Motivation

Motivation is a key factor when managing any business. Motivation is

important for a high productivity level.

According to Greenberg (1999) motivation is defined "as a process of arousing,

directing and maintaining behaviour towards a goal." Where directing' refers to
the selection of a particular behaviour; and maintenance' refers to the inclination
to behave with consistency in that manner until the desired outcome is met.

Motivation is therefore the force that transforms and uplifts people to be

productive and perform in their jobs. Maximising an employee's motivation is
necessary and vital to successfully accomplish the organisation's objectives and
targets. However this is a considerable challenge to any organisation's
managers, due to the complexity of motivation and the fact that there is no
ready made solution or an answer to what motivates people to work well.

In recent years, the focus in project management has shifted from technical
aspects of the profession (scheduling, planning etc.) to people-oriented factors
such as motivation. This is reflected both in professional practice and academia.
On the one hand there is a growing interest in courses on soft skills and
leadership; on the other, an increasing number of research papers on these
issues.

Background and Literature Review

Recent research indicates that asking the question, “How do I motivate my team
members?” might actually be counterproductive because most people begin new
initiatives with enthusiasm and a desire to contribute to, and consequently feel
proud of their work and organisations. This suggests that project managers may
be better served by focusing on how one can help people maintain their
motivation levels through their work tasks and roles. The definition of
motivation which is, “energising people to achieve high levels of performance
and to overcome barriers to change”, suggests that there is more to motivation
than “maintenance of enthusiasm” by doing the “right things

Motivation is inextricably linked with leadership and power. Research has

shown that use of autocratic, coercive or laissez-faire leadership styles can have
a detrimental effect on motivation. This is obvious to those who have worked

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with such managers! More effective leadership styles emphasise the leader as an
initiator, negotiator, coach and participant. The last one is interesting – if a
leader is viewed as a participant – being “one of the groups” – loyalty and
motivation emerge more unconditionally. Such leaders employ a participatory
approach that includes all team members in a meaningful way.

After discussing motivation and its connection to leadership, the authors move
on to reviewing research on the sources of motivation – i.e. where motivation
comes from. Motivation can be viewed as intrinsic or extrinsic. In a nutshell,
the former is a desire to do something because one finds it interesting, whereas
the latter is a desire to do something because of some anticipated rewards not
related to the activity. Research indicates that an inclusive leadership or
management style is conducive to intrinsic motivation whereas an exclusive
approach (coercive or authoritarian) relies on extrinsic motivation.

Motivating the staff is a very critical factor for the following reasons:

 Resulting in higher output or productivity.

 Reduces wastages and produce higher quality works.
 Motivated staffs are generally more pro-active and have greater sense of
urgency hence making things happen faster.
 Motivated staff will give their best to the company hence helping
management to achieve organisation’s objective.

Types of motivation techniques used in an organisation

1) Achievement Motivation

It is the drive to pursue and attain goals. An individual with achievement

motivation wishes to achieve objectives and advance up on the ladder of
success. Here, accomplishment is important for its own shake and not for the
rewards that accompany it. It is similar to ‘Kaizen’ approach of Japanese
Management

(2) Affiliation Motivation

It is a drive to relate to people on a social basis. Persons with affiliation

motivation perform work better when they are complimented for their
favourable attitudes and co-operation.

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(3) Competence Motivation

It is the drive to be good at something, allowing the individual to perform high

quality work. Competence motivated people seek job mastery, take pride in
developing and using their problem-solving skills and strive to be creative when
confronted with obstacles. They learn from their experience.

(4) Power Motivation

It is the drive to influence people and change situations. Power motivated

people wish to create an impact on their organization and are willing to take
risks to do so.

(5) Attitude Motivation

Attitude motivation is how people think and feel. It is their self confidence, their
belief in them, their attitude to life. It is how they feel about the future and how
they react to the past.

(6) Incentive Motivation

It is where a person or a team reaps a reward from an activity. It is “You do this

and you get that”, attitude. It is the types of awards and prizes that drive people
to work a little harder.

(7) Fear Motivation

Fear motivation coercions a person to act against will. It is instantaneous and

gets the job done quickly. It is helpful in the short run.

How Does Employee Motivation Impact Organizational Performance?

Maintaining Stability

Employees are a company's livelihood. How they feel about the work they are
doing and the results received from that work directly impact an organization's
performance and, ultimately, its stability. For instance, if an organization's
employees are highly motivated and proactive, they will do whatever is
necessary to achieve the goals of the organization as well as keep track of

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industry performance to address any potential challenges. This two-prong
approach builds an organization's stability. An organization whose employees
have low motivation is completely vulnerable to both internal and external
challenges because its employees are not going the extra mile to maintain the
organization's stability. An unstable organization ultimately underperforms.

