reward system that will motivate employees (Bryson & Forth, 2005; Kerr, 1975).
In order to come up with an effective non- financial reward system, it is important for the management to consult with the employees so that they can discuss on the best rewards. That way, the employees feel as part of the organization since they are consulted in decision making.
This gives them motivation and in turn they work hard to get the reward that they highly appreciate since it is the reward of their choice. It is important to note that different employees within the same organization might prefer different non- financial rewards.
The organization should, therefore, make arrangements to ensure that each employee is satisfied with the reward system by providing different rewards to individual employees based on their preferences.
References
Arrowsmith, J., & Marginson, P. (2010). The decline of incentive pay in British, manufacturing. Industrial Relations Journal, 41(4), 289-311.
Beadle, R., & Knight, K. (2012). Virtue and meaningful work. Business Ethics Quarterly, 12(2), 433-450.
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Bryson, A., & Forth, J. (2008). The theory and practice of pay setting: Sage Handbook of Industrial Relations. London: Sage.
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Hansen, F., Smith, M., & Hansen, R. B. (2002). Rewards and recognition in employee motivation. Compensation and Benefits Review, 34(5), 64-72.
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The work deals with different theories and approaches to how a manager can motivate the staff under his or her supervision.
Learning
It is quite obvious that proper motivation is a key to the successful performance in any work environment, culture or sphere of work. However, when working on certain business theory, including approaches to motivating the workforce, its developer thinks within the context of cultural and other subjective circumstances. First theories of work motivation were mostly developed in Western countries. It is surprising to know that despite many years of theoretical reflection, many approaches to cross-cultural job motivation did not adapt to the multi-cultural model. Many theories just divided employees of different cultures into Easterners and Westerners or in other words, individualists and collectivists.
Nevertheless, there are much more cultural factors than we usually consider. The culturally-sensitive equity model based on the recognition of factors important for either individualistic or collectivistic societies tries to make an account for those factors, including preferable inputs, outcomes, choice of referent other and motivation to reduce the inequity between the staff (Fadil et al. 2005). However, from my point of view, the motivation can change during ones lifetime since if there is a strong corporate culture in the workplace the new employee can relate to it as well. Thus, not everything is determined by the national-based approach, although this theory has its strong point since many of our behaviours derive from the culture we grew in.
Reflection
In all the workplaces, I am familiar with there is a positive tendency to be sensitive and tolerant of the issue of the national and cultural background. However, the majority of managers pay not so much attention to how that background system of values can be used to motivate a subordinate to work better. On the other hand, such thing as ingroup confrontation vs. ingroup cooperation can make a significant distinction. A person with a strongly collectivistic mind will not be comfortable with the confrontational and competitive atmosphere in the group. Such situations have happened in the workplace familiar to me; the person in question had no motivation to work because of a lack of cooperation in the group. The best solution I would try to apply if I were a manager, is to find the group task that presupposes the cooperative performance rather than competitive.
Critique
I find the factors for motivation at work the most questionable point of all discussed theories. For example, such motivation factor as salary supposedly is not always something that determines the performance of someone with the collectivistic mind (Fadil et al. 2005). However, there are many personal and not only professional aspects to that. In the economically challenging situation, I believe, the issue of salary will be one of the priorities both for an individualistic and collectivistic person. Another problem lays in representing Western cultures as more competitive than Eastern ones. Competitiveness reflects personal motivation; however, the motivation of the group, the collaboration of its members can be as strong. Also, to enhance the level of job satisfaction and motivation and improve general outcome, it is important to install the communication between staff and supervisors based on mutual respect (Flannery 2011).
It means that the motivation for competitiveness should not be at least drawn out on the relationships outside of the group. Cooperative relationships are also an important part of any jobs that include danger to the life of either employee himself/herself or customers or patients. In such a way, although, most traditional approaches, including the Maslows hierarchy of needs, consider the personal safety as one of the main motivational factors, and it is considered reasonable, there are some exceptions. Otherwise, there would be no high-risk occupations like firefighters or police, and of course, no medical staff who work daily with diseases. Thus, motivation varies according to not only personal development or cultural background, but also each occupation has its specific aspects.
