Chapter 12: Motivating

Employees
Motivation: What it is, why is it important

People are mainly motivated to fulfill their needs, wants

Thus they do what they do

What is motivation?

Defined as the psychological processes that arouse and direct

goal-directed behavior
It is mainly inferred from ones behavior
Motivation is the result of multiple personal and contextual
factors

Rewards are of 2 types: intrinsic and extrinsic:

managers can use both to encourage better
work performance
Intrinsic
Satisfaction in performing
the task itself

The satisfaction, such as

feeling of accomplishment,
that a person receives from
performing the particular
task itself

Payoff from pleasing oneself

Extrinsic
Satisfaction in the payoff
from others
Payoff, eg money, that a
person receives from others
for performing a particular
task

Why is motivation important? :

Motivate people to:
1) Join your organization: Instill talented prospective workers to
work for you
2) Stay with your organization: Retain good people
3) Show up for work: Prevent absenteeism and lateness
4) Be engaged while at your organization: Engaged workers
produce higher quality work and better customer service
5) Do extra for the organization

The 4 major perspectives on motivation:

overview
1)
2)
3)
4)

Content
Process
Job design
Reinforcement

Content perspectives
-

Also known as need-based perspectives

Theories that emphasize the needs that motivate people
Needs are defined as physiological or psychological deficiencies
that arouse behavior
In addition to McGregors theory X/Theory Y, content
perspectives include 4 theories:

1) Maslows hierarchy of needs theory

2) Alderfers ERG theory
3) McClellands acquired needs theory
4) Herzbergs 2 factor theory
Maslows hierarchy of needs
-Needs are never completely satisfied
-Our actions are aimed at fulfilling the deprived needs, the needs
that remain unsatisfied at any point in time
- From bottom to top:
1) Physiological needs: Food, clothing, shelter, comfort, selfpreservation
2) Safety needs: Physical safety and emotional security, so that a
person is concerned with avoiding violence and threats
3) Love needs: Look for love, friendship and affection
4) Esteem needs: Self-respect, status, reputation, recognition, selfconfidence
5) Self actualization needs: self-fulfillment- the need to develop
ones fullest potential, to become the best one is capable of
being

Using Maslows theory to motivate employees:

-Should try to meet employees level 1 and 2 needs so employees wont
be constantly preoccupied with them
- Then, give employees a chance to fulfill their high level needs that
also advance the goals of the organization

Alderfers ERG theory: existence, relatedness, and growth

-

Developed by Clayton Alderfer: ERG theory assumes that 3 basic

needs influence behavior: existence, relatedness and growth
- From lowest to highest:
1) Existence needs: Desire for physiological and material well being
2) Relatedness needs: Desire to have meaningful relationships with
people who are significant to us
3) Growth needs: Desire to growth as human beings and to use our
abilities to their fullest potential
Alderfer held that if our higher level needs are frustrated, we will seek
more intensely to fulfill our lower level needs Frustration-regression
component

Using ERG theory to motivate employees:

Lobbying bosses for better pay and benefits. Consistent with the
findings that individual and cultural differences influence our need
states.
- People are motivated by different needs at different times in their
lives

Managers should customize their reward and recognition

programs to meet varying needs

McClellands Acquired Needs Theory: achievement,

affiliation and power
- Developed by David McClelland
- Acquired needs theory: 3 needs: achievement,
affiliation, and power are major motives determining
peoples behavior in the workplace
- We are not born with our needs, rather we learn them
from the culture- from our life experiences
- 3 needs:
1) Need for achievement: I need to excel at tasks
2) Need for affiliation: I need close relationships
3) Need for power: I need to control others
2 forms of the need for power:
1) Negative kind: Need for personal power, expressed in
the desire to dominate others, manipulating people for
your own gratification
2) Positive kind: Desire for institutional power, the need to
solve problems that further organizational goals

Using acquired needs theory to motivate

employees:
Need for achievement: Do work that pays for performance, challenging
but achievable goals, individual responsibility for results. Tend to
advance in fields requiring creativity and individual skills
Need for power: Enjoy being in control of people and events, and being
recognized for this responsibility.
Need for affiliation: Seek social approval and satisfying personal
relationships Prefer sales, provides for personal relationships and
social approval
Herzbergs 2 factor theory: from dissatisfying factors to
satisfying factors
Frederick Herzbergs 2 factor theory Work satisfaction and
dissatisfaction arise from 2 different factors- work satisfaction from
motivating factors, and work dissatisfaction from hygiene factors

