Published
by Just-Web Research Institute [7th August, 2018]
MOTIVATION AND ITS EFFECT ON WORKERS
PRODUCTIVITY IN AN ORGANIZATION
Deedenwii, Bariture Neele
ND, and D.Cl
+2347012543482 and +2349050517580
ABSTRACT
This
work examines motivation and its effect on workers’ productivity in an
organization. Motivation is the willful desire to direct one’s behaviour
towards goals, it is an important determination of human behaviour, it sit that
which moves one towards a goal, thus, motivation begat performance. However
motivation is the process that
influences people to act and determine the organizational efficiency. More so,
this work seeks to examine the effects of motivation on workers’ productivity,
the factors that affect motivation on the performance of workers in an
organization and the challenges of motivation in an organization. All
motivated workers are pampered in their effort to perform creditably well in
their functions. It is concluded that there is a very strong positive
relationship between motivation and employee productivity.
INTRODUCTION
All
organizations are concerned with what should be done to achieve sustained high
levels of performance through people. Consequently the subject of adequate
incentives for workers, as derived from the so many attempts made by management
practitioners, is to look for the best way to manage so as to accomplish an
objective or mission with the least inputs of materials and human resources
available.
The
term motivation is derived from the Latin word ‘movere’ which means to move
(Baron, Henley, McGibbon & McCarthy, 2012). Certo (2016) describes
motivation as giving people incentives that cause them to act in desired ways.
Motivation has also been described as the process of arousing and sustaining
goal-directed behavior (Nelson, 2013).
Motivation,
as a process, started with a need in human being which creates a vacuum in a
person. In an attempt to fill the vacuum an internal driving force is generated
which starts and sustains a chain of action and reaction. It is at that point
that the vacuum is also filled. With this background information, Nnabuife
(2009), define motivation as the internal or external driving force that
produces the willingness to perform an act to a conclusive end. This first
aspect of motivation we choose to describe as internal motivation because the
driving force comes from within an individual. The second aspect is external
motivation, is applied by the organization. This is because employees are
motivated to identify with organization in order to satisfy their varied and
variegates needs and desires. Until they have been identified and properly
satisfied, they will never cease to impede smooth running of the organizations.
The
motivation of employees depends on the strength of their motives. Motives are
need, wants, desire, or impulses within the individual and these determine
human behaviour. Therefore, motivation is the process of arousing behaviour,
sustaining behaviour progress, and channeling behaviour into a specific course
of action. Thus, motives (needs, desire) induce employees to act. Motivation therefore
is the inner state that energies people, channels and sustains human behaviour.
Since it has been established that all behavior except involving responses are
goals directed, manager can apply motivational theories of management in their
attempt to direct the job behaviour of employees towards the goal of their
establishment.
CONCEPT OF MOTIVATION
Motivation is the willful desire to direct one’s
behaviour towards goals. The three key elements in this definition are willful
desire, (person’s choice) behaviour and goal - directed purpose of behavior.
Also motivation is persons desire to do the best possible job or to exert the
maximum effort to perform assigned tasks.
Robbins
(2001) defines motivation as the forces that energizes, direct and sustains a
person’s effort. Joena Agbato (2008) says motivation is an important
determination of human behaviour, it sit that which moves one towards a goal,
thus, motivation begat performance. Luthans (2008) motivation is a process
which starts with a physiological or psychological deficiency or need that
activates behavior at a drive that is aimed of a goal or incentive.
Motivation
is an art targeted to getting people work willingly, and an art of inducing one
to behave in a particular manner to achieve a task Mee-Edoiye and Andawei
(2002) viewed motivation as a human engineering approached being triggered by
the individual needs. Flippo (2002) defined motivation as a psychological
process initiate by the emergence of needs involving a good directed action and
behaviour aimed at satisfying a particular desire. It is inducement given to
workers for higher output.
TYPES
OF MOTIVATION
Extrinsic
Motivation
This is what is done for people to motivate
them. It arises when management provides such as awards, increased pay, praise
or promotion. Extrinsic motivators can have an immediate effect on performance,
but this will not necessarily last. The intrinsic motivators which are
concerned with quality of working life, are likely to have deeper and
longer-term effect because they are inherent in people and not imposed from
outside, although they may be nurtured b the organization.