Reference List
Fadil, P, Williams, R, Limpaphayom, W & Smatt, C 2005, Equity or equality? a conceptual examination of the influence of individualism/collectivism on the crosscultural application of equity theory, Cross-Cultural Management, vol. 12, no. 4, pp.17-35.
Flannery, M 2011, Creating and Sustaining an Effective Coaching Culture in Home Care, Home Healthcare Nurse: The Journal for the Home Care and Hospice Professional, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 275-281.
According to Buckingham (2005), the main skill of a manager is in his/her ability to turn a persons talents into performance (p. 52). For the achievement of success in managing and personnel motivation, one needs to consider a lot of factors affecting the individuals commitment to work: self-realization, professional development, acceptance of organizational values, etc. Moreover, for the improvement of professional performance, managers need to be engaged in the constant process of self-education with a particular focus on the development of communication, empathy, and critical thinking capabilities. The consideration of multiple aspects of individual and organizational performance may help a manager to maintain sound and open organizational interrelations, build a cohesive team, and increase the working efficiency and productivity (Militaru & Zanfir, 2014).
Validity of the Sources
For answering the questions about managerial skills, communication with employees, and the significance of feedback in the professional development, the scholarly sources are reviewed. The three papers are the peer-reviewed articles written by the prominent and experienced scholars from the large European and American universities. The works were found in the ProQuest database that stores a large number of credible and verified sources on various subjects. The internal validity of the studies is supported by the inclusion of references to other authors works and theories in the field of management. The format of a peer-reviewed article guarantees that the paper is a part of the scientific discourse.
Communication and Team Cohesion
According to Morieux (2013), the organizational cooperation in problem-solving significantly increases work efficiency and individual job satisfaction. Therefore, team building is a crucial managerial responsibility. The team cohesion may be developed through the integration of corporate values and vision into the organizational culture. When the employees share a common vision, they feel unity and their commitment to work grows. In the respectful and positive working environment, the employees perceive themselves as a part of a greater entity, and the sense of commitment implies that the employees start to pay greater attention to the quality of their performance (Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2010, p. 485).
Through the establishment of open communication with the subordinates at both organizational and private meetings, the manager may increase team cohesion by introducing high standards of conduct, professional and ethical values (Negin, 2013). The potential strengths of Believe and being Fair may be helpful in this regard because these talents can be effectively used to consolidate the integrity and equality within the team. Team cohesion is associated with good relationships between all team members, and it facilitates the reception and provision of performance feedbacks that assist in the professional growth and competence increase.
Performance Feedback
The discussion of individual performance may be hard because sometimes people do not accept critique adequately and perceive it as a conflict situation. Such perceptions also may provoke barriers in addressing for feedback. When a manager applies the skill of Understanding Others in the establishment of relationships with the subordinates, he/she includes the emotional and emphatic aspect in the communication. As a result, it may reduce the employees psychological barriers in addressing feedback on performance.
In case an employee came for feedback, the manager needs to ask him/her to complete the self-appraisal form and then arrange a private meeting (Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2010). It is important to start a meeting from the praise of a certain achievement to set a positive tone. It is also important to remember that the main objective of feedback is the development of employees potential, and the skill of Potential Cultivator thus should be employed.
The development of a team as a whole depends on the managerial ability to target the individuals intrinsic stimuli that involve people in doing activities because they find it interesting and satisfying (Schmid & Adams, 2008). And the most favorable effect of the feedback may be achieved if the manager is successful in the integration of external organizational motives with the personal ones.
When a person seeks for feedback, he/she demonstrates the motivation and potential for learning. Feedbacks may be efficiently applied in the learning process as they provide the orientation for further professional development and identify the gaps in knowledge that should be filled. However, a person should be sure that his/her desire for self-improvement is genuine because otherwise, the received critique may hurt (Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2010). It is important to encourage a new employee to establish good relationships with colleagues, both peers, and managers, because, in this way, it will be easier to inquire about personal performance and apply the received information for a professional benefit.
Conclusion
The efficient motivation of employees includes a set of activities aimed to stimulate the individuals for the achievement of organizational goals and objectives. For the achievement of success, the manager needs to be able to motivate the employees for professional and personal development through communication and team building. The consideration of individual talents and the provision of adequate feedbacks on performance may provoke significant positive results in productivity and proficiency level increase in the organization as a whole.