Hygiene factors vs motivating factors

Using 2 factor theory to motivate employees

-Basic lesson: First eliminate dissatisfaction (hygiene factors), making
sure that working conditions, pay levels, and company policies are
reasonable.
-Then concentrate on spurring motivation by providing opportunities
for achievement, recognition, responsibility and personal growth
(motivating factors)

Process perspectives
-

Concerned with the thought processes by which people decide

how to act
3 theories:
1) Equity theory
2) Expectancy theory
3) Goal-setting theory

Equity theory
-

Focuses on employee perceptions as to how fairly they think they

are being treated compared with others
J. Stacey Adams
Based on the idea that employees are motivated to see fairness
in the rewards they expect for task performance
Employees are motivated to resolve feelings of injustice

The elements of equity theory: comparing your inputs and

outputs with those of others
-

Key elements: inputs, outputs (rewards), and comparisons

Inputs

Time, effort, training, experience,

intelligence, creativity, seniority,

Outputs or rewards

Comparison

status, and so on
Rewards that people receive from
an organization: pay, benefits,
praise, recognition, bonuses,
promotions, status prerequisites
People compare the ratio of their
own outcomes

Using equity theory to motivate employees

-

Employees who feel that they are being underrewarded will

respond to the perceived inequity in one or more negative ways
Eg, reduce inputs or rewards they receive, distorting the inequity,
changing the object of comparison, or leaving the situation
Contrast: Employees who think they are treated fairly are more
likely to support organizational change, more apt to cooperate in
group settings, less apt to turn to arbitration and courts

3 practical lessons:
Employee perceptions are
what count

Employee participation helps

Having an appeal process

helps

No matter how fair

managers think the
organisations policies,
procedures, and reward
system are, each
employees perception of
those factors is what counts
Thus, managers should
provide positive recognition
about employee behavior
and performance
Explain reasons behind
decisions
Allow employees to
participate in important
decisions
Promotes the belief that the
management treats them
fairly
Promotes job satisfaction,
commitment, and
citizenship behavior
Reduce absenteeism and
turnover

Expectancy theory: how much do you want and

how likely are you to get it?
-

By Victor Vroom

Expectancy theory suggests that people are motivated by 2

things: 1) How much they want something 2) How likely they
think they are going to get it
Assuming they have choices, people will make the choice that
promises them the greatest reward, if they think they can get it

The 3 elements: Expectancy, instrumentality, valence

-

What determines how willing you are to work hard at tasks

important to the success of the organization?
You will do what you can do when you want to
Your motivation involves the relationship between your effort,
your performance, and the desirability of the outcomes

Expectancy

- Will I be able to perform at the

desired level on a task?
- Expectancy is the belief that a
particular level of effort will lead
to a particular level of
performance
- Effort-to-performance
expectancy

Instrumentability

-What outcome will I receive if I

perform at this level?
- Instrumentability is the
expectation that successful
performance of the task will lead
to the outcome desired

Valence

- How much do I want the

outcome?
- Valence is value, the importance
a worker assigns to the possible
outcome or reward
- For your motivation to be high,
must be high on expectancy,
instrumentality, and valence

Using expectancy theory to motivate employees

-

Problem: it is complex
When attempting to motivate employees, managers should ask
the following questions:

1) What rewards do employees value?

- Need to know your employees, understand what rewards they
value, eg pay raises
2) What are the job objectives and the performance level
you desire?
- Need to determine what performance level or behavior you want
- you can tell your employees what to do to attain rewards
3) Are the rewards linked to performance?
- Employees must be aware that X level of performance within Y
period of time will result in Z kinds of rewards
- Must use combination of individual and team-based rewards
4) Do employees believe you will deliver the right rewards
for the right performance?
- Employees must believe that you have the power, the ability and
the will to give them the rewards you promise, for the
performance you request

Goal setting theory: objectives

should be specific and
challenging but achievable
-

Suggests that employees can be motivated by goals that are

specific and challenging but achievable
Edwin Locke and Gary Latham
Goal setting has 4 motivational mechanisms
Goal: defined as an objective that a person is trying to
accomplish through his or her efforts

To result n high motivation and performance, goals must have a

number of characteristics:

1) Goals should be
specific

EG, quantitative
Boost revenues by 25%

2) Goals should be
challenging but
achievable

Should be tailored to fit individual

abilities and training
Do not set them so low such that lots of
people can achieve them
Nor set so high that most people give up
Difficult goals higher performance
(when employees are committed)
Difficult goals Low performance (when
employees uncommitted)
Outlines the activities or tasks that need
to be accomplished in order to obtain a
goal