Reduction in Productivity

Lack of motivation equates to less work being accomplished. Productivity does

not disappear; it is usually transferred to aspects not related to the organization's
work. Things like personal conversations, Internet surfing or taking longer
lunches cost the organization time and money. Reduced productivity can be
detrimental to an organization's performance and future success.

Negative Changes to Reputation

Word travels fast. Low employee motivation could be due to decreased success
of the organization, negative effects from the economy or drastic changes or
uncertainty within the organization. No matter what the cause, having the
reputation of having an unpleasant work environment due to low employee
motivation will ultimately impact how existing and potential clients or partners
view working with an organization. A reputation can precede an organization
and dictate its future in the industry.

Planning for Future Trends

In "Super Motivation," author Dean Spitzer states that 50 percent of employees

put just enough effort into their work to keep their job. This means that if only
half the employees in a company are working in a full capacity, the company
only has 50 percent of its expected revenue, is only reaching 50 percent of its
clients and has 50 percent fewer resources for staff, operations and
development.

Plan for the future by sharing these statistics with staff. Do not point the finger
but reinvigorate their interest and motivation. Reconnecting with the reality of
the business is often an effective way of improving performance. Be honest and
upfront about any steps that will be taken to improve organizational
performance as well as any consequences of not meeting the organization's
performance standards.

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Motivation and Management

As human beings, people have their own drives, aspirations and needs. The top
manager of the organization must recognize these needs in order to motivate his
employees to work the best of their abilities (Gabriel 224). To be effective, top
managers must understand how to motivate their employees and how they can
use to direct employees toward attaining organizational goals and objectives.

Motivation is the process of initiating and directing behaviour. The personal

needs of an employee are satisfied as long as he or she is motivated to perform
the assigned tasks. The manager is able to achieve his goals when he can satisfy
both the employees’ needs and those of the organization (Gabriel 224).

However, motivation can have an effect on the output of an organization and

concerns both quantity and quality. For instance, an organization relies heavily
on the efficiency of their production employees to make sure that products are
manufactured in numbers that meet demand for the week. If these employees
lack the motivation to produce completed products to meet the demand, then the
organization will face a problem leading to disastrous consequences. The
employees are the greatest assets of the organization, no matter how efficient
the technology and equipment may be. Therefore, the success of a business is
often the result of motivated employees. In order to motivate the employees, the
organizations need to use motivational techniques such as providing a fun
workplace, compensation program, and training and development program.

An employee who is unmotivated means there is some imbalance or

dissatisfaction in his or her relationship to the environment. Nowadays,
employee motivation is essential for every organization. Job satisfactions are
declining among the employees of the organization. There are increasing
numbers of employees who are eager to find a balance in work and family life.
In November 2003 a survey made by Career Builder, a leading job-search Web
site, revealed the level of employees’ dissatisfaction. The survey found that
nearly one in four employees now dissatisfied with their present jobs, there will
be a 20 percent increase over 2001 levels. It is predicted that some six out of ten
employees are planning to leave their present jobs for other organizations within
the next two years. Also, a similar survey made by the Society for Human
Resource Professionals (SHRM) revealed that more than eight out of ten

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workers are going to look for a new job when the economy goes up. The
increasing numbers of job dissatisfaction can bring negative effects to the
organization’s performance. Employees who are not happy with their current
jobs tend to leave for other organizations. As a result, employee turnover will
become a serious problem in today’s corporate environment.

In addition, turnover costs are very high and expensive. It can significantly
affect the financial performance of an organization. These turnover costs are
such as direct costs and indirect costs. Direct costs include recruitment,
selection, and training of new employees. Most of the time and expense go into
this process. In contrast, indirect costs include increased workloads and
overtime expenses for co-workers, as well as reduced productivity associated
with low motivated employees.

Estimated costs vary from organization to organization, some as low as a few

hundred dollars to as high as four times the annual salary of an employee.

Employees need to feel that their work is meaningful and beneficial to their
organization. Therefore, the top manager should act as a motivator to lighten up
their employees’ passion and purpose in achieving organizational goals.
Additionally, it is important and necessary for the top manager to create a
positive working environment in the organization.

Clearly, a fun and excited workplace would be best for employees to work
together as an organization to accomplish specific goals and objectives.
Employees who have been doing the same tasks for a long time, it is quite likely
they are bored and their job performance is below average. Eventually, their
productivity and work quality will continue to decrease, and the organization
will begin to notice that there will be an increase in mistakes and bad judgment.

