Motivation for Human Resources Managers

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of ‘satisfaction’ is ‘no satisfaction’ and the opposite of ‘dissatisfaction’ is ‘no dissatisfaction’ (Herzberg’s, n.d.). Herzberg labeled hygiene factors like pay, fringe benefits, and working conditions as those factors that are essential as a foundation for motivation, but just having them only creates a ‘no dissatisfaction’ situation. These hygiene factors are extrinsic motivators and are wanted and expected by the employee. In order to get true ‘satisfaction’, the intrinsic motivation of an employee must be tapped which includes recognition, sense of achievement, promotional opportunities, responsibility, and meaningfulness of work (Herzberg’s).

The Job Characteristics Model

In 1975, Hackman and Oldham developed the job characteristics model or JCM. This theory uses five design criteria to describe a job’s core dimensions. First, skill variety refers to the variety of different skills and talents an employee uses throughout the day. Second, task identity is whether the job allows the employee to see a whole and finished product at the end. Third, task significance is how much a job affects the lives of other people. Fourth, autonomy is how much job freedom a worker has in scheduling or procedures. Fifth, feedback is how much information the employee gets back on their performance. This information is then used to give a job a motivating potential score (Robbins & Judge, 2015).

Self Determination Theory

Researchers Deci and Ryan proposed the self-determination theory that proposes that people are motivated more by intrinsic factors than by extrinsic factors like reward. People, in their lives and in the workplace, need to experience competence, connectedness to others, and autonomy to be motivated (Cherry, n.d.). In addition, their experiments with the soma puzzle indicated that when people were offered a reward for a task they were already intrinsically motivated to do, they lost interest. Rewards can deliver a short-term boost but the effect wears off and can reduce a person’s long-term motivation. When rewards are offered, people feel an obligation which undermines motivation (Cherry).

Motivation 2.1: Results of Contemporary Theories

Contemporary theories of motivation did not impact the business world like the social sciences intended (Pink, 2009b). Business responded mostly by putting even more emphasis on extrinsic motivators by implementing variable pay programs that pay employees base on some measure of performance. Merit-based pay is based on the annual performance appraisal and used mostly for salaried employees. Bonuses are a significant component of compensation especially for high-ranking employees like CEOs. Profit-sharing plans add to an employee compensation based on some measure of the company’s profitability. Employee-stock ownership programs allow employees to acquire company stock giving them a vested interest in the company’s performance (Robbins & Judge, 2015).

Companies only partly embraced intrinsic motivation found in contemporary theories. In order to accommodate a diverse workforce such as dual-career couples and single parents, U.S. companies did modify work arrangements. Flextime, job sharing, and telecommuting became choices for employees (Robbins & Judge, 2015). Therefore, Motivation 2.0 only moved up a notch to Motivation 2.1.

Failures of Motivation 1.0, 2.0, 2.1

Theories of Motivation 1.0, 2.0, and 2.1 have not solved all the issues of motivation. Despite the volumes of scientific information indicating that motivation is more than rewards and punishments, businesses “still operate from assumptions about human potential and individual performance that are outdated…and pursue practices like incentive plans and pay-for-performance schemes” (Pink, 2009a).

Daniel Pink explains the gap in motivation theory in his book Drive. Pink states that jobs of the last century were mostly algorithmic, meaning an employee followed a standard set of instructions to a conclusion. The jobs of this century are heuristic, meaning an employee must experiment with possibilities and find a unique solution (Pink, 2009b).

Daniel Pink and Motivation 3.0

Daniel Pink suggests a full upgrade of our current ideas about motivation to Motivation 3.0. Mr. Pink states that there is a huge difference between what science knows and what business does. Pink’s advice to businesses is to pay well, even above market value, to get money off the table so employees can progress to the third driver of human motivation. Pink presents this driver as an intrinsic combination of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy for an employer means resisting the urge to control people. For the employee autonomy means acting with a sense of volition and choice. Mastery is the desire to get better and better at something that matters. Purpose is “the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves” (Pink, 2009a). Seeking purpose is part of human nature and is much like the self-actualization level of Maslow’s hierarchy (Maslow).

Successful Examples of Motivation 3.0

FedEx Days and Atlassian Software

Atlassian is an Australian software company that climbed from a 10,000 dollar venture of two college graduates to a 60 million dollar a year company with 200 employees and offices in three countries. To spark creativity, top management came up with what they now call a FedEx Day. One day a quarter, employees were told to work on anything they wanted. Employees presented their ideas 24 hours later because the idea had to be there overnight. Many of Atlassian’s new products came from FedEx days (LaBarre, 2012).

80:20 Time at Intuit and Twitter

Intuit software and the Twitter company have both decided to stimulate creativity by implementing noncommissioned work time. Four hours a week, Intuit are told to work on projects that interest them. Intuit reported that they had been trying for some time to develop a mobile app without success. However, from the noncommissioned time seven mobile apps were created. Twitter went with 80:20 time called a “Hack Week” where employees have one week of autonomy to work on whatever they want (Hack, 2012).

An Example of Failure of Motivation 3.0

In 2005, Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, two human resource professionals at Best Buy, convinced their employer to try ROWE. ROWE stands for a results only work environment where employees have complete autonomy over where and how they do their