What motivates people at work? Essay

There mother been a large recite of theories sounding into motive at doing and the factors which simulate it. In this essay I anyow be exploring three disclose theories in the atomic number 18a, each provides a very variant angle on what runs employees at work.To light I exit look at a exigency possible action of motivation, Herzbergs Two-Factor Theory (1959), as the name adverts need theories concentrate on the needs of the employee as the chief(prenominal) source of motivation. Herzberg reinforced upon Maslows broadly influential pecking regulate of Needs (1954). Conducting search on 203 Ameri fucking accountants and engineers he looked at what makes employees cheerful and dissatisfy at work. Contrary to Maslows surmisal Herzberg suggests that motivation is non measured on unmatched and only(a) linear scale from well-off to dissatisfied, scarce rather the two ar independent of each other and direct separate scales. The eldest group which determines dis felicity (or de-motivation) argon named hygienics factors which include our basic involve such as our pay and safety. The increment or improvement of hygiene factors unlesstocks only lead to contentment in employees and non motivation.The second group which determines satisfaction ar named Motivators, these include our internal needfully such as our need to attain, to be recognize and deliberaten responsibility. A capitulation or lack of motivators will non de-motivate employees, but adding them passel lead to change magnitude motivation. Research on the surmisal has provided some(prenominal) support and criticism. To begin with the conjecture is back up by the number of successful replications as reported by Hod constrictts and Luthans (1991), these replications shed interpreted place across the world and in a wide variety of distinct individualal credit line sectors and fluent deliver the goodsd the same results. The main bea of criticism for the Two -Factor conjecture poses the systemological analysis of the look for it was derived from. Soliman (1970) pointed bug off that the tendency of subjects to give socially desirable answers would bring in squeeze the answers participants gave to Herzbergs open ended questions. In run passel at that place is a tendency for pack to attribute negative situations to others and positive to themselves e.g.I felt satisfactionwhen I achieved and was recognised for it or I was dissatisfied when the partnership paid me late. This biased attribution of satisfying and dissatisfying situations is a nonher lesson of a problem with the modeology. More problems with the methodology atomic number 18 shown by House and Wigdor (1967). After re-analysing Herzbergs original results they concluded that factors described as creation either a hygiene or motivator were not inversely exclusive. In many cases the entree of Hygiene factors drop act to motivate multitude, overly a lack of Moti vator factors keep causes dissatisfaction. heretofore as well as looking at the empirical query on the surmisal we must in addition think about its value when much applied to the workplace.In support of the speculation it does, to a certain close makes sense. If one month you miss out on pay or are postulate to do something dangerous you would be dissatisfied. At the same clipping employees do not feel satisfied or cause by safe working conditions or being paid on prison term because it is what they expect. The same goes for Motivator factors, an employee would feel to a greater extent satisfied if they received a individualised compliment from the boss but it is marvellous that they would feel dissatisfied if it didnt happen. They sure wouldnt expect it every day. hitherto one hear problem with the theory is that it fails to take into account the difference betwixt satisfaction and motivation. An employee whitethorn be satisfied at work, they whitethorn obtain a ll the motivator factors outlined in the theory but this does not mean they will automatically be actuate to be as productive as they can be. some other criticism is that the theory does not account for individual differences, employees are not all the same, some whitethorn be much materia key outic and be move to a greater extent by monetary reward. more or less strive for achievement and are unforced to do anything to gain the respect of their peers and uplifted status indoors the business trance others whitethorn be content with their job and just wish to keep their heads reduce and get on with it. Put entirely, magic spell being given responsibility may satisfy some people others may find it an unpleasant addition to their job. In summary the Two-Factor model and its supporting inquiry capture been found to have intelligent re-test and cross cultural reliability but has been heavily criticised for its validity and methodology. Although this weakens the value of the theory it has however been extremely influential and can be interoperablely applied in most organizations as a method by which staff motivation can be monitored and improved.Next I am going to look at the closing Setting Theory Locke (1969). The basic enclose of the theory is that by scenery a ending you can profit a somebodys motivation and effect. This accession in performance is due to the motivational influence of polishs in 4 key areas (as cited in Woods 2010). The first is that polishs aid to focus a someones attention and behaviour in the line up direction. Secondly closes have the effect of change magnitude the effort a person is uncoerced expend. Thirdly the addition of a culture add the amount of a time a person will go on on a specific task. lowestly they motivate an individual to seek out and apply relevant knowledge and skills in order to complete the finis. This is how the final stage organizeting theory explains why we are motivated by cultu res. In addition to this Locke and Latham (1990) lay forward 5 key features of a goal which determine how motivating it is, to be effective goals must be1) Specific, a goal which gives a specific channelise area is more motivating then goals which simply require a person to do your best. 2) Measurable, a measurable target enables a person to track their patterned advance towards the goal and alter their effort and method accordingly. 