3) Goals should be
linked to action
plans

4) Goals need not

be set jointly to
be effective

5) Feedback
enhances goal
attainment

Does not matter whether the goals are

set by managers, employees, or by both,
to be effective
Managers should use a contingency
approach
Employees should be encouraged to
develop their own action plans, fostering
stronger goal commitment
Lets employees know if they are on or off
course
Provides them with performance
standards
Gives them the motivation they need to
adjust efforts

Goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Resultsoriented, and have Target dates

Job design: 1) the division of an organisations

work among its employees and 2) the
application of motivational theories to jobs to
increase satisfaction and performance

1) Traditional approach to job design: Fitting people to jobs

2) Modern way: Fitting jobs to people (based on the assumption that
people will gradually adapt to any work situation)

Job simplification: The process of reducing the

number of tasks a worker performs
-

Enables a worker to focus on doing more of the same task, thus

increasing employee efficiency and productivity
Especially useful in designing jobs for mentally disadvantaged
workers
However, simplified, repetitive jobs lead to job dissatisfaction,
poor mental health, and a low sense of accomplishment and
personal growth

Fitting jobs to people

-

Based on the assumption that people are underutilized at work,

and they want more variety, challenges, and responsibility
(Herzbergs theory)
One of the reasons for the popularity of work teams in the United
States
The main challenge for managers How can we make the work
most compatible with the worker so as to produce both higher
performance and high job satisfaction?
2 techniques: 1) job enlargement 2) job enrichment

Job enlargement

Putting more variety into a

job
Consists of increasing the
number of tasks in a job to
increase variety and
motivation
Proponents: Job
enlargement can improve
employee satisfaction,
motivation and quality of
production
Research: will not have a
significant and lasting
positive effect on job

Job enrichment

performance
Putting more responsibility
and other motivating factors
into a job
The practical application of
Frederick Herzbergs 2 factor
motivator hygiene theory of
job satisfaction
Consists of building into a
job such motivating factors
as responsibility,
achievement, recognition,
stimulating work, and
advancement
However, instead of the jobenlargement technique of
simply giving employees
additional tasks of similar
difficulty (horizontal
loading), employees take on
chores that would normally
be performed by their
supervisors

Job characteristics model: 5 job

attributes for better work
outcomes
-

Developed by J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham

Outgrowth of job enrichment
Consists of
1) 5 core job characteristics that affect
2) 3 psychological states of an employee that in turn affect
3) Work outcomes the employees motivation, performance,
and satisfaction

5 Job characteristics
Skill
variety

Skill variety: Describes the extent to which a job requires

a person to use a wide range of different skills and
abilities

Task
identity

Task
significanc
e
Autonomy

Describes the extent to which a job requires a worker to

perform all the tasks needed to complete the job from
beginning to the end
Describes the extent to which a job affects the lives of
other people, whether inside or outside the organization

Describes the extent to which a job allows an employee to

make choices about scheduling different tasks and
deciding how to perform them
Feedback
- Describes the extent to which workers receive clear,
direct information about how well they are performing the
job
How the model works:
- 5 core characteristics affect a workers motivation
- Affect 3 critical psychological states: meaningfulness of work,
responsibility for results, and knowledge of results
- These positive psychological states fuel high motivation, high
performance, high satisfaction and low absenteeism and
turnover
- Contingency factors: Refers to the degree to which a person
wants personal and psychological development

Job design works when employees are motivated: Need 3

attributes 1) Necessary knowledge and skill 2) Desire for
personal growth 3) Context satisfactions (Right physical working
conditions, pay, supervision)

Applying the job characteristics model

1) Diagnose the
work
environment to
see whether a
problem exists

2) Determine
whether job
redesign is
appropriate

3) Consider how
to redesign the
job

Developed by Hackman and Oldham

-Self-report instrument for managers to use
(job diagnostic survey)
- Will indicate whether an individuals so-called
motivating potential score (MPS the amount
of internal work motivation associated with a
specific job- is high or low
If a persons MPS score is low, an attempt
should be made to determine which of the core
job characteristics is causing the problem
Most likely to work in a participative
environment in which employees have the
necessary knowledge and skills
Try to increase the core job characteristics that
are lower than national norms

Reinforcement perspectives on
motivation
-

Reinforcement perspective: pioneered by Edward L Thorndike

and B.F. Skinner
Concerned with how the consequences of a certain behavior
affect that behavior in future
Skinner: Father of operant conditioning (process of controlling
behavior by manipulating its consequences)
Operant conditioning: rests on Thorndikes Law of effect
(behavior that results in a pleasant outcome is likely to be
repeated and vice versa)
Reinforcement theory (attempts to explain behavior change by
suggesting that behavior with positive consequences tend to be
repeated, whereas behavior with negative consequences tends
not to be repeated)
Use reinforcement theory to change human behavior behavior
modification

