Effectiveness Of Motivational Strategy In Habib Bank

In this modernized world where globalization is fast crating an effect, the workplace realities of the ancient organizations no longer exists (Roberts, 2003). It has become past and needs to be revised very carefully before any aspect of it can be implemented nowadays. It has become increasingly important for the organizations to introduce new methods and meet the new motivational needs of the employees. The reality of workplace, the changing work environment has increased the end for the managers to reconsider the methodologies of developing durable and strong relationship between the employees and organization that ultimately leads to the achievement of the organization’s goals and objectives. A thorough and complete understanding of the employees motivational need has became important for the management in order to accomplish what employees expect from the organization in order to return what organization expect from them ( Beer et al, 1984).. Therefore it becomes clear from the researches that a motivated work-force is an instrument of success for full filling the needs of a rapidly changing work environment for both, the employees and the organization. It also becomes clear that a well- motivated workforce will eventually lead to the organization achieving its goals and objectives in a better an efficient manner. To serve this purpose ob building a strong bond between the management and workforce, the role of the top management is very crucial in this respect. According to Carnige (1985), human capital is capable of playing a pivotal role compared to financial capital, in the effectiveness of the organization. In modern times people are believed to me a source of competitive advantage and carry more importance in leading a company towards success, rather than finance.

What is actually motivation and how and why does it matter?

In business terms, motivation is the desire of a firm to see a job done well and quickly. The highly motivated workforce becomes an instrument for the business to achieve its goals and objectives as cost effectively as may be possible. Motivated worker also try to reach their own personal objectives. The employers should be well aware of what these are .This is because the greatest motivation will develop if workers feel that working towards the business objectives is ultimately helping them achieve their own goals.

A milestone in a success of an organization is fulfilling the continually changing needs of employees and the organization. A heavy responsibility rests on the shoulder of the management to develop durable and strong relationships between them. Companies expect workers to follow the rules according to the terms and conditions set for them. Employees in return expect fir pay, good working conditions, secure career, fair treatment, involvement in decisions and power. These expectations of both groups vary from company to company. For any business to deal with these expectations successfully a complete understanding of the employee motivation becomes necessary. (Beer et al, 1984 from pdf file motivation pak bank).

It is usually that it is the organization and not managers that fail to hold managers responsible for creating motivation among the people. They fail to understand the role of motivation and its connection to job performance. One of the biggest challenges for HR is to persuade line managers to develop and manage people. These line managers should be able to build string and personal relationship with the employees through effective communication. There is a need for the line mangers to understand the nature of the employee and his subordinates and should be able to deal with the problems of workers effectively. A thorough understanding of the needs of the subordinates will eventually let the managers know what the employee aims for and what are their goals and objectives. They can then decide how to develop and implement strategies that will achieve the objectives of the company while letting the employees achieve their personal goals.

Staff that is unmotivated will be reluctant to do their jobs quickly and efficiently and will only provide the minimal of what is required of them from the organization. It is important to know how well motivated staff will alter the levels of productivity and performance within a company, thus affecting the competitiveness of the business.

A well motivated staff is not only able to increase productivity and performance but is also prepared to accept responsibility, willingly and happily. There is low labor turnover which reduces the business cost of hiring and training new labor. With a highly motivate staff, a business also benefits from low absenteeism rate and employees participate on making suggestions for improvements. (Peter)

Theories of motivation and their significance in today world:

There are many theories of well known theorists that deal with the factors that affect motivation.

F. W Taylor- theory of scientific management.

F.W Taylor proposed a theory of scientific management that emphasized that money is the motivating factor that affects the employees to the most. Scientific management defines a method of establishing an idea after studying, analyzing and recording performance at work, then altering working conditions and recording performance. This is the approach that Taylor used to establish his idea. This method of scientific management is still used in the companies today. Taylor’s theory was based upon the notion of ‘economic man’ and he believed that when wages are based on output, it increases worker’s productivity. He maintained his belief that a fair day’s pay for fair day’s work is what motivated staff to do better. But critics also say that money moves the workers to work, not motivate them.

