Business

• Motivation is the willingness and desire to work and achieve certain goals
• Factors that influence employee behavior towards achieving set business goals include enjoyment of work, desire to achieve specific goals (e.g., earn additional money or attain promotion), and satisfaction gained from completing tasks or achieving successful outcomes
• Motivation matters in a business because workers' behavior is determined by what motivates them. The equation for high productivity is ability (skills and experience) + motivation
• Benefits of a well-motivated workforce:

  • Better productivity leads to completing tasks quickly and increasing the amount produced per employee, resulting in lower unit costs and the ability to sell products at a lower price
  • Reduces absenteeism as motivated workers feel their jobs are important and are less likely to take unnecessary time off
  • Lowers staff turnover because motivated employees are less likely to leave for a competitor, reducing the costs of recruiting and training new workers
• • Increases innovation as motivated employees are more likely to create new products, production processes, and systems to stay competitive
  • Improves cooperation as motivated workers are likely to work as a team to achieve common goals for the organization
• Theories of Motivation:

  • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Physiological needs, Safety and security needs, Love and belonging, Esteem needs, Self-actualization
  • Herzberg Two-Factor Theory: Motivators and hygiene factors
  • Fredrick Taylor's Theory: Based on the assumption that workers are motivated by personal gains, mainly money, and proposed the piece-rate system to increase productivity
• Financial factors for motivating employees:

  • Wages: Time-Rate (pay based on hours worked) and Piece-Rate (pay based on output produced)
  • Salary: paid monthly or annually
  • Commission: paid to salespersons based on a percentage of sales made
  • Bonus: additional amount paid for good work
  • Performance-related pay: paid based on performance measured through appraisals
  • Profit-sharing: distributing a proportion of company profits to workers
  • Share ownership: giving shares to employees to increase loyalty
• Non-financial rewards for motivating employees:

  • Fringe benefits: non-financial rewards given to employees for various reasons such as some workers not being motivated by money, attaching more importance to non-financial rewards, and financial incentive schemes not being suitable for all workers
• Additional non-financial benefits for motivating employees:

  • Job Satisfaction: derived from feeling that a good job has been done, influenced by various factors like pay, promotional opportunities, team involvement, relationship with superiors, level of responsibility, chances for training, working hours, and job status
  • Job Rotation: involves workers swapping jobs for variety and ease of task allocation
  • Job Enlargement: adding tasks of similar level to a worker's job description to make work more interesting
• • Job Enrichment: adding tasks requiring more skill and responsibility to a job to increase trust and motivation
  • Team-working: giving a group of workers responsibility for a process, product, or development to increase control and commitment
  • Opportunities for training: providing training opportunities for personal growth and development
  • Opportunities for promotion: offering chances for advancement to increase efficiency and self-actualization