References
Buckingham, M. (2005). WHAT great MANAGERS DO. Computerworld, 39(13), 52. Web.
Carpenter, M., Bauer, T., & Erdogan, B. (2010). Principles of management. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. Web.
Militaru, C., & Zanfir, A. (2014). Participative management and employees motivation in international business. Knowledge Horizons.Economics, 6(2), 58-62. Web.
Negin, M. (2013). Study the relationship between Managers communication skills and staffs Organizational Commitment. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 5(5), 198. Web.
Schmid, B., & Adams, J. (2008). Motivation in project management: The project managers perspective. Project Management Journal, 39(2), 60-71. Web.
One of the reasons of why a project may fail or employers cannot achieve success is poor motivation (Kerzner, 2013). People become unable to understand all aspects of the work that they should do because they do not know how to create the environment, meet all project objectives, and be satisfied with the work done. Poor motivation means a poor explanation of the project details or inability to involve employees in work. The idea to support the Office 2010 transition is interesting and beneficial indeed. It is hard to clarify why so many workers what to know why they have to change something at the moment.
Still, the problem, or even a kind of misunderstanding, takes place and has to be solved. Increased motivation is a chance to make the change from Office 2007 to Office 2010 without losses or discontents. The staff should know how to accept the required change in the most appropriate way. Communication and the description of the activities, benefits of the offered software, and the expected outcomes should be used to motivate people and provide them with the necessary amount of hope, understanding, and confidence.
Importance of Motivation
Flannes and Levin (2005) admit that motivation is not just science, but a kind of art that has to be accepted by every person individually regarding the environment, workers intentions and attitudes, and abilities of a motivator. The motivation of employees is a crucial part of any working process. As soon as people get the necessary portion of motivation and explanation, they are ready to work hard, introduce good ideas, and think about some extraordinary approaches to ordinary tasks.
Though radical innovations are not always accepted by people, the managerial role should include the enlarged possibilities of the team and its opponents and the guidelines that can help to take the right steps (Kelley, OConnor, Neck, & Peters, 2011). Managers may demonstrate different approaches to motivating the team, various strategies for motivation, as well as make different motivational mistakes and achieve various results. The necessity to make the change from Office 2007 to Office 2010 serves as the basis for the development of new ideas. Several strategies, approaches, and mistakes will be discussed in this paper to comprehend the essence of the art of motivation.
Strategies and Approaches for Motivating Team Members
To explain the staff that it is necessary to support the idea of transformation from Office 2007 to Office 2010, it is possible to rely on several strategies. For example, Flannes and Levin (2005) offer four main strategies or styles to rely on while working with employees:
Use personal styles;
Use career stages;
Use career values;
Use situational considerations.
Each strategy has its peculiar features can be used by the manager to convince the team accepting the Office 2007-Office 2010 change.
Personal styles can be identified with the help of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. As soon as a manager gets to know more about his/her abilities and preferences, it is possible to think about the most appropriate approaches to working with the team of workers. In this project, it is necessary for the manager to motivate the staff to accept a particular change.
The manager is extrovert by nature; therefore, according to Flannes and Levin (2005), the manager should focus on the relations between people and their possibilities to improve the communication with stakeholders. It is also possible to explain the necessity of transformation as a chance to improve the quality and results of meetings. People of the introverted type can be motivated by the explanation of how it is possible to work alone and achieve good results, choose the most appropriate environment and meet the working expectations.
The identification of the career stages can be also used as the strategy to motivate people. There are ten main stages a team member may pass through (Flannes & Levin, 2005):
Career exploration;
Career preparation;
Actual entry into the workplace;
Experience in certain organizations;
Full admission with properly demonstrated competency;
Permanent membership in a profession field;
Mid-career crisis;
Momentum when a career starts moving toward the end;
Disengagement;
Retirement.
For example, if the team workers are at the momentum when a career seems to move toward the end, it is very important to help such team members to focus on work and find the sources of excitement. A project manager can rely on some educational resources or even competitions to make people work and accept the changes as something crucial. It is wrong to explain the importance of the change or the decision concerning the time frames. The team should understand that they have to accept the change in order to have appropriate working conditions in future.