The first logical step in improving this negative situation is to create an accurate
job description. It is a document that clearly and objectively defines the
employee's job in rational, clear terms as well as lays out their responsibilities,
obligations and reporting relationships up, down and across the organizational
hierarchy. In this step the top manager can put leadership skills to work. It will
also help the organization see opportunities for change and growth in the
position and in the employees’ career path. In addition, the top manager can
also encourage the employee to identify what he or she would rather be doing as
well as find opportunities for improving their skills and knowledge. Although

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the employee may not have any idea what else they would like to be doing, this
is an opportunity for top manager or Human Resource manager to explain the
next steps, such as more knowledge, greater skill development and enhanced
abilities, on the career ladder that would lead to a promotion. In fact, this is a
key source of motivation that will help employee see opportunities for
professional growth. The process of participating in the creation of a job
description can serve to clarify the employee's roles and responsibilities as well
as to encourage their enthusiasm for work again.

Once the job description has been created, the organization can look for further
source of motivation to liven up and regain the strength of bored employees.
Frederick Hertzberg, author of The Motivation to Work, said that employees
can best be motivated by three techniques which include job rotation, job
enlargement and job enrichment.

The first technique of employee motivation is job rotation which involves cross
training employees, or teaching employees about each other’s jobs. For
instance, in the finance department, employee from accounts payable can learn
the accounts receivable function and vice versa. The process of job rotation is
motivating because the additional tasks and responsibilities are new and
different .Moreover, employees will feel a sense of achievement by expanding
their job knowledge and capabilities. The value in cross training for the
organization is that individuals can stand-in for each other when illness or
vacations come up, thus further increase in their sense of accomplishment and
value to the organization. This is a good strategy for organizations because
many of the jobs an employee may be asked to do.

Another source of motivation is job enlargement. In this technique, employees

are given a wider extent of tasks and responsibilities within their own job. For
example, in the finance department, accounts receivable employee may increase
the number of accounts they are responsible for or may expand their tasks by
sending late notices to a wider geographical area or be in charge of more names
in the client list.

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Team work and motivation in an organisation

Motivation is a management technique, which is closely associated with

leadership . Is motivation primarily an internal (or intrinsic) capability that an
individual brings to the job or is it the responsibility of management and the
organisation to provide a motivating environment (i.e. external, or extrinsic
motivation)? Because employees' values and beliefs are not the same, they will
respond differently to the motivating (or demotivating) features of an
organisation. Different theories of motivation give insights into this complex
psychological process and we will briefly discuss three major types of
motivation theories: content theories, process theories and reinforcement
theories.

Content theorists assume that an effort or behaviour results from an unsatisfied

need (either an individual or group need). Individuals generally act or behave in
ways that will lead to the satisfaction of their needs. This is certainly the basis
for Abraham Maslow's (1943) hierarchy of needs. Clayton Alderfer's (1972)
ERG (existence–relatedness–growth) theory condenses Maslow's five needs
into three broader categories and alters Maslow's progression principle to:
existence, relatedness and growth. Another content theory of motivation is
David McClelland's (1961) acquired needs theory which identifies three types
of needs: affiliation, achievement, power. Frederick Herzberg's (1987) two-
factor theory also offers insight in to what motivates workers. The theory points
out the importance of both job content (satisfiers or motivators) and job context
factors (dissatisfiers or, as Hitt et al. call them 'hygiene factors') in motivating
employees.

The equity, expectancy and goal setting theories are all process theories of
motivation. These theories focus on how employees make choices regarding
their work behaviours, based on their individual preferences, the available
rewards and possible work outcomes. Adam's equity theory recognises that
social comparisons take place when rewards are distributed in the workplace.
When employees believe that they have been inequitably treated in comparison

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to others, they will try to eliminate the discomfort and restore a sense of equity
to the situation. Vroom's expectancy theory (1964) suggests that individuals'
motivation depends on their perceptions about whether they can perform a task,
whether their performance will be rewarded and whether the reward will be
commensurate with the effort expended.

Porter and Lawler (1968) further developed this theory into the expanded
expectancy theory model. According to this model, the value of expected
reward combines with an employee's perception of efforts required for the
reward and the probability of achieving it to produce a certain level of effort.
The way in which the employee performs the task yields a specific performance
level. The level of performance leads to intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. The
employee will have his/her own perception about the appropriateness of the
rewards received and the individual level of satisfaction will depend upon this
perception. The individual's experience will then be applied to his/her
subsequent perception of the value of rewards for further task accomplishment.

By comparison, goal setting theory focuses on how employees set and strive to
achieve goals?emphasising the motivational power of goals. Employees tend to
be highly motivated when task goals are specific rather than ambiguous,
difficult but achievable (stretch goals are the most common example of this) and
set through participatory means.

