Chapter 10

Motivating
INTRODUCTION
Business must produce outputs that will help maintain their competitive stance in the
market. Products or services must be produced with the least cost, even if it is only one of the
factors required for business survival and growth.
Economy in production, however, will depend on how motivated the employees are in
the performance of their assigned tasks, as the outputs will be needed by customers in various
qualities and quantities, at different times and places, the firm must be able to deliver the
requirement, or it will be driven out of the market.
It will take a different motivation level to meet quality standards than to produce the
required quantity. Although motivation is a common ground among the various activities, the
levels may not be so, this makes motivation a complicated undertaking.
In any case, it is important for management to understand that motivation is a function
that can be used as a powerful means to achieve the company’s objectives. Literature abounds
with stories of organizations, which succeeded because of highly motivated employees.
What Is Motivating?
Motivating refers to the act of giving employees reasons or incentives to work to achieve
organizational objectives. Motivation, on the other hand, refers to the process of activating
behavior, sustaining it, and directing it toward a particular goal. The definition is useful because
it specifies three stages: activating, sustaining, and directing actions towards the achievements
towards the achievement of objectives.
FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO MOTIVATION
The following factors influence a person to do his job well.
1. Willingness to Do the Job. People who like what they are doing are highly motivated to
produce the expected output.
2. Self-confidence in Carrying the Task. When employees feel that they have the required
skill and training to perform the task, they get more motivated.
3. Need Satisfaction. People will do their job well if they fell that by doing so, their needs
will be satisfied.
THEORIES OF MOTIVATION
There are various theories of motivation, but only the four most influential ones will be
presented. They consist of the following:
1. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory. Abraham Maslow, an eminent psychologist, theorized
that human beings have five basic needs, which relate to the following: physiological,
 security, social, esteem, and self-actualization. These needs have to be satisfied in
hierarchical fashion, meaning one need will be satisfied first before satisfying the other
needs.
a. Physiological Needs. Those that are concerned with biological needs like food, drink,
rest, and sex fall under the category of physiological needs. These needs take priority
over the needs.
b. Security Needs. After satisfying the physiological needs, people will seek to satisfy their
safety needs. They include freedom from bodily harm and financial security, which may
be affected by the loss of job, or death of the family’s breadwinner, etc.
c. Social Needs. After satisfying his physiological and security needs, the employee will
now strive to secure love, affection, and the need to be accepted by peers.
d. Esteem Needs. They include the need for a positive self-image and self-respect and the
need to be respected by others.
e. Self-Actualization Needs. The topmost level of needs in the hierarchy involves the
realization of the individual’s potential as a human being and becoming someone that he
could be.
The Relevance of Maslow’s Theory to Management. Even if Maslow’s theory has been
largely questioned, one basic premise cannot be discarded: “a fulfilled need no longer
motivates an individual”. If this is his subordinates is in, the manager will be at an
advantage if he identifies his subordinate’s unfulfilled need and work out a scheme so
that the subordinate will be motivated to work in order to satisfy the unfulfilled need.
2. Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory. The two-factor theory, develop by Frederick Herzberg,
indicates that a satisfied employee is motivated from within to work harder and that a
dissatisfied employee is not self-motivated.
Herzberg identified two classes of factors associated with employee satisfaction
and dissatisfaction. In his research, Herzberg found out that satisfied employees consider
the following factors (satisfiers or motivation factors) are responsible for job satisfaction:
achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth.
Dissatisfied employees consider the following factors are responsible for job
dissatisfaction: company policy and administration, supervision, relationship with
supervisor, work conditions, salary, relationship with peers, personal life, relationship
with subordinates, status and security.
If the manager considers Herzberg’s theory in motivating employees, he must do
something to eliminate the dissatisfiers and install satisfiers.
3. Expectancy Theory. This is a motivation model based on the assumption that an
individual will work depending on his perception of the probability of his expectations to
happen.
The theory poses the idea that motivation is determined by expectancies and
valences. Expectancy is a belief about the likelihood or probability that a particular
behavioral act (like attending training sessions) will lead to a particular outcome (lie a
promotion). Valence is the value an individual places on the expected outcome or
rewards.
Expectancy theory is based on the following assumptions:
 a. A combination of forces within the individual and in the environment determines
behavior.
b. People make decisions about their own behavior that of organizations.
c. People make different types of needs, goals, and desires.
d. People make choices among alternative behaviors on the extent to which they
think a certain behavior will lead to a desired outcome.
4. Goal Setting Theory. Goal setting refers to the process of improving performance with
objective, deadlines, or quality standard. When individuals or groups are assigned
specific goals, a clear direction is provided and which later motivates them achieve those
goals. The goal setting model consist of the following components.
a. Goal Content. To be sufficient in content, goals must be challenging, attainable,
specific and measurable, time-limited, and relevant.
When goals are challenging, higher performance may be expected. The sales
quotas impose by companies on individual members of their sales force indicates
reliance of these companies to the use of challenging goals. Goals must be attainable
if they are be set. If they are not, then workers will only be discouraged to perform.
Goals must be stated in quantitative terms whenever possible. When exact figures
to be met are set, understanding is facilitated and workers are motivated to perform.
There must be a time limit fir the accomplishment of goals.
The more relevant he goals are to the company’s mission, the more support it can
generate from various levels of employment in the organization.
b. Goal Commitment. When individuals or groups committed to the goals they are
supposed to achieve, there is chance that they will be able to achieve them.
c. Work Behavior. Goals influence behavior in terms of direction, effort, persistence,
and planning. When an individual is provided with direction, performance is
facilitated. In trying to attain goals that are already indicated, the individual is
provided a reason to persist in his efforts until the goal is attained. Once goals are set,
the first important input to planning is already in place.
d. Feedback Aspects. Feedbacks provide the individuals with a way of knowing how far
they have gone in achieving objectives. Feedbacks also facilitate the introduction of
corrective measures whenever necessary.
