Motivation is said to be a combination of all those inner tensions or the needs that we describe as hopes, wishes, desires, fears, and intentions.
Motivation
Motivation is said to be a
combination of all those inner tensions or the needs that we describe as hopes,
wishes, desires, fears, and intentions. Stephen P Robbins (1994) has defined
motivation as the willingness to exert high levels of efforts towards
organizational goals, conditioned by the effort and ability to satisfy some
individual need. Motivation includes any inner state that activates and moves
people. It invokes the urge or compulsion to do something. It is an inner
process that begins with an awareness of a need or a sense of tension and
proceeds through the satisfaction of that need or the dispersal of that tension
to the awareness of another need or the sense of further tension and so on.
Motivated employees could be in a state of tension, to relieve which, they
exert effort. Motivation backs employees’ abilities to bring about performance
and this could be represented as the following formula: Performance = f
(ability X motivation)
Motivation according to Harold
Koontz and Cyril O’Donnell (1982) is a general term applying to the entire
class of drives, desires, needs, wishes, wants and other similar forces.
According to the Encyclopedia of Management, the term ‘Motivation’ refers to
the degree of readiness of an organism to pursue some designated goals and
implies the determination of the nature and locus of forces including degree of
readiness. Motivation is the result of the interaction between the individual
and the situation. Individuals differ in their needs, attitudes and
motivational drives, and hence efforts to improve their motivation should also
be individualized.
De-motivation
De-motivation is both insidious
and debilitating. Disappearance of or reduction in motivation levels is called
de-motivation. De-motivated employees would prove a costly liability to an
organization. Being able to spot that people are not happy in what they are
doing is a prerequisite for motivating them. Eliminating negative attitudes as
well as understanding individual needs are the key components in the process of
motivating people to work better. When jobs become too specialized or divided
into narrow, minute tasks, boredom and frustration could begin. Such frustrations
arise out of disappointment or irritation at being thwarted from one’s goals or
wants.Inadequacies in the QWL factors
could lead to further de-motivation. Delay in handling grievances expressed
repeatedly would take de-motivation to alarming levels and employees
might begin to rebel strongly at this stage. Since all managers have to get the
work done through others, motivating these significant others is the key to
their effectiveness. Hypocrisy, lack of transparency, unfairness or
discrimination, frequent changes in the environment, and substandard quality of
products or services sold by an organization could be powerful de-motivators.strong de-motivating factor in manufacturing
organizations involves complete compartmentalization of individual’s work into
watertight zones, makes the person treated like a piece of equipment or tool
that performs only one job. Many a time one finds a total mismatch between the
words and the actions of a supervisor or manager. In order to be soothing to
the employee, assurances are given about something which cannot be carried out.
Such hypocrisy and evilness noticed in the management is one of the strongest
de-motivators. A typical hypocrisy would be observed in an organization that is
inviting “feedback” with “openness” from the employees, but in fact, using it
as a tool to identify the potential rebels in the workforce.
Meaning and Importance of Motivation
The health of an organization
depends largely on the motivational forces operating within its personnel.
Motivation is concerned with why people choose to do one thing rather than
another, at certain times than others and also with the amount of effort or
intensity of action that people put into their activities. Motivation can be
defined as the will to do, the urge to achieve goals and the drive to excel.
Motivators are forces that increase job satisfaction and induce individuals to
perform and are underpinned by the individual’s values, beliefs, attitudes,
needs and goals. Performance could be viewed as the result of the additive or
even multiplying effect that motivation could have on a person’s numerous
capabilities. It is therefore natural, that maximum attention is paid at
supervisory level to motivate their team members.Needs and Motivation
The behavior of an individual at
a particular time is influenced by his or her needs. Need is a condition of
lacking or requiring some necessary thing, either physically or (now)
psychologically; destitution, lack of the means of subsistence or of necessaries,
poverty. Need is an internal state that makes certain outcomes appear
attractive. The strongest need is likely to have the greatest influence on
employees’ behavior. Motivation is said to relate to need in that a person with
a particular need will be motivated to engage in behavior that will lead to the
gratification or satisfaction of that need. Types and Techniques of Motivation
When an employee is motivated by
the inherent nature of the work rather than what he would get out of doing it,
the work is said to be intrinsically motivating the employee. Extrinsic
motivation is based on the secondary outcomes of work like pay or reputation.
When work is monotonous and drudgery producing, it is more likely to be done
for outcomes like money, fame, power, etc., such factors in work are called
extrinsic motivators. Motivation could be positive in the form of offering
rewards or negative in the form of punishments and warnings. Techniques of
motivation includes provision of financial and non-financial incentives, job
enrichment, enhancement of employees’ participation in decision making, praise
and recognition, delegation and offering job security.
Tags : Human Resources Management - Employees’ Morale And Motivation
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