Managing People at Work

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Hey blog surfers this blog is about my university subject
"Managing people at work" a human resource subject.

The posts designed for this will teach you different aspects about human resource
management issues.

This blog also acts as revision for my exams.

Topic 4 - motivation concepts

Describe the three key elements of motivation.

The three elements of motivation are

1. Intensity - it describes how hard a person tries, this is an element that most of us talk about when we think of motivation, however high intensity does not equal high job performance, unless effort is channeled in a direction that is beneficial to the organization.
2. Direction -  Effort directed towards goals and objectives set by the organization are what managers seek to do.

Persistence - Motivation has a persistence dimension, persistence measures how long a worker can maintain effort.
Motivated individuals are those that stay with a task long enough to achieve the goal set. (Robbins, Judge,Millet, Boyle , 2011)


Q2. Identify early theories of motivation and evaluate their current use.

A. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
It's safe to say that Abraham Maslow is the most widely known theorist on motivation.
Maslow states that inside each person there exists a hierarchy of five needs in this order.

1. Physiological needs - Hunger, thirst, shelter, sex.
2. Safety - Security and protection from physical and mental harm.
3.  Social - Affection, belonginess, acceptance, a sense of community, friendship.
4. Esteem - Self respect, autonomy and achievement, and external factors such as, status, recognition and attention.
5. Self Actualisation- The drive to become what we are capable of becoming, growth, achieving potential, following your dream and achieving self fulfillment. 

High Orders are Social, Esteem and Self actualisation, these needs are satisfied internally.

Low order needs, Safety and Physiological needs are needs that are satisfied externally, e.g paycheck, and work environment.

Maslow's hiearchy has widely received recognition amongst practicing managers.
It is intuively logical and easy to understand.

However there is little empirical evidence to substantiate this in real practice.
Some theorists have made alterations of the hiearchy with some stating that needs are not always met in the order suggested by Maslow.
Several studies have tried to validate its legitimacy but found no support for it. (Robbins et al ,2011)

Theory Y and X 
Theorist Douglas McGregor proposes two distinct ways of viewing human beings, Theory X and Theory Y.
McGregor states that managers tend to mould their assumptions  of employees according to one of these theories.

Theory X is a relatively negative view that assumes people have little ambition, dislike work and are not motivated by it and will try to avoid work.
This theory also assumes that workers dislike responsibility and have to be coerced to perform.
Therefore workers must be supervised to ensure they perform.

Theory Y on the other hand assumes that employees like work, are creative, seek responsibility and that they can exercise self direction.
Theory Y assumes that work to the average person is as natural as rest or play, which in turn suggest that people learn to accept or even seek responsibility. (Robbins et al, 2011)


Two Factor theory
Psychologist Frederick Herzberg, suggests that intrinsic factors relate to job satisfaction and associates extrinsic factors with dissatisfaction, this theory is also known as "Motivation - Hygiene theory".

In this theory instrinsic factors such as recognition, advancement, achievement and responsibility seem to relate to job satisfaction.
Respondents who tended to feel good about their job attribute their positive feelings to these intrinsic factors.
On the other hand dissatisfied employess tended to cite extrinsic factors like , company policy, pay, working conditions and supervision.

These factors such as working conditions, pay and supervision are hygiene needs that when adequate in a job, stop workers from being dissatisfied, but do not create satisfaction, just a neutral state.

McClelland's theory of needs

This theory looks at finding a balance between a goal being difficult and achievable, those who select goals of optimal difficulty are likely to be high achievers.
 There are three elements to theory of needs
1. Need for achievement - the drive to excel, to strive to succeed.
2. Need for power - The need to make others behave in a way in which they would not have behaved otherwise.

3. Need for affiliation - The desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships.
McCelland claims that high achievers don't like high odds of success , there is no satisfaction because achievement could be due to pure chance.

The same when there is low odds, because there is no challenge to their skills.


Goal setting theory - (Edwin Locke)

 Basic Premise: Specific and difficult goals with self generated feedback, lead to higher performance.

In the late 1960's  Edwin Locke proposed that intentions to work towards a goal are a major source of work motivation. 
Goals tell employees what needs to be done and to the extent of how much effort needs to be expended.
Evidence is that goals are proven to have an effect, we can say specific goals increase performance, and that difficult goals when accepted create higher performance than easy goals.
Feedback leads to higher performance than non-feedback.