Foundations of

Employee
Motivation

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Standard Chartered Bank

Standard Chartered Bank

has improved employee
engagement and motivation
through goal setting,
strengths-based feedback,
employee development, and
other practices.

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Motivation Defined

▪ The forces within a person

that affect the direction,
intensity, and persistence
of voluntary behavior.
▪ Exerting particular effort
level (intensity), for a
certain amount of time
(persistence), toward a
particular goal (direction).

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Employee Engagement

▪ Individual’s emotional and

cognitive (rational)
motivation, particularly a
focused, intense, persistent,
and purposive effort toward
work-related goals.
▪ High absorption in the work.
▪ High self-efficacy – believe
you have the ability, role
clarity, and resources to get
the job done

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Drives and Needs

▪ Drives (primary needs, fundamental needs, innate

motives)
• Hardwired brain characteristics (neural states) that energize
individuals to maintain balance by correcting deficiencies
• Prime movers of behavior by activating emotions

Self-concept, social norms,

and past experience

Drives Decisions and

Needs
and Emotions Behavior

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Drives and Needs

▪ Needs
• Goal-directed forces that people experience.
• Drive-generated emotions directed toward goals
• Goals formed by self-concept, social norms, and experience

Self-concept, social norms,

and past experience

Drives Decisions and

Needs
and Emotions Behavior

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Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy
Theory
Need to
know ▪ Seven categories – five in a
Self-
actual-
hierarchy -- capture most needs
ization Need for
beauty ▪ Lowest unmet need is
Esteem strongest. When satisfied, next
higher need becomes primary
Belongingness motivator
▪ Self-actualization -- a growth
Safety
need because people desire
more rather than less of it when
Physiological satisfied

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What’s Wrong with Needs
Hierarchy Models?
▪ Maslow’s theory lacks empirical
support
• People have different hierarchies
• Needs change more rapidly than
Maslow stated
▪ Hierarchy models wrongly
assume that everyone has the
same (universal) needs hierarchy
▪ Instead, needs hierarchies are
shaped by person’s own values
and self-concept
Abraham Maslow

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What Maslow Contributed to
Motivation Theory
▪ Holistic perspective
• Integrative view of needs

▪ Humanistic perspective
• Influence of social dynamics, not
just instinct

▪ Positive perspective
• Pay attention to strengths
(growth needs), not just
deficiencies

Abraham Maslow

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Learned Needs Theory

▪ Needs are amplified or suppressed through

self-concept, social norms, and past
experience

▪ Therefore, needs can be “learned”

• strengthened through reinforcement, learning, and
social conditions

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Three Learned Needs
Need for achievement
• Need to reach goals, take responsibility
• Want reasonably challenging goals

Need for affiliation

• Desire to seek approval, conform to others wishes,
avoid conflict
• Effective executives have lower need for social approval

Need for power

• Desire to control one’s environment
• Personalized versus socialized power

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Four-Drive Theory

• Drive to take/keep objects and

Drive to Acquire experiences
• Basis of hierarchy and status

• Drive to form relationships and

Drive to Bond social commitments
• Basis of social identity

• Drive to satisfy curiosity and

Drive to Learn
resolve conflicting information

• Need to protect ourselves

Drive to Defend • Reactive (not proactive) drive
• Basis of fight or flight

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How Four Drives Affect
Motivation
1. Four drives determine which emotions are
automatically tagged to incoming information
2. Drives generate independent and often
competing emotions that demand our attention
3. Mental skill set relies on social norms, personal
values, and experience to transform drive-
based emotions into goal-directed choice and
effort

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Four Drive Theory of
Motivation

Drive to Social Personal Past

Acquire norms values experience

Drive to
Bond
Mental skill set resolves Goal-directed
competing drive demands choice and effort
Drive to
Learn

Drive to
Defend

Social norms, personal values, and

experience transform drive-based emotions
into goal-directed choice and effort

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Implications of Four Drive
Theory
Provide a balanced opportunity for employees
to fulfill all four drives
• employees continually seek fulfilment of drives
• avoid having conditions support one drive more
than others

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Expectancy Theory of
Motivation
E-to-P P-to-O Outcomes
Expectancy Expectancy & Valences

Outcome 1
+ or -

Outcome 2
Effort Performance + or -

Outcome 3
+ or -

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Increasing E-to-P and P-to-O
Expectancies
▪ Increasing E-to-P Expectancies
• Develop employee competencies
• Match employee competencies to jobs
• Provide role clarity and sufficient resources
• Provide behavioral modeling

▪ Increasing P-to-O Expectancies

• Measure performance accurately
• Increase rewards with desired outcomes
• Explain how rewards are linked to performance

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Increasing Outcome Valences

▪ Ensure that rewards are valued

▪ Individualize rewards
▪ Minimize countervalent outcomes

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A-B-Cs of Behavior
Modification
Antecedents Behavior Consequences