The other renowned theory of theorist is the Elton mayo Hawthorne affect. He carried out some experiments with a group of line workers. Changes in rest periods, canteen food, assembly bench lay out were made at a particular interval. Before every major change, the upcoming change was discussed with the workers. At the end of the experiment when working conditions were returned to the original, it was noticed that the output rose far above the level before the experiment. He drew some conclusions from his work that is as follows:

Alterations in financial rewards or changes in working conditions have little or no effect on a worker’s productivity

When management consult with workers before any major changes are made that affects them, motivation is improved

When some control over their own working lives is given to workers, there is improved motivation

Groups can establish their own targets and goals, and these can be greatly influenced by the informal leaders of the group.

Taylors approach is important but not widely held today. Many workers, now a day’s seek for a ‘respectable job’ rather than a one which is not valued but is being paid. Workers who have money as their basic need still moves towards a job offering a handsome wage/salary but they are unable to be motivated and still continue the job for money. This reduces job performance and productivity is affected.

Maslow- hierarchy of needs

One of another major theorist that takes a good position among the motivation theorist is Maslow. He extensively wrote on the subject ‘concepts of the hierarchy of needs’. He became a leader of the humanistic school of psychology and looked at the needs of human beings arranged like a hierarchy. The Maslow theory consists of two parts. The first one concerns the classification of the needs and the second part relates theses needs with each other. Maslow arranged the needs in a pyramid. Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs that workers have. He suggested that these have to be fulfilled step by step. He identified and classified the basic needs that a human being has. The pyramid starts from physical needs that occupy the lowest level of hierarchy. The top level becomes the self actualization with three levels of needs in between. Maslow suggested that once a worker achieves the lower level of need, he strives for the next level. Management should be aware on what level their employees are, and moving them trio next level, thus keeping him motivated for his job. The sequence of the Maslow’s pyramid is as follows:

Physiological needs: these are the strongest needs. This is because if a person is deprived, the physiological needs would come first to fulfill his satisfaction. The physiological needs consist of needs like oxygen, clothing, food and shelter. These needs are the priority before any other class of need.

Safety needs: this class of needs includes job security accompanied with a secured working environment. A sense of job security is essential for an employee to stay motivated towards his work with the addition of a hygiene environment with safe equipments if required.

Love and belonging: the need of belonging and affection is necessary to overcome the feeling of loneliness. To overcome this, team work should be encouraged within an organization along with other social activities that instill in an employee a feeling of belonging and being a part of the organization.

Esteem needs: this class of need is defined by the receipt of recognition of what the employee has achieved at work. There are chances that a worker may feel worthless and in valuable if he is not appreciated. This level of need can be achieved by the announcement of achievements publicly at events.

Self actualization: this is the top level of the hierarchy. Very few workers have the potential to reach this level. This class defines need as to be given added responsibility with new challenges and promotions in his career.

This theory has its own complications. Maslow did not suggest any criteria to measure which level of need has actually been satisfied. Each kevel is dependent upon the level below. The whole system might collapse if a level goes missing in between. It is also hard to say that a particular level is achieved of an employee and now the next level must be targeted.

Adam- equity theory

Another theory of motivation, widely recognized is the Adam’s equity theory of motivation. Adam proposed a very simple theory that suggested that employees balance their inputs against their out. The input is not only in the form of time that is put into work measured against the financial reward that is received as output but input also includes all the factors affecting working conditions and the worker at work. Similarly, output also includes the response, the recognition and the praise or the negative attitude experienced as a result of the job being done. The attitudes that lead to positive outcomes is repeated and attitude that lead to negative outcomes is avoided. It becomes difficult for the managers to know exactly what the employee perceives of the output against their input. Moreover inputs of the work and out puts of the work cannot be measured literally in order to calculate and balance both against each other.

Herzberg- two factor theory

But here our major focus would be on the Herzberg motivational theory that we desire to implement on our project.

