Importance of Employee Motivation

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Importance of Employee Motivation
Why Employee Motivation should be the first concern in Organizations?

Despite the high competition in this globalized world of business, an organization’s goal is to strive the survival while enhancing themselves to thrive towards the vision, enabling and sustaining the success of the organization. Here adoptability is the key to survival and competitive advantage is the need to success which can only be applied by the effective and efficient human resource that an organization hold. So it is prudent that employees are the assets which organizations stand by, to have a competitive edge (Chandrakant, 2017).

Ioan, Larisa & George (2013) explains that Hawthorne studies is the initial phase which highlighted that employees’ work is influenced by their attitudes, apart from the money they get paid. This concept proved that employees are keeping themselves occupied with their jobs not because of the involvement, but because they had to. This situation leads to low performance, low contribution and less coordination with organization directing to an adverse work environment (Chandrakant, 2017). This dissatisfying circumstance occurs when the employees are not satisfied with their jobs, which is due to the lack of motivation provided (Ioan, Larisa & George, 2013).

As previously mentioned Motivation is an art which enables to derive the action which the organization needs by the behavioral change of employees in accordance to their satisfaction of Interests (Ioan, Larisa & George, 2013). This leads to job satisfaction and employee engagement, which together improves the performance of the organization propelling to higher levels (Vinay, 2014).

Performance can be generally addressed as the combination of ability along with the willingness (Vinay, 2014). The abilities refers to the diverse set of personal traits hold by the employees such as knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes which varies from one another (Sarah et al, 2007). These factors would encourage the organization if the employee is willing to do so. To make the employee ready to provide the willingness is to make him happy, content full and satisfied with his interest expected from the workplace (Masooma, Rifat & Fatima, 2014). Which simply means the motivation, leading to job satisfaction.

“Build your own business team; Survival of business requires a synergy of skills” said Richard Branson. It is essential for a leader/ Manager to create a group of employee’s with capabilities, and then to apply motivation strategies to retain and extract the excellence of employees to align with strategies to achieve the organizational goals (Datuk, 2018).
“An economic future of an organization depends on its ability to create wealth by fostering Innovation and Creativity” says Linda Naiman. A perfectly implied motivation strategy would enable employees to provide,
  • ·         Higher level of commitment.
  • ·         Ability to face uncertainties as challenge.
  • ·         Increased efficiency and effectiveness in productivity & performance.
  • ·         A positive stress free work environment.
  • ·         Initiatives of new innovative ideas.
  • ·         Achievement of organization goals and objectives.
  • ·         Low employee turnover (Enables to retain trained employees).
  • ·         A stable workforce.
  • ·      Clear pathway for the organization with collective commitment towards organizations vision. (Chandrakant, 2017).

Line managers play a vital role in identifying the employee interest, as interest vary one to another and does not bound only to the monetary rewards but non-monetary rewards as well (Amit, 2017). We can group rewards in many categories which we would look further in future blogs. One simple example for non-monetary rewards would be the sense of belonging to the organization. Few personalized words from the top management for an employee looking for such kind of interest, would highly reflect in his performance. So it is the responsibility and talent of the line manager to identify the interest along with employee’s ability to assign a suitable motivation strategy (Ovidiu, 2013). It is also paramount that the top management should involve and show attentiveness to these HR motivating decisions which would influence in organizational productivity to a great extent, than spending hours in meetings with employees who are not engaged (Chandrakant, 2017).

An employee spends at least one third of his day at the work. A perfectly applied motivation strategy allows an employee to be engaged allowing him to sense, it is just not the job but life. A study of Amit (2017) which surveyed 1600 employees of an Indian company remarks that 70% of the employees feels appreciated and valued when their reward system is clearly explained to them with transparency, and a career development opportunity achieved. Also the author explained that 44% of employees were satisfied with their recognitions and regular rewards. Where the employees mentioned the rewards contains pay increase, work profile which is challenging, flexibility and authority in decision making out of which pay increase hold the major contribution of 37%. These results show how motivation factors could steer the employee satisfaction enabling an improved performance.

But on the other hand a research of Robyn (2014) has revealed that only 15% of the employees are engaged with their jobs around the world, which is a very poor sign. This emphasizes the need for motivation which is lacking to generate the willingness of employees, to bring out their best abilities and commitment. Which would eventually create a stress free workable environment filled with highly engaged talents contributing for win-win situation.

Moving ahead on the upcoming blogs, we would be reviewing the renowned motivational theories and its contribution to the organization on how to improve their overall performance.


References


·         Amit, S. (2017) EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION: A STUDY ON MODERN WORKPLACE MOTIVATION.  International Journal OF Engineering Sciences &Management Research, 4(4), pp. 68 – 77.

·         Chandrakant, V. (2017) IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION & JOB SATISFACTION FOR ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE. International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research, 6(2), pp. 10 - 20.

·         Datuk, M.Z.S.S. (2018) Impact of Employee Motivation on Work Performance. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 8(3), pp. 295 – 308.

·         Ioan, M. A., Larisa, D. and George, B. (2013) THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION TO INCREASE ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE. Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, 15(2), pp. 685 – 691.

·         Masooma, J., Rifat, B. and Fatima, H. (2014) Determinants of Job Satisfaction and its Impact on Employee Performance and Turnover Intentions. International Journal of Learning & Development, 4(2), pp. 120 – 140.

·         Ovidiu, I. D. (2013) Employee motivation and organizational performance. Review of Applied Socio- Economic Research, 5(1), pp. 53 – 60.

