Motivation in the Workplace: Industry Practicum

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Introduction

Motivation in the workplace is one of the most significant and central matters of concern in management. The main challenge is to find ways to motivate people to be interested in improving their performance. It is of critical importance in the hospitality sector that is directly associated with working with people. In this case, motivation is connected to developing productive strategies for enhancing customer experience not only by offering services of exceptional quality but also communication and friendliness (Ramadanty & Matinus, 2016). Being demotivated in the workplace is inseparable from the overall performance of the hospitality organization because it is the work of employees that determines whether a customer will choose it and, what is even more important, return later.

Working in the hospitality sector helped to find out that the role of motivation is more critical than described in the literature. To be specific, the current occupation is the Siesta Motel in the New Market area, Auckland, New Zealand. It is a small place with 18 rooms, so there is no need for employing many people to run the motel. There are five employees in general – a manager, two full-time workers, and two part-time employees. Being an internship practicum student helped to discover that the manager fails to motivate personnel. It is complicated to conclude what is the cause of the problem – old kiwi staff or manager’s unwillingness to improve this place by driving employees’ personal development. As a result, the manager is often rude and opposes any offers focusing on improving the process at the motel that might potentially enhance visitor stay.

Therefore, it is essential to conduct research that would focus on the ways to foster managers’ involvement in the work of the motel. In particular, it is planned to understand the ways that are commonly used to keep managers themselves motivated as well as create the needed atmosphere in the workplace – one making employees interested in personal development and benefitting their organization. In addition, it is as well paramount to obtain a better understanding of the perception of motivation – both manager and employee perspective – in order to come to a conclusion regarding the most effective strategies that are connected to the least significant resistance to change.

To cope with the identified task, conducting a comprehensive literature review of sources focusing on motivation at the workplace and different motivation techniques is the first step of the research. It should be supplemented with a survey about motivating employees as a manager aimed at becoming aware of preferred practices and challenges faced when implementing them. In other words, this research will include two interrelated parts: a literature review for obtaining a theoretical understanding of workplace motivation and a sample survey for collecting real-life perceptions necessary for making recommendations for improving practice. The motel mentioned above will be selected as the arena for the research due to its availability. From this perspective, obtaining theoretical background and locating main management motivation-related issues in the workplace is the main desired outcome of the research.

Problem Statement

Motivation remains one of the most critical matters of concern in the motel. Still, it is essential to recognize that motivation-related issues are common for different organizations without regard to the industry of their operation and scope of their activities. In most cases, these problems are connected to personal matters, such as low self-esteem that results in failing to believe in one’s talents and offer positive changes, the lack of interest in coping with the work-related tasks, and anxiety regarding achievements or low expectation of an employee’s success (Tanaka, Okuno, & Yamauchi, 2013).

On the other hand, challenges related to motivation may be connected to inefficient organizational policies and practices (Henderson, Schoonbeek, & Auditore, 2013). In particular, they are commonly caused by having no approach to motivating employees that, in most cases, is characterized by having no system of rewards for significant achievements or punishments for violating rules and procedures as well as ignoring the criticality of developing a unique corporate culture focusing on employee involvement and their strive for constant personal development (Avbar, 2014).

Except for affecting the atmosphere in the workplace, the lack of motivation among employees or systems for enhancing it is directly associated with impaired productivity and outcomes of activities and operations performed by employees as well as the financial performance of the organization as a whole. What is even more critical, it entails decreased customer satisfaction with the provided, especially in the hospitality sector. However, regardless of the commonality of these consequences, the challenges related to motivation and their causes are unique for each organization. Therefore, it is of extreme importance to find out what are the main characteristics of the motel as well as review the literature on similar issues in order to understand the ways to cope with the existing issues.

Literature Review

Employee motivation is one of the central matters of concern faced by organizations operating in different industries and countries. As mentioned earlier in the paper, it is one of the major pre-determinants of employee satisfaction with the working conditions and atmosphere in the workplace that has a direct impact on productivity and performance and affects financial and economic stability of any company or organization (Biswakarma & Sharma, 2015; Cetin, 2013).

For this reason, companies are commonly recommended to invest in developing special practices and strategies aimed at implementing employee motivation techniques. In most cases, it is the responsibility of the human resource management department (Marshall, Mottier, & Lewis, 2015). It can be explained by the fact that its employees are accountable for creating an appropriate and favorable environment in the workplace and addressing any identified challenges, including the unwillingness of employees to work on their personal development.