Extrinsic
motivators can have an immediate and powerful effect but will not necessary
last long (Mullins, 2005; Armstrong, 2006)
the following are incentives for employees: Salary, Wages and Conditions of Service: To
use salaries as a motivator effectively, personnel managers must consider four
major components of a salary structures.
Intrinsic motivation
It is derived from the content of the job. It
is a motivation created by the worker itself in that what people do satisfy
their need for achievement, recognition, responsibility and personal growth.
However, this is related to
psychological rewards such as the opportunity to use one’s ability. A sense of
challenge and achievement, receiving appreciation, positive recognition, and
being treated in a caring and considerate manner. Psychological rewards are
those that can usually be determined by the actions and behaviour of the individual
managers (Mullins, 2005). Intrinsic motivators are concerned with the quality
of work life, are likely to have a deeper and longer-term effect because they
are inherent in individuals and not imposed from outside (Armstrong, 2006).
CHARACTERISTICS
OF MOTIVATION
According to Shanks (2007), the following are the characteristics of
motivation, in an organizational, they are;
1.
Motivation is always internal to the person: It is essentially a psychological
phenomenon. In this regard, Berelson and sterner (2003) said that a motive is
an inner state that energizes, activates or moves towards goals.
2.
Motivation of a person is in totality and not
in part: Human behavior is
caused by the various needs. A worker works in a satisfactory because one needs
money. Similarly, a thirsty man feels the water to conquer his thirst. The
feeling of needs is continues process and the satisfaction of one-need leads to
the creation of a new need. All needs are interrelated and motivation should be
in totality.
3.
Performance is the result of ability and
motivation: if an
employee s highly qualified but is very poor, it can be due to the absence of
motivation.
4.
According
to Keith and Davies (2003), motivation is essential to the operation of
organizations. No matter how much machinery and equipment an organization has,
these things cannot be put to use until they are released and guided by people
who have been so motivated (ibid). This is the most important characteristics
of motivation that this study tried to see the effect of motivation on
employees’ performance.
5.
Motivation can be positive or negative: Positive motivation means use of incentives
may be financial and non financial pay revision; confirmation of job and the
like are positive motivators. Negative motivation refers to emphasizing
penalties; demotion and termination from service are some of the example of
negative motivation.
6.
Frustrated person cannot be motivated: if a person does not have his basic needs
satisfied, he might be frustrated, mentally ill to some extent. Such a
frustrated person cannot be motivated unless his basic needs are satisfied.
IMPORTANCE
OF MOTIVATION IN AN ORGANIZATION
Motivation according to (Rao, 2000) is the process that influences
people to act and determine the organizational efficiency. He stated that all facilities may go wasted
if employees are not properly motivated. The same author describes as the
importance of motivation can be judged from the following factors:
1.
Need
satisfaction:
Motivation helps in satisfying individual as well as group need employees. It results in the voluntary co-operation and
co-ordination of employees. In addition
the goal of the organization can be easily achieved.
2.
Job
satisfaction: when
employees are properly motivated, they use their skill and knowledge up to
their maximum ability to show better results to the management
3.
Productivity:
Motivation results in increased productivity
since its basic objective is to achieve the goals to the enterprise and the
being motivated workers give their best performance that helps in increasing
the productivity of the organization
4.
Acceptance
of organizational changes: Technological
changes taking place in the world have brought about revolutionary changes on
productivity. Generally, employees
resist these changes but with proper motivation, they accept these changes,
thereby keeping the organization in line with the other competing concerns.
5.
Increasing
all round efficiency: The friction
between the workers themselves and between the management and worker is
decreased, resulting in an all-round efficiency. It helps in decreasing the wastages,
accidents, complaints and grievances.
6.
Reduction
in labor turnover and absenteeism: One of the most important contributions of motivation is that employees
prefer to stay in the organization there by bringing the labor turnover to the
minimum. Similarly, motivated employees
tend to be regular and the problem of absenteeism is minimized.