Herzberg (1923-2000) proposed a theory recognized by the world as the ‘two factor theory’. Herzberg, despite basing his research on just 200 professional workers, Herzberg’s two factor theory and his conclusions has left the greatest impact on motivational practices. A survey was conducted through interviews and questionnaires that aim to know the following things:

Identification of these factors that lead the workers to think very positively about their work and those factors that led them to think very negatively about their job. His conclusions reveled the following:

Advancement, work itself, responsibility, achievement and the recognition for achievement were the factors relating to job satisfaction.

Administration and company policy, salary, supervision, relationship with others and working conditions were these factors that lead to job dissatisfaction. These factors were termed as hygiene factors by Herzberg.

Conclusions of Herzberg’s work.

Herzberg’s two factor theory carried the hygiene factors and the motivators.

Hygiene factors included working conditions, pay rates etc. these hygiene factors can eb improved in order to remove dissatisfaction from the jab but they will not help creating a motivated albor for ce. Herzberg argued that it was readily possible to ‘move’ someone to do a job by paying him but it will not actually motivate him for doing the job.

Similarly, he proposed that motivators, that are principles of job enrichment (encouragement, added responsibility, recognition), need to be in place to motivate the labor force to perform a task. These principles of job enrichment include

Offering complete units of work: a typical mass production method only allows workers to assemble small units of a finished product. This is not motivating as the repetitive and small, invaluable task is not interesting. It also prevents workers to receive the appreciation and the importance what they are contributing to the production process. When workers are offered the complete tasks, it gives them the motivation to do a job effectively. It bears in them feeling of achievement of producing the goods themselves. Herzberg puts this idea as ‘if u want your employees to perform a good job, offer them a good job.’

Feed back on performance: this communication enables workers to feel recognized and they are motivated to achieve more.

A range of tasks: a range of tasks, when offered to workers is challenging and makes it interesting as their first experience if given them the first time. This provides the employees the opportunity to explore their abilities and provide incentive for the business to achieve the full potential of the workers.

Analysis and evaluation of Herzberg work:

As we will be implementing Herzberg’s approach to her research, an analysis and evaluation of its work becomes necessary. Team working and delegation of complete tasks with much less close supervision is becoming increasingly popular in today’s industrial world. Organization ensure effective communication is present between management and the workforce and this two way effective communication itself becomes a motivating factor. There is little doubt that that the increasing trend towards Herzberg approach is fast becoming popular, but many researchers who have used Herzberg’s methods still argue and theory experimenting failed to arrive at such a clear cut conclusion. This wouldn’t be wrong to hold Herzberg responsible for this evolution and this change would have been slower without the theories put forward by the Herzberg.

Herzberg identified five main factors that resulted in job satisfaction. These factors can easily be identified in an organization and can be used for evaluation. The five main factors include achievement, recognition for achievement, responsibility, nature of work itself and advancement. These are the factors which can easily be identified if they exist in an organization. Similarly Herzberg gave five main factors that resulted in job dissatisfaction. These are termed as company’s administration and policy, salary, supervision working conditions and relationships. This factor can easily be searched for in an organization to determine the effects of motivation.

Service sector throughout the world is greatly dependent upon the human resource. Be it Habib bank ltd in Pakistan or RBS in Scotland, the banking sector and its success mainly depends upon the level of skilled, capable and most important motivated workforce. A motivated workforce does not only increase the performance at work but increased performance and satisfactory interaction among the clients and colleagues leads to high productivity. This in turn creates satisfied customers which forms the basis of success for any organization.

Significance of motivation for commercial banks:

Commercial banks are structures that are maintained and developed my human resources that ensure the delivery of a good service. The process that ensures the delivery of a good eservice is affected by the individual motivation of labor force whether skilled, unskilled, professional or unprofessional. The increased growth of service industry, commercial banks are struggling foe workers possessing the ability of providing quality service.

