Motivating workers

• The reason why people work is to earn money to buy food and basic necessities for life.
• Other reasons why people work include needing money to pay for basic necessities like rent, food and water.
• Job satisfaction means that the worker feels happy when they do their job because they feel like what they do is good.
• Esteem needs mean that a worker may want to be respected in society because what they do needs recognition.
• Job security means that your job and pay are safe and you are unlikely to be made redundant.
• Taylor based his idea on the assumption that all individuals are motivated by personal gain and therefore, if they are paid more, they will work more effectively.
• Taylor broke down their jobs into simple processes and then calculated how much output they should be able to do in a day.
• If workers produced this target output, they would be paid more money.
• Not all workers are motivated by money.
• If it is a service business, it will be hard to measure.
• Maslow Theory includes physiological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualisation.
• Physiological needs in Maslow Theory refer to the need to work hard to get money to pay for basic needs.
• Security needs in Maslow Theory mean that it is unlikely that a person will lose their job.
• Social needs in Maslow Theory relate to the ability to work with colleagues who can share social activities.
• Financial rewards include regular paychecks and calculated weekly, which takes time and money.
• Working as a group helps improve morale as well as giving a greater sense of belonging to the company.
• Fringe benefits can include company vehicle, discounts on firm’s products, healthcare paid for, free accommodation, and pension paid for by the business.
• Motivating factors are factors which encourage employees to work hard and effectively for a business.
• Job rotation involves workers swapping around and doing each specific task for only a limited time and then changing around again, making it easier for managers to move workers around the factory if people are ill or need covering.
• Job enlargement involves adding extra tasks of a similar level of work to a worker’s job description, giving a greater variety to the work and increasing job satisfaction.
• Piece rate in the workplace encourages workers to work faster and produce more goods, but it can lead to low quality products and damage the reputation of the business.
• Autonomous work or teamworking is where a group of workers is given responsibility for a particular process, product and development, they can decide as a group how to complete tasks or organize the jobs, giving a feeling of control over the jobs and the employees feel more committed.
• Achievement in the workplace involves workers feeling that they have reached challenging goals to their jobs.
• Promotion in the workplace involves giving workers opportunities for advancement.
• Time rate in the workplace means the worker knows exactly what they will be paid for working a certain period of time, and good and bad workers get paid the same.
• Job enrichment involves looking at jobs and adding tasks that require more skill or responsibility, if managers can design jobs so that they provide scope for fulfilling higher human needs, workers will often become more committed because they get more satisfaction from their jobs.
• Esteem needs in Maslow Theory mean being given recognition for a job well done.
• Self-actualisation in Maslow Theory is when you’ve used all your abilities and skill to be promoted to a higher level in the business.
• Each level in the hierarchy before an employee can be motivated by the next level.
• Some levels in Maslow Theory do not appear to exist for certain individuals, while some rewards appear to fit into more than one level.
• Herzberg Theory states that a good environment does not motivate workers, however, if it is not present then it will demotivate them.
• Herzberg Theory includes hygiene factors such as salary, relationship with superiors, and work conditions.
• Motivators in Herzberg Theory include work itself, recognition, responsibility, and advancement.