EFFECTS OF MOTIVATION ON PRODUCTIVITY OF AN ORGANIZATION
Productivity
in general has been defined in the Cambridge International and Oxford Advance
Learner’s dictionaries as the rate at which goods are produced with reference
to number of people and amount of materials necessary to produced it. On the
other hand, productivity has been defined as the utilization of resources in
producing a product or services.
It
has further been defined as the ratio of the output (good and services) and
input (Labour, capital or management). The definition of productivity is
utilized by economists at the industrial level to determine the economy’s
health, trends and growth rate whiles at the project level, it applies to areas
of planning, cost estimating, accounting and cost control (Mojahed, 2005).
Several
factors affect labour productivity and prominent among them are the basic
education for any effective labour force. In addition to the above is the diet
of the labour force and social overhead such as transportation and sanitation
(Heizer and Render, 2009). Furthermore, motivation, team building, training and
job security have a significant bearing on the labour productivity. Coupled
with the afore-stated factors, labour productivity cannot be achieved without
maintaining and enhancing the skills of labour and human resource strategies.
Better utilized labour with stronger commitment and working on safe jobs also
contribute to affect labour productivity (Wiredu, 2009).
FACTORS THAT AFFECT
MOTIVATION IN THE WORK PLACE
According to the scholar (Leigh Goessel,
2001), there are 5 factors that affect the employees motivation in the work
place, these are:
1.
Cultural
factors: If an organization
cultural atmosphere is pledged with negativity this can be disastrous as once
cultural mind set is in place it is difficult to change leaders who invest time
and effort into developing positive working environment often find their
employees are happier and this attributed becomes a part of the company’s
culture
2.
Environmental
condition: Environmental
conditions tend to impact motivation in the work place. This includes temperature, lightening, an
ergonomics and tools. The availability of moderate temperature, lighting, and
good arrangement of office materials and different tools increases the
motivation of employees which in turn leads to good performance of work by
employees.
3.
Reward:
Many organizational studies over the years
have suggested reward play a distinct rule in level of employees’
motivation. Employees who lack
motivation are more likely to be careless and sloppy with their work, but on
the other hand employees who are valued and provided some sort of initiative
are more apt to take pride in their work and strive.
4.
Security
and Job Advancement: Job
security can result in higher motivation. Employees who spend each day working
whether or not they are going to get the exe may become too destructed to be
motivated or could overtake connection abilities. Employees who are able to reasonably reassure
their staff their job will be there next week, next month or event year, or
likely to see stronger motivation.
People may also be more willing to work hard if they know there is room
for advancement.
5.
Respect:
A lack of respect is going to likely result
in poor motivation as no one like to be treated poorly or with disrespect. Staff members who get respect from their
bosses will be more apt to respond and go out of their way to help the
organization meet its mission and goals.
CHALLENGES
OF MOTIVATION IN AN ORGANIZATION
According to Wiredu, (2009) The following are
the challenges of motivation in an organisation, they are;
1.
Corporate Culture: Corporate,
organization and department culture all flows from the top down. The written
and unwritten rules, policies and philosophy of a manager or the organization
all eventually find their way into the attitudes and performance of almost
everyone in the organization. One of the critical things to remember when
dealing with people is: you get the behavior you reward. If the culture
directly or indirectly rewards a certain type of attitude or behavior, you are,
by your actions or inactions, probably reaffirming that these are acceptable.
If you want to change behavior, you must first evaluate the culture that is in
place that may be rewarding the type of behavior you are getting but don't
necessarily want.
2.
Communication style:
Rumors, hearsay, memos, emails, meetings, individual counseling sessions and
bulletin boards all have one thing in common - they communicate information -
some more effectively and timely than others. If communication in an
organization is all top-down, you can be assured that you are not in touch with
the realities of your organization, the marketplace, your customers or
suppliers.
3.
Organization Direction: One
of the biggest challenges managers face today is effectively communicating
corporate direction with clarity and consistency to all employees who have a
right and need to know. Most organizations do a poor job of this at best. One
way to find out what your people believe is to conduct an anonymous survey of
attitudes, perceptions and opinions.
4.