And their labor is the best source if providing best services to their customers. Excellent services being offered and provided by the employees is able to create a positive perception among the eyes of the banking consumers. ( pdf file motivation pak bank petcharak 2004)

Commercial banks play a vital role in the world wide economy. Research concludes that today it is becoming challenging for management in Pakistan to motivate their employees, especially those employed at commercial banks, to provide a quality service with increasing competitive market in the specified sector, i.e. commercial banks. The tough competition is making difficult to provide best of services to its clientele, thus satisfying their needs effectively.

Theoretical frame work.

Our research aims to find out the effectiveness of motivation strategies at HBL.

To measure the effectiveness, the first step is to find out the variables that are creating motivation within the employees at HBL. Once the variables are identified a sample of 75 respondents will be selected from various departments of various posts, qualification and experience. These sample size is selected to determine the research question and research objective.

The questionnaire will carry pout the research and will obtain the result that will identify the factors that create little or no, and high motivation among the employees. These factors when identifies will be classified under the motivators and the hygiene factors. These motivators and hygiene factors must be forming a part of the motivational strategy of the management at HBL that will effective or ineffective in creating motivation. The highly effective and the little effective will then be measured against the performance level of the workers when implemented. According to the results, those strategies will be labeled as successful or unsuccessful. For the unsuccessful strategies recommendations will be made

.

Research conducted through a questionnaire

Identification of the factors affecting the level of motivation

Identification of factors creating job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction

Classifying them into hygiene factors and motivators

Result on motivation result on motivation when

When hygiene factors motivators implemented.

implemented.

Measure the effect Measure the effect on work

On work performance performance.

Employee motivation and work performance:

Improving the work performance has always been and will continue to be the major concern of all businesses. It is the performance of work that creates satisfied managers and/or dissatisfied managers. The work performance has always been an important issue for the businesses as their success and failure depends upon the performance displays by their workforce. A manager when pays the employee, expects to return the worth of what is paid to him. In case of failure to do so, many workplace issues are created that managers then need to deal with. It is not always possible for managers to repay the accurately the input employee has put into work. This is because there exist no method to measure the input against the output wh9ich the employee receives or perceives. Failure to come up to the expectation results in demotivation. Is also seen, as described by the expectancy theory that workers expect according to what they see around. Now it becomes difficult for managers to know how they perceive their work output and it is compared to whose job.

The performance at work is not only dependent upon the skills and abilities the worker possesses but there are many factors that exist which creates and leave an impact upon the performance of the employee. A well-motivated employee results in well performed job and an unsatisfied employee who is unmotivated towards his job naturally results in a poor job performance. But the question what motivates man to perform better has many answers. There are many motivational factors as discussed above that leaves an impact upon the motivation of the employees.

When discussing and implementing the Herzberg theory, we see the hygiene factors create job satisfaction and not motivation but the motivators when placed creates motivation that results in a high performance of the job.

For instance providing hygiene conditions at work place will not create motivation for the worker to perform the job but the satisfactory working conditions will make the employee continue the job a and not create a desire to do the job. Therefore a hygiene working environment will have no effect upon the performance of the job. But, if on the other hand, a worker is praised for his achievements and efforts, he will be happy and will be eager to achieve more, thus increasing his job performance.

Increasing job performance includes increased productivity, putting in extra effort in the job and probably low absenteeism with happy workers who look at the golas and objectives of the company through which they can not only achieve their personal objective but companies goals become their goals and business objectives as their objectives.

When performance at work is increased in any of the forms mentioned above, the company benefits from it. For a manufacturing business increased quality and quantity of it products will attract consumers which will benefit the company. In the service sector, a motivated staff will result in a cooperative and positive attitude and interactions with the customers and colleagues which will create thousands of satisfied customers. Customer service being very important in the service sector is completely dependent upon the attitude and behavior of the employees which is directly proportional to their motivation level. This motivation level is depended upon many factors like ‘motivators’ described by Herzberg and others as described by many of the other renowned theorists.

Linkage between objectives and questions with the theories and concept

Research question/objectives

Theories and concepts