Importance of Employee motivation




 

Introduction

Employee motivation remains a key to success of all organisations.  This involves the level of commitment, energy and drive that organisational employees are bringing to the role each day (Camilius, 2011).  A major issue in HRM is that without employee motivation, companies tend to be experiencing lowered productivity, reduced output levels and it remains likely that organisations would be falling short of reaching their important goals as well (Latham, 2012).  Moreover, unmotivated employees tend to be largely unfocused and while wasting company resources, they could have knock-on effects on other employees as well. 

Benefits of employee motivation

It is argued that in contrast to unmotivated employees, motivated employees tend to be enthusiastic, success driven and take pride in their work; while accomplishing tasks quickly, they would be performing well, both for themselves as well as the organisation (Hiriyappa, 2018).  Employee motivation has a number of benefits:

·         Higher levels of productivity, due to better efficiency of a motivated workforce

·         More innovation, as motivated employees would identify areas for improvement

·         Lower staff turnover, as motivated employees are likely to retain

·         Lower absenteeism, due to happy working lives

Improving employee motivation

A number of key HRM theories emphasize on how employee motivation could be improved

 

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

This theory establishes five categories of human needs in a hierarchy, which are dictating an individual’s behaviour.  From the bottom of the hierarchy to the top these human needs include physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization needs (Camilius, 2011).  By identifying what humans need and what is driving and motivating them, employers could establish positive environments conductive to work.

     

 



Figure 1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Source: Latham (2012)

 

Herzberg’s two-factor theory

This model provides two sets of factors which are affecting motivation in the workplace; these include motivating factors and hygiene factors (Hiriyappa, 2018).  While hygiene factors would be causing employees to work less (be dissatisfied) if they are not present, motivating factors would be encouraging employees to work harder (be satisfied) if they are present.  Motivators include recognition, responsibility, work itself, achievement, etc., and hygiene factors include salary, job security, work relationships, working conditions, etc.  Therefore to keep employees motivated, employers need to eliminate hygiene stressors (remove factors causing dissatisfaction) and boost job satisfaction (improve factors causing satisfaction) (Sale, 2013).

 

Therefore employee motivation is a crucial aspect supporting in achieving better productivity, enhanced output levels as well as enabling organisations to reach their important goals.








References

Camilius, E. (2011). The Epistemology of Motivation. Oxon: Routledge.

 

Hiriyappa, B. (2018). Management of Motivation. New Delhi: McGraw Hill.

 

Latham, G. (2012). Work Motivation: History, Theory, Research and Practice. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.

 

Sale, J. (2013). Mapping Motivation: Unlocking the Key to Employee Energy and Engagement. New York: Gower Publishing.

 

 

Comments

  1. Ruwan Herath19 April 2021 at 02:57

    Author has well explained the importance of employee motivation & the two theories which can be used to motivate employees.
    I feel that if author could explained little more on one or two theories in detailed would be much better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. R SAJEEV1 May 2021 at 01:19

    While organization have for some time viewed their financial and physical resources from a long term perspective, organization seriously apply this same perspective to their human resources. Many organizations are now beginning to pay to increase attention to developing their employees as future recourses upon which they can draw, as they grow in an effort to ensure a continual reservoir of well trained and highly motivated people.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Importance of job design  for the organization   Introduction The Design  of labor   suggests that  outlining the task, duties, responsibilities, qualifications,  ways  and relationships  needed  to perform the given set of  employment . In  different  words, work  style  encompasses the  parts  of the task  and therefore the  interaction pattern among  the workers , with the intent to satisfy  each  the  structure   wants   and therefore the  social  wants  of the  employee. Job design is in fact a combination of job content and the work method which has been adopted in the performance of the job (Durai, 2010). Advantages of job design The implementation of job  style  in organizations is  to boost   the subsequent  things. 1.The quality of services provision 2.To satisfy  each   worker 3.Decrease the c...
Read more
Image
  Overcoming Employee Politics   Introduction Workplace politics is identified as a manifestation of power dynamics among co-workers, with people leveraging such power dynamics to further interests of a group they have affiliations with, as well as furthering their own interests (Hertel-Fernandez, 2018).   Such behavior is often considered inevitable, considering the inherently political nature of human beings which drives them in taking whatever steps towards protecting their own interests. A problem in the context of HR is when these personal motivations and interests tend not to be aligned with those of the organisation, ultimately resulting in management and employees not agreeing on the company vision. Identifying employee politics in the workplace With employee politics involving employees engaging in behind-the-scenes endeavors of achieving personal goals within their organization, negative employee politics is identified to have the potential...
Read more
Image
  Importance of Employee Retention   Introduction It is important for a successful business to be consistent in all aspects, including its employees. Having a high rate of employee retention involves keeping employees in the organisation in the long-term which ultimately results in less resources and time needed to train new employees, while also possessing the loyalty required for successfully running the business (Cooper, 2016).  High staff turnover (implying low employee retention) is a significant HRM issue because a significant amount of company resources, time and money are spent for training new employees to replace those who leave.   Problems of high staff turnover  Employee retention is important because high staff turnover brings about a range of issues to business operations.  For instance, there will be slowing down of productivity due to current employees helping out the new staff member added to the team (Birdie, 2021). In addition, there...
Read more