What happens What person What happens

before behavior says or does after behavior

Example

Warning Machine Co-workers

light operator turns thank
flashes off power operator

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Four OB Mod Consequences

▪ Positive reinforcement – any consequence that,

when introduced, increases/maintains the target
behavior.
▪ Punishment – any consequence that decreases the
target behavior.
▪ Negative reinforcement –any consequence that,
when removed, increases/maintains target behavior.
▪ Extinction – when no consequence occurs, resulting
in less of the target behavior

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Reinforcing the Healthy Walk

The British municipality of Stoke-

on-Trent, Staffordshire, issued
pedometers to its staff and
encouraged them to do more
walking each day. The
pedometers provide instant
feedback and positive
reinforcement to motivate longer
walks. Some organizations also
reinforce walking with financial
rewards.
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Behavior Modification in
Practice
▪ Behavior modification
applications:
• every day to influence behavior of
others
• company programs – attendance,
safety, etc.
▪ Behavior modification problems:
• Reward inflation
• Variable ratio schedule viewed as
gambling
• Ignores relevance of cognitive
processes in motivation and
learning

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Social Cognitive Theory
▪ Learning behavior outcomes
• Observing consequences that others experience
• Anticipate consequences in other situations

▪ Behavior modeling
• Observing and modeling behavior of others

▪ Self-regulation
• People engage in intentional, purposive action – they
develop goals, achievement standards, action plans
• People form expectancies (anticipate consequences)
from others -- not just from their own experiences
• People reinforce their own behavior (self-
reinforcement)

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Goal Setting

The process of motivating employees and

clarifying their role perceptions by establishing
performance objectives

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Effective Goal Setting
Characteristics
Specific – What, how, where, when, and with
whom the task needs to be accomplished
Measurable – how much, how well, at what cost
Achievable – challenging, yet accepted (E-to-P)
Relevant – within employee’s control
Time-framed – due date and when assessed
Exciting – employee commitment, not just
compliance
Reviewed – feedback and recognition on goal
progress and accomplishment
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Balanced Scorecard

▪ Organizational-level goal setting and

feedback
▪ Attempts to include measurable performance
goals related to financial, customer, internal,
and learning/growth (i.e., human capital)
processes
▪ Usually includes several goals within each
process

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Characteristics of Effective
Feedback
1. Specific – connected to goal details
2. Relevant – Relates to person’s behavior
3. Timely – to improve link from behavior to
outcomes
4. Credible – trustworthy source
5. Sufficiently frequent
• Employee’s knowledge/experience
• Task cycle

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Strengths-Based Coaching
Feedback
▪ Maximizing the person’s
potential by focusing on their
strengths rather than
weaknesses
▪ Motivational because:
• people inherently seek feedback
about their strengths, not their
flaws
• person’s interests, preferences,
and competencies stabilize over
time

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Multisource Feedback

▪ Received from a full circle of people around

the employee
▪ Provides more complete and accurate
information
▪ Several challenges
• expensive and time-consuming
• ambiguous and conflicting feedback
• inflated rather than accurate feedback
• stronger emotional reaction to multiple feedback

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Organizational Justice

Distributive justice
• Perceived fairness in
outcomes we receive relative
to our contributions and the
outcomes and contributions
of others
Procedural justice
• Perceived fairness of the
procedures used to decide
the distribution of resources

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Equity Theory
Your Own Comparison Other’s
Outcome/Input Ratio Outcome/Input Ratio

Own outcomes Other’s outcomes

Compare
own ratio with
Other’s ratio
Own inputs Other’s inputs

Perceptions of
equity or inequity

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Elements of Equity Theory

Outcome/input ratio
• inputs -- what employee contributes (e.g., skill)
• outcomes -- what employee receives (e.g., pay)

Comparison other
• person/people against whom we compare our ratio
• not easily identifiable

Equity evaluation
• compare outcome/input ratio with the comparison
other

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Correcting Inequity Tension
Actions to correct
underreward inequity Example
Reduce our inputs Less organizational citizenship

Increase our outcomes Ask for pay increase

Increase other’s inputs Ask coworker to work harder

Ask boss to stop giving preferred treatment

Reduce other’s outputs
to coworker
Start thinking that coworker’s perks aren’t
Change our perceptions
really so valuable
Compare self to someone closer to your
Change comparison other
situation

Leave the field Quit job

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Procedural Justice

▪ Perceived fairness of procedures used to

decide the distribution of resources
▪ Higher procedural fairness with:
• Voice
• Unbiased decision maker
• Decision based on all information
• Existing policies consistently
• Decision maker listened to all sides
• Those who complain are treated respectfully
• Those who complain are given full explanation
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Foundations of
Employee
Motivation