4 types of reinforcement:
positive, negative, extinction,
and punishment
-

Reinforcement: anything that causes a given behavior to be

repeated or inhibited
Positive
- Strengthens behavior
reinforceme
- The use of positive consequences to strengthen a particular
nt
behavior
- (rewarding successful performance)
Negative
- Also strengthens behavior
reinforceme
- By withdrawing something negative
nt
- (by stop nagging)
Extinction
- Weakens behavior by ignoring it or making sure it is not
reinforced
Punishment
- Weakens behavior
- By presenting something negative or withdrawing
something positive

Using reinforcement to motivate

employees
Positive
reinforcem
ent

Negative
reinforcem
ent

1) Reward only desirable behavior

2) Give rewards as soon as possible
3) Be clear about what behavior is desired
(communicate to employees)
4) Have different rewards and recognize individual
differences
1) Punish only undesirable behavior (when frequently
shown)
- Otherwise they may view you as a tyrannical boss
2) Give reprimands or disciplinary actions as soon as
possible
3) Be clear about what behavior is undesirable
4) Administer punishment in private
5) Combine punishment and positive reinforcement

Using compensations and other

rewards to motivate
Is money the best motivator?
-

The Great Place to Work Institute has determined that great

employers have 3 traits in common: employee trust in
management, pride in the company, and camaraderie with
colleagues

Motivation and compensation

-

A wage or salary gives an employee little incentive to work hard

Incentive compensation plans try to do so, although no single
plan will boost the performance of all employees

Characteristics of the best incentive

compensation plans
1) Rewards must be linked to performance and be measurable

2) The rewards must satisfy individual needs

3) The rewards must be agreed on by managers and employees
4) The rewards must be believable and achievable by employees

Popular incentive compensation plans

-

pay for performance, bonuses, profit sharing, gainsharing, stock

options, and pay for knowledge

Pay for performance

Also known as merit pay

Bases pay on ones results
Payment according to a
piece rate, in which
employees are paid
according to how much
output they produce (Farm
workers picking fruits and
vegetables)
Sales commissions (Sales
representatives are paid a
percentage of the earnings
the company made from
their sales)
Cash awards given to
employees who achieve
specific performance
objectives

Bonuses

Profit sharing

The distribution to
employees of a percentage
of the companys profits

Gain sharing

Stock options

The distribution of savings

or gains to groups of
employees who reduced
costs and increased
measurable productivity
With stock options, certain
employees are given the
right to buy stock at a future
date for a discounted price
The motivator here is that
employees holding the stock
options will supposedly work
hard to make the companys
stock rise so that they can

Pay for knowledge

obtain it at a cheaper price

AKA skill-based pay
Pay for knowledge ties
employee pay to the
number of job-relevant skills
or academic degrees they
earn

Non-monetary ways of motivating employees

The need
for worklife
balance
The need
to
expand
skills
The need
to matter

Attaining a balance between personal life and career

The young feel that getting a job will help them gain skills
that will enable them to earn a decent living in the future

Workers want to be with an organization that allows them

to feel that they matter
They want to commit to their profession or fellow team
members rather than have to profess a blind loyalty to the
corporation

Another example: Flexible workplace (Part time work, flextime,

compressed workweek, job sharing, and telecommuting)
Other examples: Treat employees well
Thoughtfuln
ess: the
value of
being nice

Work-life
benefits

Employers spend too little time showing workers they

matter
Being nice means reducing criticism, becoming
more effusive in praise, writing thank-you notes to
employees for exceptional performance
Used by employers to increase productivity and
commitment by removing certain barriers that make it
hard for people to strike a balance between their work
and personal lives
Includes helping employees with day care costs, or
even establishing on-site centres, domestic-partner
benefits, job-protected leave for new parents, and
provision of technology such as mobile phones and
laptops to enable parents to work at home

Surrounding
s

Skillbuilding and
educational
opportunitie
s
Sabbaticals

The cubicle stifles creativity and morale of many

workers
The bias of modern-day designers for open spaces and
neural colours is leading to employee compalints that
their workplaces are too noisy or too bland
Learning opportunities can take 2 forms
Managers can see that workers are matched with
coworkers from whom they can learn, allowing them,
for instance, to shadow workers in other jobs or be
in interdepartmental task forces
Macdonalds offers sabbaticals to long time
employees, giving a month to a year of paid time off
in which to travel, learn and pursue personal projects
Enable employees to recharge themselves
Also to cement their loyalty to the organization