Motivation And Employee Performance Commerce Essay

Motivation vs employee performance is a typical topic of human resource management. Performance can be increased by motivating employees. Motivated employees can perform better than unmotivated employees within an organisation. Every individual need some kind of motives to perform their jobs in significant manner. In this era there are many tips are available to motivate their employees but we have some different theories in which we can utilize in the corporate level to improve the productivity of the organization. These theories are divided into two parts:

Content Theories

Process Theories

From the above the most common theories now a days are:

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model

Herzberg’s two-factor theory

Herzberg’s two factor theory is modified form of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The purpose of these theories is same how to get better performance from an individual.

ASDA walmart, Dell Computers, IBM, Starbucks and McDonald are using these theories in different ways to achieve their specific goals in their industries. These companies are well known in their own field. They are keep motivating their employees to achieve the best result.

With a positive motivation philosophy and practice in place, productivity, quality and service should improve because motivation helps people towards: achieving goals; gaining a positive perspective; creating the power to change; building self-esteem and capability; and managing their development and helping others.

Introduction:

Definition of Employee performance:

Employee performance is how well an employee performed his assigned job or task.

Definition of Motivation:

It’s a psychological feature that arouses an organism to action towards a desired goal, the reason for that act so the thing which is approach the human being he do that.

The performance of employees contributes toward the success of any organization. Employee performance can be increased by motivating them. Motivation is basically an energetic dose which is necessary for the employees in any organisation to increase the productivity of the organisation.

The study of motivation is concerned. Why people behave in a different

Way and how they attempt to achieve some goal in order to fulfil the requirement and needs or expectations. They have individual variety of changing, and competing, needs and expectations. One useful three-fold they much worked at your work place economic, intrinsic and social.

Following are the some real life examples of the companies how they motivate their employees.

The most important factor of motivation is to align the goal, purpose and values between staff, team and management. The problem occurs when there is a gap between staff and management.

Corporate Examples of Motivation & Performance:

ASDA Wal-Mart Super Stores:

ASDA has 321 stores with 148,000 employees in the UK. ASDA employees are motivated to being able to help the customers. They offer a competitive package for motivation of their staff.

According to Hierarchy of Need theory (Maslow, 1943) an individual can better perform if he is provided basic needs first. He provides hierarchical needs of a worker which need to be fulfilled to get better results from an individual.

figure: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The basis of this theory is that workers are being motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that lower needs are provided before the higher needs to an individual. He gave an order of need in which he believes that this order should be followed to motivate an individual.

ASDA provide basic needs to their colleagues so they can perform their job without any stress and feel happiness by helping the community.

Their slogan is:

Always Happy to Help

They fulfil the physiological needs of workers by providing on time salaries i.e. after every four week and there is a system of break i.e. after every 4 hour it is necessary to have a 15 minutes break to work for another 3 to 4 hours. According to above theory the second higher need for a worker is secured work place and in ASDA stores company provide a confidence of safety by placing technical devices like cameras, fire alarms and security officers to handle any kind of threats and demoralise the staff.

To obtain the desired results of help, they emphasise on the basic needs of their staff they provide some benefits.

ASDA believe in unique and valued contribution of their employees. Following are some benefits from ASDA to their staff to motivate them.

ASDA offer 10% discount to their employees on shopping in any ASDA store. Annually bonus provided to the staff.

Free of charge uniform any time colleague need.

Wall-mart has been empowering its workforce through training to ensure that those who show progress in their performance are well awarded through promotion. Therefore following the McGregor theory of motivation, they are effectively using recognition in achievement as an important ways to motivate their workers.

McDonalds:

McDonald’s business is simple People-Profit-Chain model. McDonald adheres to the principle that “The result is done by a man”.

The company has based its success on the motivation theories having altered only some aspects of them. They follow simple theoretical rules to increase the performance of their employees.

Sensible increment on employees’ salaries.

One aim per person is better than to have multi purposes.

The aim must change.

Every department should have different elaborated systems of motivation.

The company applies three components of the motivation system:

Financial encouragement

Non financial encouragement

Social policy

These three factors described by Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory. Maslow says that all these needs must be fulfilled one after another but McDonalds strategy shows that simultaneously fulfilment of these needs can increase the employees performance.

The reality is that an employee has a set of needs in every hardened moment.

According to above ‘McDonalds’ has effective motivation system that makes it possible to increase employees’ performance, and enhance the company’s productivity. The administrators have used the specific techniques on the basis of motivation theories. Having applied the procedure of assembly line in food preparation, ‘McDonalds’ has ensured the standard quality of the production and the high performance. Besides, the company has implemented effective motivation strategy that is based on the existing motivation theories. Consequently, on the basis of the research we can say that every company has its own system of behaviour explanation and every concrete case should be examined as the ‘McDonalds’ company case. Motivation theories, such as Maslow’s theory and Self Determination Theory should serve as the basis for elaborating a strategy which will direct manager’s forces towards the aim – employee satisfaction via intrinsic motivation and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs model.