To begin with, it is critical to understand what is employee motivation. According to Cetin (2013), motivation is a stimulus or reinforcement that drives an individual to take action to achieve a particular result. As stated by Marshall et al. (2015), it is the concept that stands for the combination of activities and approaches to arranging workplace relationships and working process in a way that contributes to enhancing personal development, making out the fullest of one’s working and creative potential, enhancing constructive communication, offering compensation and various benefits to employees, providing support to them so that they grow more dedicated to their companies and organizations, and giving them opportunities to realize themselves in the working place.

All of the approaches mentioned above do not make up the complete list of employee motivation techniques because they are unique for each team. Still, the main characteristic of motivating employees is that changes (in particular, positive ones that inspire team members) are offered and introduced when the overall level of job satisfaction is high (Marshall et al. 2015). It means that the companies do not take steps to address critical matters once they emerge. Instead, they focus on preventing employee dissatisfaction and non-dedication.

In general, the range of motivational tools varies because it is creative and depends upon the objectives and resources of an organization. However, there are several main types of techniques that may be identified. The major ones include economic (connected to different payments), psychosocial (focused on enhancing emotional aspects of working for a company or organization), and administrative (aimed at enhancing the arrangement of workplace and organization of work-related matters) (Cetin, 2013).

When selecting them, the main objective is to keep employees driven and creative so that they are interested in benefitting their company (Biswakarma & Sharma, 2015). According to Biswakarma and Sharma (2015), the most powerful and effective motivator is the volume of compensation for one’s work. In this case, it is critical to point to the fact that compensation is a broad concept that goes beyond the size of an employee’s wage. In particular, it as well incorporates social package, insurance, and covering health-related expenses in case of necessity.

In addition to the classification mentioned above, there is one more division that is even more comprehensive. According to it, there are only two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the inner drive of an individual. Even though it can be affected by organizational changes and policies, in most cases, it is not dependent upon them. From this perspective, it is commonly determined by the personal interest in work, the ability to express oneself in coping with job-related tasks and being satisfied with the working process itself (Putra, Cho, & Liu, 2017).

As for extrinsic motivation, it is a combination of activities designed and implemented by a company. In fact, it involves all of the abovementioned groups of employee satisfaction strategies. Except for it, there is positive (benefits) and negative (penalties) motivation. All in all, both intrinsic and extrinsic, as well as positive and negative, motivation are interrelated. In fact, only the combination of all of them is associated with the most efficient organizational structures and improved employee productivity.

Speaking of the hospitality industry – the sector under consideration – it is critical to point to the fact that it is characterized by extremely high turnover rates mainly due to stressful working conditions. In this case, the main motivator is fair compensation (Biswakarma & Sharma, 2015). However, as noted by Marshall et al. (2015) and Putra et al. (2017), it is not the most critical aspect because the favorable working environment, including slack time, availability of hygiene and relax zones, friendliness in communicating with management and other team members, the sense of being valuable, and the ability to realize one’s creative potential, are more important than remuneration. From this perspective, it is true that motivation is a phenomenon that is unique for each organization and company, so the only way to make any recommendations or conclusions about a particular working environment is to conduct additional research in it.

References

Avbar, D. (2014). Motivation in the workplace and its influence on the effectiveness of work. Revija za Univerzalno Odličnost, 5(3), 222-232.

Biswakarma, S. K., & Sharma, S. (2015). Impact of motivation on employee’s turnover and productivity in hotels (FHRAI listed) of Kolkata. International Journal of Innovative Research & Development, 4(13), 51-60.

Cetin, I. (2013). Motivation and its impact on labor productivity at hotel business “a conceptual study.” International Journal of New Trends in Arts, Sports & Science Education, 2(1), 70-79.

Henderson, A., Schoonbeek, S., & Auditore, A. (2013). Processes to engage and motivate staff. Nursing management – UK, 20(8), 18-25.

Marshall, T., Mottier, E. M., & Lewis, R. A. (2015). Motivational factors and the hospitality industry: A case study examining the effects of changes in the working environment. Journal of Business Case Studies, 11(3), 123-132.

Putra, E. D., Cho, S., & Liu, J. (2017). Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on work engagement in the hospitality industry: Test of motivation crowding theory. Tourism & Hospitality Research, 17(2), 1-14.

Ramadanty, S., & Matinus, H. (2016). Organizational communication: Communication and motivation in the workplace. Humaniora, 7(1), 79-88.

Tanaka, A, Okuno, T., & Yamauchi, H. (2013). Longitudinal tests on the influence of achievement goals on effort and intrinsic interest in the workplace. Motivation & Emotion, 37(3), 457-464. doi:10.1007/s11031-012-9318-1

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