Week 6: Motivating employees

 Concept/ Mode/ Theory Definition:

_ Motivation can be described as an individual’s willingness to exert
high levels of effort to reach personal goals.
_ Motivation is defined as the willingness to exert high levels of effort
to reach organisational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to
satisfy some individual need.
_ Motivation sees people increase their effort
_ Increased effort will, in many cases, lead to improved results that
may benefit the individual and a group, or organization, to which they
belong
_ Where goal related, effort will more likely see goals achieved
(performance)
In business, goal achievement (of efficiency and effectiveness) is
crucial for success, & the job of managers / leaders
l Need – the basis of content theory
m An internal state that makes certain outcomes appeared
attractive.
m An unsatisfied need creates tension which is reduced by an
individual’s efforts to satisfy the need.
l Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory
m Needs were categorised as five levels of lower- to higher-
order needs.
l Individuals must satisfy lower-order needs before
they can satisfy higher order needs.
l Satisfied needs will no longer motivate.
l Motivating a person depends on knowing at what
level that person is on the hierarchy.
m Hierarchy of needs
l Lower-order (external): physiological, safety, social
 l Higher-order (internal): esteem, self-actualization

l McGregor’s theory
m Theory Y
n A manager assumes that workers can exercise self-
direction, desire responsibility, and like to work.

m Motivation is maximized by participative decision making,

interesting jobs, and good group relations.
_Goal-setting theory (Locke)
• The cornerstone of MBO, goal setting theory maintains that
specific goals increase performance and difficult goals, when
accepted; result in higher performance than easy goals.
Research has found that:
o Intention to work towards a goal is a major source of job
motivation. Studies have demonstrated the superiority of
specific and challenging goals as motivating forces.
o A major advantage however when people set their own
goals is that individuals accept the goals; they have
‘ownership’ of the goals and are more likely to strive to
achieve them.
o Finally people will do better when they get feedback on
how well they are progressing towards their goals;
feedback acts to guide behaviour
Simplified expectancy model

_The most comprehensive theory of motivation is Victor Vroom’s

expectancy theory. Expectancy theory states that an individual tends
to act in a certain way based upon the expectation that the act will be
followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome
to the individual.
_Key variables or relationships of expectancy theory
1. Effort-performance linkage: This is the probability perceived by the
individual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to
performance.
2. Performance-reward linkage: This is the degree to which the
individual believes that performing at a particular level will lead to the
attainment of a desired outcome.
3. Attractiveness of reward: This is the importance that the individual
places on the potential outcome or reward that can be achieved on the
job. This is a personal perspective and will vary amongst individuals
depending on their attitudes, personalities and needs.
 Rich Description of Practice in Group:
On 29/07/2007, our group had a meeting at library to discuss about our
poster. Actually, we nearly finished, although there had a mid term
exam on this week. We had organized all the researches and put them
into our poster. James held this meeting to get feedback from us about
the poster which we were going to submit, whether we had to correct
it. Nick gave his final work after selecting and summarizing again from
our research. Then, Louisa showed everyone about her final poster
draft so that we could adjust somewhere in it if needed. Actually, it
needed to cut down some parts to put more researches in it, instead of
many pictures. We tried to keep it simple but attractive, short but
relevant. And I checked again all the references from our researches
carefully, and did the bibliography also. It seemed to be nearly finished
by this week. Our final work was just cut and pasted all the color
papers needed so that it looked the same as what we had designed in
the poster draft. It was not that easy and simple because it was so
hard to make it. But Louisa was keen on that and she told she really
would like to do that. After Louisa had finished that, Nick would paste
all the researches to our final poster. James looked through the whole
process and found out where it needed to be correct. Obviously, like
the goal for assessment 1, we all accept to set the goal for this
assessment should get the highest mark as we could. So we had to do
our work carefully, James did his role very well, he gave helps that
increased our performance and attitudes effectively and set a specific
goal for group
 Analysis and Critical Reflection of relationship between
Theory and Practice in Group:
As mention in some previous topic, our group is designed to achieve
the highest outcome for our assignment. So motivation takes as one
of the most important role, in which each member in group was
willing to use our effort to reach a specific goal. And this goal was
conditioned by each member’s ability to achieve our personal
needs. In addition, motivation increased our effort to do the project
much, it got each member involve in the process. Obviously, it could
improve the results that our group will get for the assignment. Every
member in group had their own needs for this assignment, and it
could make our work more interesting when we tried to do it
together. It also increased our effort to do the work well. If there has
been an unsatisfied need, it would have leaded to the reduction of
effort. Following to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, there are
five levels of lower- to- higher needs. Our group was in social level
because …. [see textbook to explain]. Besides that, as McGregor’s
theory X, our group leader can orient each one to their work
specifically, desire responsibilities and willing to get the job done
together. For example, our group had a clear schedule list to do for
the whole process, in which James divided our responsibilities with a
clear date to finish the work. He also asked us before doing this
schedule, in order to get the feedback and made sure that everyone
satisfied with this. According to goal setting theory, our group has
determined specific goals which were getting the highest
performance and results for each separate part of our poster
assessment. They were not easy goals to be achieved but when we
took intention towards them. This was the main component that
motivate us much to make our work done well. Once when all group
members accepted with the goals, we just committed to our work
and strive to achieve them all. Finally, when we got the results for
each part, it motivated us a lot. The higher mark we got, the higher
behavour we would be for our work. With the simplified expectancy
model, it was define as the consequent key variables linked as the
whole process in order to achieve a final individual group. Our group
was following the same relationships as this process. The more
efforts we had, the high performance we were. Then, at a particular
level of performance, we could get the high result for assessment.
To see how each member of our group member placed on the result
to be achieved, it still depended on our own attitudes, personalities
and needs. Because we had determined SWOT analysis in week 4,
so each member in our group had their own strengths and
weaknesses to do this assessment. However, we all wanted to get
the highest result by motivating each member to increase our
productivities.