Chapter Eleven

Motivatingand Satisfying

Employees

What Is Motivation?

• The personal reason that causes us to behave in a particular way

• Morale– An employee’s feelings about his or her

job, superiors, and firm itself

• High morale results from the satisfaction of needs and leads to dedication and loyalty

• Low morale leads to shoddy work, absenteeism, and high turnover rates

What motivates you?

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

respect, recognition accomplishment-promotion, awards

Survival need-food, water, clothing, shelter

and sleep- wages and bonuses

physical and emotional- job security, health insurance, pensions, work safety

need to belong-work groups,

retreats, company outings

Learn new skills

A sequence of human needs in the order of importance

Historical Perspectives on Motivation

• Scientific Management-1890’s– The application of scientific principles to

the management of work and workers

– Frederick W. Taylor• Observed “soldiering”(working slowly) by

workers who feared losing their jobs if there were no work

• Job should be broken into separate tasks, the best way to do the work determined, and the expected output computed

• Pay via piece-rate system (pay per unit of output), based on the belief that people work only for money

Taylor’s Piece-Rate System

• Workers who exceeded their quota were rewarded by being paid at a higher rate per piece for all the pieces they produced

Historical Perspectives on Motivation

Piece-rate only worked up to a point, then output stabilized again, so how to increase productivity?

• The Hawthorne Studies-’27-’32

– Hypothesis-Employees who are happy and satisfied are motivated to perform better

– Objective: to determine the effects of the work environment on employee productivity

– Conclusion-people work for more than money

– Started the human relations movement in management

Historical Perspectives on Motivation-

Theory Z-William Ouchi

– Type A (America)-short term jobs, individual decision making and responsibility, employees are things

– Type J (Japan)-lifetime employment, collective decision making, slow promotion, employees are people

– Mix of type A and type J, or type Z- Focus on we, not us vs them, with emphasis on

participative decision making and a view of the organization as a family

Reinforcement Theory

– Behavior that is rewarded is likely to be repeated, behavior that is punished is less likely to recur

• Types of reinforcement– Positive reinforcement: strengthens desired behavior by

providing a reward

– Negative reinforcement: strengthens desired behavior by eliminating an undesirable task or situation

– Punishment: an undesirable consequence for undesirable behavior-often does more harm than good

– Extinction: give no response to undesirable behavior in order to discourage its occurrence

Key Motivation Techniques• Job Enrichment

– Provide employees with more variety and responsibility in their job tasks-empowerment

• Job Redesign– Create better match of worker to job or job to worker-reduces stress done via work groups or by combining tasks

Gives worker sense of how his efforts fit into the whole, and offersrecognition of effort

Key Motivation Techniques: - Flextime

– A system in which employees set their own work hours within employer-determined limits

– Typically, there are two bands of time• Core time, when all employees are expected to be at

work• Flexible time, when employees may choose whether or

not to be at work

Key Motivation Techniques: - Flextime

– Benefits• Employees’ sense of independence and

autonomy is motivating• Employees with enough time to deal with non-

work issues are more productive and satisfied

– Drawbacks• Supervisors’ jobs are complicated by having

employees who come and go at different times• Employees without flextime may resent

coworkers who have it

Key Motivation Techniques

• Part-Time Work– Offers more leisure time but often does not provide

the benefits that come with a full-time position

• Job Sharing– An arrangement whereby two people share one full-

time position– Companies can save on expenses by reducing

benefits and avoiding employee turnover– Employees gain flexibility but may lose benefits– Sharing can be difficult if work is not easily divisible

or if the two people work unequally

Key Motivation Techniques: - Telecommuting

– Working at home all or part of the work week

– Advantages• Increased employee productivity• Lower real estate and travel costs• Reduced absenteeism and turnover• Increased work/life balance and improved morale• Access to additional labor pools

– Disadvantages• Feelings of isolation• Putting in longer hours• Distractions at home• Difficulty monitoring productivity

Key Motivation Techniques

• Employee Empowerment

– Making employees more involved in their jobs by increasing worker participation in decision making

– Benefits• Increased job satisfaction• Improved job performance• Higher self-esteem

– Obstacles• Management resistance• Insufficient ability to make decisions and do it uniformly

Key Motivation Techniques

• Employee Ownership– Employees own the company they work for by

virtue of being stockholders– Benefits

• Employee incentive to work toward company goals

Does not work as well in reality as in theory because

stock prices are only weakly tied to employee performance,

and employee effort is not evenly distributed.