TECHNIQUES OF MOTIVATION
Individuals or groups of individual may be motivated to perform through the use
of various techniques. These techniques may be classified as motivation through job
design, motivation through rewards, motivation through employee participation, and
other motivation techniques for the diverse work force.
1. Motivation Through Job Design. A person will be highly motivated to perform if he
is assigned a job he likes. The first requisite, however, is to design jobs that will be
meet the requirements of the organization and the persons who will occupy them.
Job design is concerned with specifying the tasks that constitute a job for an
individual or a group.
 In motivating through the use of job design, the tasks that constitute a job for an
individual or a group.
a. Fitting People to Jobs. Routine and repetitive tasks make workers suffer from
chronic dissatisfaction. To avoid this, the following remedies may be adapted:
 Realistic job preview – is undertaken by management by “conveying to
applicants what organizational life will actually be like on this job, warts
and all.”
 Job Rotation - is where people are moved periodically from on specialized
job to another.
 Limited Exposure – is where worker exposure to a highly fragmented and
tedious job is limited.
b. Fitting Jobs to People. Instead of changing the person, management could
consider changing the job. This may be achieved with the use of the following:
 Job Enlargement – is where two or more specialized tasks in a work flow
sequence is combined into a single job.
 Job Enrichment – is where efforts are made to make jobs more interesting,
challenging, and rewarding.
2. Motivating Through Rewards. Rewards consist of material and physiological benefits
to employees for performing tasks in the workplace. Properly administered reward
system can improve job performance and satisfaction.
Rewards may be classified into two categories:
a. Extrinsic Rewards – refers to the rewards external to the job, such as pay, promotion,
or fringe benefits.
b. Intrinsic Rewards – are internally experienced payoffs and which are self-granted.
Examples are a sense of accomplishment. Self-esteem, and self-actualization.
Extrinsic and intrinsic rewards coincide with the needs spelled out in the need
theories principally represented by Maslow and Herzberg.
Management of Extrinsic Rewards. To motivate job performance effectively,
extrinsic rewards must be managed in line with the following:
 It must satisfy individual’s needs.
 The employees must believe effort will lead to reward.
 Rewards must be equitable.
 Rewards must be linked to performance.
No single type of rewards is generally applicable to all employees. This is so
because individuals have need different from others. As much as possible, the particular needs of
an individual must be matched with the corresponding reward if motivation is objective.
Although the administrative constraints inherent to such systems could be a hindrance to their
adaption, they must be used whenever feasible.
Employees must believe that efforts will lead to reward. Otherwise, they will not strive to
turn in more efforts in their particular job assignments.
 Rewards that are not equitable will not produce the desired motivation. When employees
know that reward is tied up with individual performance, management may expect extra efforts
for them. A negative example is the practice in some government offices where every employee,
regardless of performance, is a given productivity bonus. As a result, the majority is not
motivated to exert extra efforts.
3. Motivation through Employees Participation. When employees participate in
deciding on various aspects of their jobs, their personal involvement is often carried
up to the point where the tasks are completed.
The specific activities identified where employees may participate are as
follows: setting goals, making decisions, solving problems, and designing and
implementing organizational changes.
The more popular approaches to participation included the following:
a. Quality control Circle. A method of direct employee participation is the quality
control circle. The objective of QCC is to produce ideas for improving
productivity and working condition.
The circle consist of group of three to ten employees, usually doing related
work, who meet at regular intervals to identify problems and discuss their solutions.
The circle includes a leader such a foreman, but relies on democratic process. The
members are trained in various analytical techniques by a coordinator. The circle
forwards recommendations to management, which in turn, makes decisions on its
adoption.
b. Self-Management Teams. When workers have reached a certain degree of
discipline, they may be ripe for forming self-managed teams. Also known as
autonomous, work group, or high performance teams, self-managed teams take
on traditional managerial tasks as part of their normal work routine.
The self-managed team works on their own, turning out a complete
product or service and receiving minimal supervision from managers who act more as
facilitators than supervisors. When a product or service is produced by a group of
professionals or specialists, they might as well be formed as a self-managed team to
save on supervisory costs.
Requisites to Successful Employee Participation Programs. To
succeed, an employee participation program will require the following:
 A profit-sharing or gain-sharing plan;
 A long term employment relationship with good job security;
 A concerted effort to build and maintain group cohesiveness; and
 Protection of the individual employee’s rights.
4. Other Motivation Technique. The advent of theories of individual difference and the
biological clock of human being has challenged managers to adapt other motivation
techniques such as:
a. Flexible Work Schedule. There is an arrangement, called flextime, which allows
employees to determine their own arrival and departure times within specified
limits. For example, a business firm may allow one group of employees to take
the 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. schedule, another group takes the 9:00 a.m. to 6:00
p.m. schedule, and another takes the 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. schedule. Another
alternative is the adaption of the forty-hour workweek in four days allowing the
employees to choose a “day-off”. An innovation adapted by a popular bank in
Makati is the hiring of part-time tellers to work four hours a day from Monday to
Friday.
There are certain benefits offered by flexible work schedules although it is
not appropriate for all situations. Nevertheless, the manager has an option and he
decides when it is applicable.
b. Family Support Series. Employees oftentimes burdened by family obligations like
caring for children. Progressive companies provide day care facilities for children
of employees. For instance, a multinational company in faraway Davao province
has even opened an elementary and a high school facility within the planation site.
c. Sabbaticals. A sabbatical leave is one given to an employee after a certain number
of years of service. The employee is allowed to go n leave for two months to one
year with pay to give him time for family, recreation, and travel. It is expected
that when the employee turns for work, his motivation is improved.