Starbucks:

Starbucks corporation is the most famous chain of retail coffee shops in the World. (Michelli, 2006) As a result, Starbucks would be one of the optimal business models for the strategies of employee motivation, customer satisfaction and cooperation of teamwork.

The Chief Executive of Starbucks corporation, Howard Schultz believes that the spirit of Starbucks is employees and feels honored about the value of Starbucks employees. The company offers an interactive structure that makes personnel instil themselves into their job; hence they can motivate partners to satisfy themselves then achieving a new level of performance.

Following are some preset rules for the employees of company.

Treat employees as partners

Each employee will get vacation and personal time.

Employees get discounts on Starbucks product.

Training for all employees including managers

The managers in Starbucks treat every single worker equally and all of the staffs are called ‘partners’, even the supervisors of each branch are called it as well. In order to narrow the gap between managers and employees, they also co-work with the basic level staffs in the front line.

The partners of the company have the right to figure out what is the best policy for them, and the directors show a respect for each suggestion. Starbucks has a well-organized communication channel for employees. It places a great importance on labours. For example, managers plan the working hours per workers and arrange the schedule of time off, according to their wants to meet their requirements. There are interviews weekly to see what employees’ need is.

All employees, including informal personnel, are offered a great deal of welfare policies, for instance, commodities discounts for employees, medical insurance (including health, vision and dentil) and vacations.

According the Maslow hierarchy of need, money is one of the most important factors in the motivation of the most important motivator. However according to the Hertzberg’s two factor model of motivation, it tend to have short term effect on the motivation of the workforce, it has been identified as one of the most important factor in the overall motivation of the workforce. At the higher levels of his hierarchy where praise, respect, recognition and empowerment, these companies has been using this model by ensuring that they recognize the performance of their workers.

figure: Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory

IBM:

IBM has in particular upheld the spirit of team work which is important in motivation according to McGregor XY Theory.

figure: McGregor Theory X and Y

IBM has been emphasizing the development of effective communication between its workforces by ensuring healthy team competition.

IBM sets goals for each employee working in the company which ensures that the employee is achieving the certain target.

Company believe in high level of team spirit. Employees work in a team to complete the specific tasks or projects.

Dell:

Dell Computers is a world most famous company. Dell has sets some rules to motivate their employees so they can perform well. The CEO of the company believes that an employee can perform well if he or she work like an owner or partner of the company.

“To motivate an employee to think like an owner, you have to give them metric she can embrace,” says Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computer Corporation.

At Dell Computers, Every worker’s incentives & compensation are tied to the health of the business. Managers usually explained specifically how the employees can contribute the business and doing things right the first time. There is a core incentive program for all employees in the company. Among other incentives, Dell Inc. gives every employee a week off at Christmas and 10 paid days a year for a personal use.

This corporate philosophy is called “The Soul of Dell,”

Dell pays incentives to their employees and also emphasise on the emotional side to keep them motivated. Dell also keeps appraised their employees. The management keep informed their employees about any change in company or any international aid made by the company. This is exactly the same theory which is provided by Herzberg.

Dell managers are ensured to balance the satisfiers and dis-satisfiers. Procedures and policies of the company may cause dissatistaction. To reduce this dissatisfaction Dell believes the best method is to raise the awareness of the employees and encourage them to get involved in the creation of policies of the company. By doing this employees can recognise the change and feel confident and the result and result will be the better performance.

Herzbergs second factor i.e. Motivators. This is the factor that stimulate the employees to perform well jobs. Dell has a significant promotion procedure and reward policy to create a challenging environment for the employees. And the result is healthy and productive environment in the company.

Conclusion:

Motivation is necessary to increase the performance of the organization and productivity. Different companies are following the different theories, in every organisation motivate to the employee is important role for the managers according to Frederick two factor motivation theory. Herzberg describe that there are two elements on the work place satisfied and dissatisfied in the employee.

However, we have seen from the discussions above that there still appears to be general

support for the theories of Maslow and Herzberg and McGregor. A Chartered Management Institute checklist maintains that these theories are still valid today. ‘A basic understanding of their main

Principles will be invaluable for building a climate of honesty, openness and trust. From a 12-year study of the use of management concepts in technical organisations, Flores and Utley found the work of Mallow and McGregor the most popular motivational theories and also refer to the relationship between Mallow and Herzberg and the successful implementation of quality systems.

Whatever the popularity of different theories of motivation, doubts are raised about their universality on the ground that they have not adequately addressed the factor of culture.

Recommendations:

Motivating employees to get best performance from the employees is not a typical science and there is no single rule to implement for each and every employee. Different peoples working in a same organisation can have different problems and different attitudes to perform their certain jobs. First we need to know the employee how he can perform well and what his or her desires are. Maslows’ theory of Hierarchal need and Herzberg two factors theory can help to analyse and fulfil the requirements of an individual. Here are some general recommendations we can try to motivate staff.

Encourage employees all the time before, during and after the work.

Recognise and reward a job well done.

Offer financial incentives.

Promote fun and happiness at the workplace.