Another strategy for motivating team member can be based on the career values. Project managers have to understand work-related values and use them while motivating people. They can perform the function of different anchors to choose the most suitable approach to motivate people. Schein identifies several types of anchors such as technical-functional, security-stability, autonomy-independence, service, etc. In the project under consideration, it is reasonable to use the lifestyle anchor with the help of which the team can be motivated by providing the opportunities to work and identify its starting and ending points (Flannes & Levin, 2005).
The motivation of the staff can be based on the balance between personal life and work life. The necessity to change one program to another may be compared with the current technological, informational, or even medical achievements. People have to move on and accept changes. One of the options to involve the team in work is to identify the boundaries of the tasks that should be performed, to clarify the goals that have to be achieved, and to explain people the importance of their actions.
This strategy is usually effective in many situations: the promotion of change, the creation of new requirements, the development of new skills, etc. People have to understand that they can achieve more in case they make correct decisions, and the idea to change one type of Office to another is not that challenging or harmful. It is just a new option to use while working in a team.
Finally, there is a strategy that is based on situational consideration. It is suggested to satisfy some needs of a team in order to make this team work under new conditions. For example, it is possible to pay more attention to security and safety needs and provide employees and stakeholders with some guarantees. With time, it is possible to ask for something in return: to accept the Office 2010 transition project. People, who have guarantees and explanation of their future, are better motivated. They are ready to work and follow new instructions.
Motivational Mistakes
At the same time, managers should realize that they are always under a threat of making some motivational mistakes. It is better for a manager to experiment with various approaches and ideas on how to motivate employees because some insignificant motivational errors can frustrate plans and decrease the quality of outcomes. For example, a good manager should remember that not everything that can motivate one person can be used to motivate others. It is better to ask a person about the factors that can motivate people and use them in a working process. Besides, managers should remember that financial motivation is not always the only best option.
Even if many people believe in the power of money, motivation should not be based on this particular aspect. Motivation has to be more spiritual or even supportive. At the same time, managers have to understand that even the best team workers are not always professionals that do not need some motivation and inspiration. Sometimes, increased motivation is necessary for mature employees.
All these errors are crucial in the work of project managers. Even if managers do not make such mistakes, they have to know about them, try to avoid them, and take some preventive approaches to improve their work.
Conclusion
In general, increased motivation will never spoil the project. Managers need to know how to motivate and inspire their employees and explain why different changes and new requirements are crucial. Team members may want to ask such questions like Why now? , Why we? , or What next? . Managers may not know the answers to all of them. Still, they can always choose the right motivational strategy and use the best approach to motivate people.
References
Flannes, S. & Levin, G. (2005). Essential people skills for project managers. Vienna, VA: Management Concepts. Web.
Kelley, D.J., OConnor, G.C., Neck, H., & Peters, L. (2011). Building an organizational capability for radical innovation: The direct managerial role. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 28(4), 249-267. Web.
Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. New York City, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Web.
The purpose of this study was to ascertain how the three psychological dimensions of empowerment are affected by specific types of performance feedback and performance-based rewards for lower-level employees. The three psychological dimensions include the impact on a firms profit, task competence, and self-determination. It further investigates the inter-dependence between individual performance, motivation, and the three dimensions of empowerment. Finally, it investigates whether the predictions put forward by Spreitzer (1995) on surveys of managers can also apply to lower-level workers.
The research participants are low-level employees that are involved directly in customer service, data entry, and data processing and selling to customers among other duties. Research in this area is necessary. Despite the supposed relationship between employment and motivation, little research especially in the field of accounting has been done to ascertain how an organizations control system affects low-level workers empowerment, drive, performance, and the general perception of empowerment by this group. Though an earlier survey had been done by Spreitzer (1995, 1996), it focused on middle level managers, and further research was needed to confirm whether the findings could equally apply to lower-level workers (those without managerial duties and/experience).
Earlier research failed to identify specific performance feedback and performance reward systems. lastly, the balanced scorecard approach emphasizes the role played by motivated employees on a firms success, yet the few available writings on this subject are rather superficial. The research was conducted at a large Midwestern University. The methodology used is both quantitative and experimental. It employs the use of questionnaires, surveys, and statistical analysis (Correlation, Wald test, Lagrange multiplier, and confirmatory factor analysis) in testing and validating several hypotheses.