·         Robyn, R. (2014) 5 Ways to Improve Employee Engagement Now. Gallup.Analytics & Advice about Everything that Matters [Online]. Available at: <https://www.gallup.com/ workplace/231659/performance-measures-motivate-madden-employees.aspx >.[Accessed on 5th May 2020].

·         Sarah, M. A., Lea, W., Jon. P. B. and Douglas, T.H. (2007) Employability during Unemployment: Adaptability, career identity and human and social capital. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 71(2), pp.247 – 264.

·         Vinay, C.G. (2014) MOTIVATION IN THE WORKPLACE TO IMPROVE THE EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences, 2(6), pp. 221 – 230.



Comments

  1. Uditha N Rupasinghe31 May 2020 at 13:26

    Agreed with the above discussion and also Kawara (2014) declared that motivational rewards provide a feeling of motivation among employees, and thus, increase their productivity levels, which provide further implications for organizational growth and competitiveness. The practical implications from this finding suggests that the decision makers in higher learning institutions should give a prime attention to employees’ issues and ensure their work effectiveness by providing incentives and rewards for good achievements. This as a result will encourage them to become more productive and creative in doing their jobs.

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    1. Kobigah Kanagendran1 June 2020 at 04:35

      Thank you Uditha, Further Jalal & Muhammad (2018) states that focusing and redesigning the reward system in a continuous basis, while evaluating and updating the employees combinations of strength and needs which changes time to time, with the effect of extrinsic forces is considered to be one of the best key business strategies.

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  2. Employee Engagement by Nadee Weerasuriya1 June 2020 at 12:01

    According to Armstrong, (2014) motivation is the strength and direction of behaviour and the factors that influence people to behave in certain ways. People are motivated when they expect that a course of action is likely to lead to the attainment of a goal and a valued reward – one that satisfies their needs and wants.

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    Replies
    1. Kobigah Kanagendran2 June 2020 at 09:43

      Well said Nadee, Vrooms expectancy theory is a cognitive theory, which arouse on that definition of motivation. The theory discusses the relationship between employee effort, performance and rewards with the formulation to practical scenario, in order to support managers with the estimated chances and probabilities, with relative to changing situations (Richard et al, 2004).

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  3. Mahesh Rathnayake1 June 2020 at 19:38

    I agree with you.Human resource in itself is a combination of psycho physiological and intellectual capabilities that enable to produce substantial wealth or service. That is why, it is so important to motivate continuously the workforce in the working process, because its effectiveness depends on the effect of the organization's activities (Badri et al, 2017).

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    1. Kobigah Kanagendran2 June 2020 at 09:44

      Well said, Mahesh. Many Authors have stressed that the motivation should continuously in frequent manner. Human psychology is Influenced and driven towards specific direction due to the impact of a motivating factor which can fade away, if the process does not continue. Dina (2019) hereby highlights that this is why management should be very concerned in setting motivation strategies, by taking into consideration of the possible outcome to the reward given as they expect the influenced behavior to repeat, in order to improve behavior. Dina, further suggests that intrinsic motivators can be effective to be approached continuously while enabling extrinsic motivators in regular intervals.

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  4. S.Elilkumaran2 June 2020 at 12:20

    As you correctly said Kobiga the concept of engagement was defined by Gallup (2009) that the individual’s
    involvement and satisfaction with, as well as enthusiasm for, work. Also in addition to what you have mentioned Kobiga, we also need to make the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation as well. Extrinsic motivation includes things like bonuses, perks, rewards and other things that attempt to incentive your employees through material benefits. Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, consists of internal qualities that a person is born with and that typically don’t diminish over time.

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    1. Kobigah Kanagendran3 June 2020 at 09:19

      Yes, agreed on your view Elilkumaran. Self-determination theory which analyses about the Intrinsic & Extrinsic motivation explains that intrinsic motivations are drove with self-interest arising inherently, while extrinsic motivation is influenced with external factors such as financial need, social and cultural norms & peer influences (Richard & Edward, 2000). Also as understanding motivation in the workforce is a crucial step toward creating a dynamic work environment that enriches and fulfills workers, it is highly recommendable to execute motivations strategies comprising of both Intrinsic & Extrinsic motivators to improve both quality and quantity in overall organizational performances (Rajesh, 2016).

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  5. Sathyapriya19 June 2020 at 10:06

    Agree Kobigah, A successful organisation is driven by a dedicated group of employees, and commitment is the output of motivation and job satisfaction. Motivation is the drive that compels employees to achieve organisational aim (Peters et al, 2010).

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    Replies
    1. Kobigah Kanagendran20 June 2020 at 07:57

      Agreed, to add further Ovidiu (2013) explains that a successful organization is driven by synergy of super skills which is needed to distinguish an organization, from its competitors. Therefore the author explains that employees being a mixture of various strengths & needs, could bring out their best talents out while enabling a positive emotional binding towards the job with an application of suitable motivational strategy in order to collectively achieve the organizational goal.

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  6. Bimal Koralage20 July 2020 at 23:01

    And a part from that Employee motivation is highly important for every company due to the benefits that it brings to the company. According to (Suzanne,2009) for getting the best of their work performance, the gap between ability and willingness has to be filled which helps in improving the level of performance of subordinates. Motivation is an important factor which brings employees satisfaction. This can be done by keeping into mind and framing an incentive plan for the benefit of the employees. This could initiate the following things (Faisal, 2017).

    ReplyDelete

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