Reinforcement theory recognises that human behaviour is influenced by its

environmental consequences and is based on Thorndike's (1911) Law of Effect
which states that behaviour followed by a pleasant consequence is likely to be
repeated. One of the approaches to reinforcement motivation is referred to as
operant conditioning which was popularised by Skinner (1948), a psychologist.
Operant conditioning is 'the control of behaviour by manipulating its
consequences'. Research by Luthans and Kreitner (1975) confirmed that operant
conditioning techniques can influence employee behaviour. Hitt et al. (pages
434–437) describes four reinforcement strategies: positive reinforcements,
negative reinforcements, punishments and extinction.

Empowering staff can be a powerful motivator, especially when combined with

the formation of teams who can make important decisions. Empowerment is a
sensible approach to take with professionals who are capable of taking
responsibility and making decisions, but it is more difficult to implement when
dealing with unskilled workers. In spite of the theories, there is a place for fear
as a motivation tool. Fear of reprimand, fear of losing one's job and fear of
missing out on promotion are all effective motivators [ahh, wage-slavery].
Some managers find intimidation a potent tool, but it does require a certain type
of personality.

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Remuneration is an attractive motivation technique for organisations. Complex
psychologically and sociologically based theories are difficult to implement in
practice and require a set of skills which are otherwise of little use to the
organisation. On the other hand, organisations usually possess reasonably well-
developed remuneration systems and capabilities which can be easily adjusted
to motivate employees.

It is a much more difficult task to motivate a team. Individual efforts are not
obvious—it is the team performance that is visible. Without the right motivation
—the personal responsibility for goals—the group is not a team at all; so
motivation is the key to forming and maintaining teams. In Maslow's hierarchy
of needs, the middle category of need is 'belonging'—and being part of a good
team satisfies this need more effectively than any other organisational
arrangements.

Informal groups can also develop within the formal structure of the
organisation. An informal group emerges from relationships and shared interests
among organisation members. An interesting phenomenon associated with
informal groups is that they tend to be quite effective and make minimal
resource demands on the organisation in the short term. Unfortunately, it is
difficult to sustain informal groups in the long term.

Committees and task forces are used to facilitate operations and allow special
projects to be completed. Committees tend to be set up for the long-term and
deal with issues that are on-going (such as customer complaints or strategic
planning). Task forces tend to be established to deal with a specific problem or
opportunity, usually with a degree of urgency. Cross-functional teams bring
members together from different departments and help improve lateral relations
and integration in organisations. Members of cross-functional teams are
expected to share information, explore new ideas, seek creative solutions, meet
project deadlines and not be limited in performance by purely functional
concerns and demands.

The effective implementation of self-managing teams can require enormous

preparation including company-wide training, the employment of appropriate
staff and a substantial restructuring of the lines of responsibility and information
channels within the organisation. Self-managed teams cannot be implemented
on an ad hoc basis and, at the very least, need to be used exclusively within a
bounded region, such as a division.

An effective team achieves high levels of task performance as well as

membership satisfaction. The way members of any team actually work together
as they transform inputs into outputs is called the group process. Group process

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is essential to team effectiveness. Four group input factors that can influence the
group process and consequent team effectiveness are: nature of task,
organisational setting, team size, membership characteristics. Norms are
expected behaviour to be followed by the team members. Team members must
recognise that the behaviour is expected for group membership. The
performance norm, which defines quality and quantity standards, is important
since it can have positive or negative implications for organisational
productivity. In highly cohesive teams, members tend to conform to norms.
Teams with positive norms and high level of cohesion are usually very
effective.

Two types of activities that are essential for team members to work together
effectively are task activities and maintenance activities. A task activity is an
action taken by team member that directly contributes to the group's
performance purpose and a maintenance activity is an action taken by a team
member that supports the emotional life of the group. It is essential that both
types of activities are shared and distributed among all team members. This
function is described as distributed leadership and is important for the long-term
effectiveness of the team.

Most teams pass through a normal life cycle involving initiation, development,
maturity and termination. It is commonly accepted that there are five stages of
team development; forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. As
Hitt et al. says (page 472), these five stages do not apply automatically to all
teams, but they are a good guide to the operations of most teams. The most
important stage is the norming or consolidation stage, without which the team's
outputs are unlikely to be of benefit to the organisation.

A manager needs to master three roles. First, he/she needs to be an effective

member of a team. The second role that a manager has to master is that of
leading a team. The manager or leader of a team has a particular responsibility
to provide strong and principled leadership. Team leaders must be particularly
focused on: team goals, the tasks to be performed, the results to be achieved
(McKew, 2001), the structure and operation of the team, the commitment of the
team members, and the level of collaboration and team norms.

References:

*Schmid, Bernhard., & Adams, Jonathan(Project Management Journal)

*eight2late.wordpress.com

* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation

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