The study sample involved a group of one hundred and twenty-five undergraduate students. A large number of the participants (79.2%) were sourced from sophomore and junior level business classes. The choice of this group was largely influenced by the fact that these students lacked management experience and could therefore be employed to carry out simple front office tasks such as data processing and customer service. Another group comprising 6.4% was freshman, and 14.4 percent were seniors or master level students. 59.2 percent of the participants were male while 40.8 percent were females. The majority of the participants were from the U.S. or Canada (85.6 percent), 8.0 percent from Asia, and the remaining 6.4 percent were from Europe, Latin America, or from other nations.
There are several dependent and independent variables in the study. Independent variables are grouped into manipulated variables (Performance Feedback and Performance-Based Rewards) and control variables (Self-esteem and Locus of Control). Dependent variables were empowerment (Impact, competence, and self-determination), task motivation, and performance (profit). The manipulated variables examine the effects of certain types of performance feedback such as information on the wages for the period, information on the number of questions they got correctly or incorrectly, and information on specific amounts of revenue and costs they generated for the firm due to correct or incorrect codes. The manipulated variables were measured against the three dimensions of empowerment mentioned earlier and performance rewards (flat wage or a performance-based scheme). The control variables are used to show that self-esteem and locus of control may or may not empower lower-level employees (Drake, et al. 2007).
From the correlation coefficient (r) results with an alpha value of 0.05, an increase in the level of feedback could lead to a higher level of competence, self-determination, and impact on profitability. Among the manipulated variables, feedback is significantly correlated with impact (r =.26), hence is no significance. Additionally, feedback and self-determination are equally not correlated as indicated by r =-0.4. However, the feedback was positively correlated to impact as indicated by an r=.24. Correlation between the level of feedback and competence was significant as indicated by r=.04. A significant correlation was also evident between competence and the control variable self-esteem (r=.29).
Performance-based rewards are not correlated to the levels of impact as indicated by r=.11, yet they are inversely correlated with competence as indicated by r=-.19. There is also a significant negative correlation between performance-based reward systems and the level of perceived self-determination as indicated by r=-.25. From the descriptive statistics table which shows the distribution of data points in the data set, the perceived impact had high levels of consistency in the flat-wage reward system for the financial condition with a deviation of 3.8 from the mean. Under the performance-based reward system, the perceived impact was more consistent in pay only condition as illustrated by a 2.8 deviation from the mean followed by financial condition with a deviation of 3.6 from the mean.
The largest inconsistency was registered under flat wage-non financial condition with 5.1 distributions around the mean. The perceived confidence was more consistent in non-financial and financial flat wage reward systems compared to the performance-based reward system (Drake, et al. 2007). Perceived self-determination was more consistent under a flat wage reward system as reported by a 1.7 deviation from the mean under pay only system and 1.8 deviations from the mean under a reward system that is nonfinancial. Under a performance-based reward system, the best level of consistency was in the nonfinancial condition that reported a deviation of 3.1 from the mean followed by pay only condition (3.2). Task motivation was more consistent in the nonfinancial-performance reward system with a deviation of 6.8 and least consistent under pay only performance-based reward system had a deviation of 11.7. The performance was more consistent under a reward system that is flat-waged. Pay the only condition had a deviation of 281 and least consistent under a uniform wage reward system while the financial condition reported a deviation of 327 from the mean.
From the data analysis, it is evident that performance reward and performance feedback systems are important in as far as the empowerment, performance, and task motivation of lower-level employees is concerned. The financial reward had a significant positive effect on the perceived impact. Equally performance-based rewards are negatively significant on self-determination and perceived competence. Also, to achieve higher levels of perceived impact, the motivation levels of employees must be very high.
Observations
Generally, the overall presentation of the results of the analysis is very clear. The author has indicated a step by step process thereby guiding the reader. He has categorized the results of the analysis under respective the hypothesis being tested. This has made it easy to ascertain whether the hypothesis was rejected or accepted. Also, he uses simple and understandable phrases in explaining the analysis process and the results. Like any other research, the study had limitations that the authors acknowledge. For instance, the study assumed that the feedback given by lower-level employees are dependent on the outcomes of their efforts and does not include the outcomes of other employees or a larger workgroup. Also, the reward schemes were limited and the result can be different if a variety of reward schemes are employed. Lastly, the test employed was rather easy and may not be representative of the difficult work environment of lower-level employees. However, the findings are a good starting point for future research in this area as it points out how the other types of feedback and the two reward schemes influence the various perspectives of empowerment.
