Employee Motivation

Introduction

Every organization and business wish to be successful and to make constant progress. Employee retention is a challenge in today's highly competitive environment, regardless of organization size, technology, or market focus. To overcome these constraints, a strong and positive relationship and bonding between employees and their organizations should be established and maintained. Employees are the most important part of any organization, so they must be influenced and persuaded to complete tasks. (European Journal of Business and Management, ISSN 2222-1905 (Paper), Quratul-Ain Manzoor, Department of Management Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur)

 

Organizations devise various strategies to compete with competitors and improve organizational performance in order to achieve prosperity. Few organizations believe that a company's human resources and employees are its most valuable assets, which can propel it to success or, if not properly focused, lead to decline. Unless and until the employees of any organization are satisfied with it, are motivated to complete tasks and achieve goals, and are encouraged, no organization can progress or achieve success. (European Journal of Business and Management, ISSN 2222-1905 (Paper), Quratul-Ain Manzoor, Department of Management Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur)

 

Definition and brief outset

Motivation refers to the internal forces that influence a person's direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary behavior (Campbell & Pritchard, 1976, Pinder, 1998).

According to Butkus and Green (1999), motivation is derived from the word "motivate," which means to move, push, or influence someone to do something in order to fulfill a desire.

Motivation, according to Bartol and Martin (1998), is a power that strengthens behavior, directs behavior, and triggers the desire to continue. Motivation is also a progression of moving toward and supporting goal-directed behavior (Chowdhury.M.S, 2007).

Individuals are motivated to achieve personal and organizational goals by an internal strength (Reena et al, 2009). According to Rutherford (1990), motivation makes an organization more successful because motivated employees are constantly looking for better ways to do their jobs.

Motivation is a set of courses concerned with a child's strength that boosts performance and directs toward the achievement of some specific goals. (Kalimullah et al., 2010)

Several experts have proposed motivational theories. As per Pinder (2014), These theories emphasize the importance of understanding the factors within an individual that cause them to behave in a particular way. Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory is one of the most widely used motivational theories.

Employee motivation and performance have a positive relationship. According to Mikkelsen (2017), researchers and academics have viewed motivation as the force that causes people to behave in a certain way.

The Hawthorne Studies, which Elton Mayo conducted from 1924 to 1932, may have changed this way of thinking about employees (Dickson, 1973). This study found employees are not motivated solely by money and employee behavior is linked to their attitudes.

The Hawthorne Studies pioneered the human relations approach to management, in which managers' primary focus is on the needs and motivation of their employees (Bedeian, 1993).

To be motivated, an employee must believe that his or her needs are being met. As a result, employee satisfaction is an essential component of the motivational process. A satisfied individual would undoubtedly contribute positively to the achievement of organizational goals and objectives, whereas a dissatisfied employee may not only contribute but may even act in such a way that the achievement of such goals and objectives is completely destroyed. This emphasizes the significance of employee satisfaction to the organization (Anka, 1988)

Finally, I like to state that there are many of the contemporary authors also have defined the motivation in brief.

Motivation has been defined as the psychological process that gives behavior purpose and direction (Kreitner, 1995).

A proclivity to behave purposefully in order to meet specific, unmet needs (Buford, Bedeian, & Lindner, 1995).

It is an internal drive to satisfy an unsatisfied need (Higgins, 1994).

Motivation is operationally defined in this paper as the inner force that drives individuals to achieve personal and organizational goals (Bedeian, 1993).

 

 

References

Anka, L. M. A., (1988, March-April). Corporate Objectives and Self Development: The Specialist International. Journal of Institute of Management Specialist, 3(5).

Bedeian, A. G. (1993). Management (3rd ed.). New York: Dryden Press.

Buford, J. A., Jr., Bedeian, A. G., & Lindner, J. R. (1995). Management in Extension (3rd ed.). Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Extension.

Campbell, D.J., & Pritchard, R. (1976). Motivation Theory in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. In M.D.Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook on Industrial and Organizational Psychology (pp. 63-130). Chicago: Rand McNally.

 

Chowdhury, M. S., (2007). Enhancing Motivation and Work Performance of the Salespeople: The Impact of Supervisors’ Behavior. African Journal of Business Management, 1 (9), 238-243.

Dickson, W. J. (1973). Hawthorne experiments. In C. Heyel (ed.), The encyclopedia of management, 2nd ed. (pp. 298-302). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Green, T.B. and Butkus, R.T., 1999. Motivation, beliefs, and organizational transformation. Greenwood Publishing Group.

European Journal of Business and Management, ISSN 2222-1905 (Paper), Quratul-Ain Manzoor, Department of Management Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur)

Higgins, J. M. (1994). The management challenge (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan.

Kreitner, R. (1995). Management (6th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Mikkelsen, M.F., Jacobsen, C.B., Andersen, L.B. (2017), Managing employee motivation: Exploring the connections between managers’ enforcement actions, employee perceptions, and employee intrinsic motivation. International Public Management Journal, 20(2), 183‑205.

Pinder, C.C., (1998). Work Motivation in Organizational Behaviour, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall.

Pinder, C.C. (2014), Work Motivation in Organizational Behavior. New York: Psychology Press.