Decision Making: Many
managers make decisions that other employee’s will either have to implement or
that will affect them. If these decisions are made without bottom-up feedback,
you can guarantee that the outcome of the decisions will be less than desired
or expected.
5.
Feedback mechanisms: Employees
want to know how they are doing - whether poorly or well. Failure to give them
the feedback they need is to keep them in the dark regarding the assessment of
their performance and how and where they need to improve.
CONCLUSION
All motivated workers are pampered in their effort to
perform creditably well in their functions. The needs and wants of the
employees should be looked into. From the findings, it can be concluded that
motivation can be categorized in two types basing on whether the motivational
states are internally or externally derived. These included intrinsic
motivation and extrinsic motivation. It can also be concluded that there are
two types of motivation tools an organization can use; the financial and the
non-financial tools. It can also be said that though the non-financial tools
such as reducing the workload, job security, acknowledgment are all good
motivators, financial tools such as salary and performance related pay are
better motivators.
About the factors that affect employee performance, it
can be concluded that motivation is the most important factor that organization
should look upon. However, it can also be concluded that there are other
factors that affect the level of employee performance. These include; goal
clarity, working conditions, knowledge of the structure, use of modern
technology, ability, training and experience.
The research also concludes that there is a very strong
positive relationship between motivation and employee productivity. However, it
can also be concluded that the root cause of poor performance of an
organization is not motivation in its self rather it is the tools of motivation
used by the council which are not what the employees want as motivators.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following recommendations
are made amongst others based on the findings, they are;
1. Employees
should be given the opportunity to contribute their ideas to the affairs of the
organization as this will boost their morale and consequently lead to higher
productivity.
2. Management
should make positive effort towards improving and maintaining effective
communication system between the three levels of management (top, middle and
low) and subordinates, so that workers will be acquitted of what is expected of
them by the management.
3. Employees
should be promoted when due in order to ensure better job performance.
4. Management
should make efforts to improve salaries, working conditions, job security, job
dissatisfaction and poor supervision to certain standard that will make employees
feel happy about their job.
REFERENCES
Armstrong M. (2006) A Hand Book of Human Resource Management Practice 7th Edition.Kogan
Page Limited London N1 9JN, UK.
Baron, H., Henley, S., McGibbon, A. &
McCarthy, T. (2012). Motivation
Questionnaire Manual and User's Guide. Sussex, NJ: Saville and Holdsworth
Limited.
Certo, S. C. (2016). Supervision Concepts and Skill-Building. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Flippo, E.B., (2002) Personal management 5th Edition. McGrew Hill Inc, London.
Heizer, J. and Render, K. (2009). Compensation and Benefits Review. Rewards
and Recognition in Employee Motivation , Vol. 34, Issue 5, pg. 64-72.
Joena Agbato (2008). Participative
Management, Time for a Second Look:
Reinehart and Winston Inc. New York
Keith, T. and Davies, N. (2003), What
Every Leader Needs to Know About Followers, Business Source Premier
Database, January 2007
Luthans, P. (2008). Pay for
performance. Evaluating performance appraisal and merit pay. Washington DC:
National Academy Press.
Mojahed, F. (2005). Strategic Human Resource Management, MacMillan Ltd, India
Mullins, D. (2005). Human Capital management Modern Approach. Andison Publishers
Onitsha, pp 69 – 80.
Nelson, Q. (2013). Principles of Organizational Behavior. Boston, MA: Cengage
Learning.
Nnabife, E.K. (2009) Organizational behavior and management theory.
Rao, A. (2000). Business
Studies. Cambridge-UK Holder Education.An Hachette UK Company.
Robbins, Q. M. (2011). Understanding the motivational effects of
procedural and informational justice in feedback processes. British Journal of Psychology , Vol. 97, Issue
3, pg. 281-298.
Shanks, B (2007),
Feedback sign effect on motivation: Is it
moderated by regulatory focus? Applied
Psychology: An international Review, Vol. 53, Issue 1, pg.
113-135.
Wiredu, T. (2009). Human
Resources Management. 3rd Ed. Plymouth: MacDonald
Evans Limited.
No comments:
Post a Comment