3) Time-Bound, applying a deadline to achieving the goal enables a person to better manage their time and effort. 4) Challenging, it is unlikely that an easy goal will motivate a person to regurgitate in maximum effort. By making the goal challenging people are dig and required to work harder in order to achieve. 5) Attainable, having a goal which is impossible to achieve is likely to de-motivate a person, why would a person put effort in if they have no chance of success. It must be realistically possible to achieve goals. The theory provides a good tiny description of both how and why people are motivated.It has been one of the most wide look fored areas within motivational psychology and is still very much an evolving area. Research by Latham and Baldes (1975) put the core assumption of the goal setting theory to the test in a real world setting. They introduced the goal of reaching 94% faculty in the loading of trucks (previously at just 60%) to a group of employees in a logging company. The employees were motivated by the goal and successfully achieved (and often surpassed) it and continued to work consistently at the target rate. To have achieved the same increase in efficiency without aspiration theory (by purchasing more trucks) would have cost the company $250,000. Another example of query supporting the oddmentsetting theory comes from Blumenfeld and Leidy (1969).They found that 55 engineers in charge of soft drinks machines check considerably more machines when set a goal then when no goal was set. Further more it was found that engineers checked more machines when set a challenging goal then if set an easy goal. A key problem with the methodology of both pieces of supporting research above is that on that point was little control over incorporeal variables. For example Latham and Baldes (1975) did show a huge increase in productivity, but this may not have been due to the addition of a goal. mayhap the competitive spirit of the loggers lead to an increase in efficiency, it may also have simply been down to the increased supervision the workers received at the time. Again it is important to look at the theory in terms of its operable application in the workplace. Its key intensiveness is that it does appear to work as a method of increasing motivation, however once more the theory fails to account for individual differences. Employees who are already highly motivated at work would benefit from goals being set it would push them and enable them to prove themselves.However other le ss confident employees may not enjoy the competitive temper of workplace goals and targets, it could even cause prove and discomfort and leads to a step-down in motivation. In addition, when you direct a persons attention and effort towards one specific goal you may get a decrease in performance in other tasks. A goal may not increase motivation but just direct it. For example if you give hospital staff the target of seeing all patients within 10 minuets they may achieve the target but at the cost of service and theatrical role of treatment. This would obviously be detrimental to the role of work on the whole. A final point to consider is that all employees have disparate levels of ability so in order for goals to push an employee but still remain achievable they must be individually tailored.As well as being impractical in a large business Equality theories (discussed next) would suggest that giving some people easier targets than others may actually lead to a reduction in mo tivation. On the whole Goal Theories are very useful and practical when applied in the right circumstances. Perhaps one weakness of both the theory and supporting research is in its softness to account for causes of demotivation in an organization. However the research shows that goals do motivate people at work, yet when applied to an organizational environment we see possibledrawbacks and potential difficulties which are difficult to overcome.The final theory I am going to examine is the organisational Justice Theory which builds upon the equity theory put forward by Adams (1963). The organizational Justice theory has been constructed from theory and research contributed by a significant number of psychologists, certainly too many to list in their entirety. However two key contributors worth noting are Greenberg (1987a) who coined the term organizational Justice and conducted much of the early research and Mowday (1987) (cited in Greenberg 1990) who has had a significant shoc k absorber on the theory. The core belief of the theory is that employees can be motivated (or de-motivated) by their perception of how fairly they are being treated at work in comparison to their colleagues. The theory suggests three different types of jurist which can be perceived. The first is Distributive Justice, which looks at the extent to which an employee thinks they are being fairly rewarded for the work they put in compared to others, the theory suggest that a person will either increase or decrease their level of arousal in order to balance out and restore equality.The second is Procedural Justice, this looks at how fair a person feels the procedures and systems are within a business, for example is spend date allocation fair. The third is reciprocal Justice, this is the least researched area and compromises of two move Informational Justice describes how well informed a person is about the decisions taken within a business, using holiday as an example again it may b e explained to an employee why they can not have the holiday they asked for. Interpersonal Justice describes the extent to which someone feels they are treated with respect. As with the Goal setting theory there has been a considerable amount of research put into Organizational Justice theory. In a recent study Zapata-Phelan, Colquitt, Scott and Livingston (2009) (cited in Woods 2010) looked at how procedural and interaction justice effected motivation and in turn performance. They found that when a person perceived high procedural justice in an organization there was an increase in motivation, leading to an increase in performance.