motivation

• Motivation


  An inner state that energizes, activates or moves and directs or channels behaviour towards goals
• Motivation


  The degree of readiness of an organisation to pursue some designated goal and implies the determination of the nature and locus of the forces, including the degree of readiness
• Basic motivation process


  1. Needs (Deficiency)

  2. Drives (Deficiency with Direction)

  3. Goals/Incentives (Reduction of drives and fulfils deficiencies)
• Need


  Deficiency, physiological or psychological imbalance
• Drive


  Deficiency with direction, action-oriented and provide an emerging thrust towards goal accomplishment
• Incentive


  Anything that will alleviate a need to reduce a drive
• Objective of motivation is to exploit the unused potential in people for greater efficiency, higher production and better standard of living
• Types of motivation


  • Positive (pull) motivation
  • Negative (push) motivation
• Positive motivation


  People are shown a reward and the way to achieve it, can be financial or non-financial
• Negative motivation


  Installing fear in the minds of people to get the desired work done, has several limitations
• Motivation is necessary to make employees overreach themselves and make the impossible possible
• Motivated employees are productive, committed and quality conscious
• Managers should kindle desire in employees and make them aspire for higher things in life
• Early motivation theories


  • Scientific Management
  • Human Relations Model
• Scientific Management


  • Scientific method of doing work
  • Planning the task
  • Scientific selection, training and remuneration of workers
  • Standardisation
  • Specialisation and division of work
  • Time and motion studies
  • Mental revolution
• Scientific Management's simplistic assumption about human behaviour being primarily motivated by economic rewards has been criticised
• Taylor's oversimplified and routine jobs created boredom and dissatisfaction in workers
• The basic tenets of Scientific Management are still relevant today
• Human Relations Model


  • Acknowledged social needs of workers
  • Gave workers some freedom to make decisions
  • Provided more information to employees
• The Human Relations Model's undue reliance on social contacts at work for motivation has been criticised
• For motivation, it is necessary to ensure employees feel they are gaining something from their actions
• Content theories of motivation

  • Maslow's Need Hierarchy Theory
  • Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory
  • Alderfer's ERG Theory
  • McClelland's Achievement Theory
• Content theories


  Use individual needs to help understand job satisfaction and work behaviours
• Maslow's Need Hierarchy Theory


  • People are wanting beings whose needs can influence their behaviour
  • Needs are arranged in an order of importance, or hierarchy
  • Person advances to the next level of hierarchy when lower level need is at least minimally satisfied
  • Further up the hierarchy, the more individuality, humanness and psychological health the person will display
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs

  • Physiological
  • Safety
  • Belongingness
  • Esteem
  • Self-actualisation
• Physiological needs


  The most basic, powerful and obvious of all human needs is the need for physical survival. Included in this group are the needs for food, drink, oxygen, sleep, sex, protection from extreme temperature and sensory stimulation
• Physiological needs are crucial to the understanding of human behaviour. The devastating effects on behaviour produced by a lack of food or water have been chronicled in numerous experiments and autobiographies
• In the organisational context, physiological needs are represented by employees concern for salary and basic working conditions. It is the duty of managers to ensure that these needs of the employees are met so that they can be motivated to strive for gratification of higher order needs
• Safety needs


  The primary motivating force here is to ensure a reasonable degree of continuity, order, structure and predictability in one's environment
• Safety needs exert influence beyond childhood. The preference for secured income, the acquisition of insurance and owning one's own house may be regarded as motivated in part by safety seeking
• Security needs in the organisational context correlate to such factors as job security, salary increases, safe working conditions, unionisation and lobbying for protective legislation
• Social needs


  Also called belonging and love needs, these constitute the third level in the hierarchy of needs. These needs arise when physiological and safety needs are satisfied. An individual motivated on this level longs for affectionate relationship with others, namely, for a place in his or her family and/or reference groups
• In the organisational context, social needs represent the need for a compatible work group, peer acceptance, professional friendship and friendly supervision
• Self-esteem needs


  Maslow classified these needs into two subsidiary sets: self-respect and esteem from others. The former includes such things as desire for competence, confidence, personal strength, adequacy, achievement, independence and freedom. Esteem from others includes prestige, recognition, acceptance, attention, status, reputation and appreciation
• In the workplace, self-esteem needs correspond to job title, merit pay increase, peer/supervisory recognition, challenging work, responsibility, and publicity in company publications
• Self-actualisation needs


  The desire to become everything that one is capable of becoming. The person who has achieved this highest-level presses towards the full use and exploitation of his talents, capacities and potentialities
• The need for self-actualisation is distinctive, in that it is never fully satisfied. It appears to remain important and insatiable. The more apparent satisfaction of it a person obtains, the more important the need for more seems to become
• Herzberg's two-factor theory


  The first group of needs is such things as company policy and administration, supervision, working conditions, interpersonal relations, salary, status, job security and personal life. Herzberg called these factors as 'dissatisfiers' and not motivators. The second group are the 'satisfiers', in the sense that they are motivators, which are related to 'job content.' He included the factors of achievement, recognition, challenging work, advancement and growth in the job
• Comparison of Maslow's and Herzberg's models: Herzberg's theory is not much different from that of Maslow. Most of the maintenance factors of Herzberg come under low level needs of Maslow. Maslow says when the lower level needs are satisfied, they stop being motivators and what Herzberg says is the same in the sense that they are maintenance factors (not motivators)
• The differences between the two models are that Maslow's is a descriptive theory while Herzberg's is a prescriptive theory, Maslow sees all needs as motivators at various times while Herzberg sees only some needs as motivators, and Maslow's theory is more relevant for all workers while Herzberg's is probably more relevant to white-collar and professional workers