Reference
Drake, R. U. et al. (2007). Empowerment, motivation and performance: Examining the impact of feedback and incentives on non-management employees. Behavioural research in accounting, 19, 77-89.
Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38(5) 1442-1465.
As an employee, I would prefer the training and development motivational method in my place of work. The reason being that the training and development motivational method is a domain that is influencing all the other motivational methods, that is financial incentives, job flexibility among others. Training and development either in my area of specialty or in another area within the organization provide an avenue through which I would become better and more competent in what I do for the organization or gain more skills which will translate to job promotions with better pay. Through the acquisition of skills, I can manage to move from one area of specialization to another and therefore job flexibility (Deloitte Case Study).
Financial incentive
Financial incentives are always preferred by employees because they provide a direct motivation to them, that is, the employee(s) gets value for his/her work. However, in the absence of financial incentives, managers can also offer their employees non-financial incentives and still motivate them. In the case of Deloitte, the manager can offer employees flexible hours of work in times of recession so that the employee can either engage him/herself in a part-time job or spend more time with their families.
To top it all, with the recession, Deloitte can introduce telecommuting to employees so that they would save on bus fare during times of financial hardships. This would prevent employees from moving to other organizations where they would be offered flexible hours at work. Deloitte being an international organization with a diverse workforce, employing job rotation tactics as a way of motivating employees would be excellent. This would couple well with recession times.
To drive my point further home and taking an example of an employee(s) who is working as an auditor in the UK, the employee(s) can be allowed to move from the firm in the UK to a branch of Deloitte that is in a developing country as a financial advisor and where life would not be expensive as compared to the UK in times of recession. Deloitte can positively reinforce its employees through eustress by increasing their salaries when employees move up, down, or across the various careers in the organization. The organization can put more emphasis on the employees to perform better and at the same time reward them for their great efforts.
Customer service
During a customer service training program, employees are taught how to deal with questions and requests that a customer may have and therefore this requires dealing with different customers who have different needs. This can be closely associated with the learning theory that psychologists refer to as constructivism, where a holistic approach to dealing with different individuals varying needs, concerns, and questions at all times is embraced. Different customers have different needs and therefore in the case of American Express Company, an employee deals with different case(s) of the customer(s) at different times.
On the other hand, the use of goal setting theory that is clear in AELNs customer service training program is the recognition that employees work toward a common target. Employees are upheld in the program and incorporated into the goals of the organization. For instance, the statement Were not looking for servicewere looking for extraordinary service. On top of being a customer service training program, there is an aspect of the overall objectives of the organization together with uplifting the spirits of the employee as the best.
Leadership Development Program
The application of learning theory and goal-setting theory that is evident in AELNs leadership development program is that individuals in the program are motivated to learn and become better leaders of the organization. That is, whether the training groups in AELNs leadership development program were learning through online materials, self-directed learning, or went through the usual classroom training, they all showed positive results though of varying degrees. Learning took place for all the training groups acquired knowledge, skills, and knowledge that depict organization leaders. The assessment of the employees performance is also a reflection that the employees in the program were working towards a certain goal.
A blended approach to leadership development
According to the American Express case study, a blended learning approach to leadership development turned out to be the superior training venue because various learning aspects are integrated to produce overall positive results. In the blended learning approach, the participants are in apposition to seek further clarification from the instructor and discussion among peers as opposed to learning by oneself or through online learning materials. Participants had the opportunity to learn from each other. The blended learning approach also allowed an exchange of ideas by participants and this translated to better results.
Communication skills
I fully concur with Jeanette Harrisons learning philosophy for learning should produce all-around effects. When we learn a skill, behavior, or a different way of doing things, the outcome becomes an integral part of us and therefore we cannot separate what we have acquired in the learning process from us and this involves changing lives both within and outside the workplace. We do not only learn for the sole factor of interacting with people in the organization, we also take what we have learned to other people who are not in our workplaces.
Works Cited
America Express Case Study on; Learning Programs in the American Express Network. N.d.
Deloitte Case Study on; Deloitte: Focused on People, with Appreciation. N.d.