Motivating Employees in the Workplace

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The last level on the hierarchy of needs is the self-actualization need. This is one’s need to meet their greatest potential and be the best that they can become. This level of needs helps employees perform at their highest ability. Education also helps employees with personal and professional growth. To help with this, organizations may offer tuition reimbursement or training programs.

Process theories are theories on how people are motivated instead of what motivates them. One theory is the reinforcement theory, which is the most basic and simple theory. This theory has 3 components. The first component is stimulus which is something or someone that causes a behavior. The second component is response, which is the behavior that is caused by the stimulus. The third component is the outcome. The outcome is the consequence that follows the response. If an employee knows what to expect will happen that may motivate him to perform better or just the opposite. Another theory is the expectancy theory and is more complicated. In this theory, employees are the decision makers of the organization. There are also three components of this theory. These components are effort, performance and outcomes and are all linked. If an employee believes that their performance will increase with effort, they will exert more effort in the work that they do. Then if they are striving for a specific outcome, they will perform accordingly.

All motivation leads to some sort of reward. There are two kinds of rewards and they are considered to be extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic rewards are external, visible and tangible to others. If an employee knows there is a reward of some type, they tend to work on a task even if they are not interested in it or will not get any pleasure out of it, so that they can reap the reward. For example; and individual may not like writing research papers, but they will do it if they know that there may be a good grade involved. Then there are the intrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards are based on the satisfaction an employee will get from within himself, from completing certain tasks. Employees may find their jobs or tasks that they are doing enjoyable and then use this as their motivation. Motivation can also come from the sense of responsibility, accomplishment, challenge, or the opportunity to learn something new. A U.S. National Institute of Health Study has found that the neurotransmitter dopamine is central to the human brain network governing motivation as well as reward pleasure. They used brain scans to determine this information.

Motiving employees to their best work consistently continues to be a challenge in many organizations. Most times the success of an organization can be traced back to how and if the employees were motivated. Motivation, in most cases, is the most important thing an employee can bring to work. The first step in all motivation is determining what the employee needs are. This may not be a simple task as employees want different things so it needs to be determined what works best.

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Bibliography

Angelo S. DeNisi, Ricky W. Griffin (2011) HR Mason, OH: South Western Cengage Learning

Ray B. Williams (2010) Wired for Success how to fulfill your potential. Psychology Today. Retrieved December 11, 2012, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201002/how-motivate-employees-what-managers-need-know-0

Williams, Chuck (2012) MGMT5. Mason, OH: South-Western