Why do people prefer one work to another, differently react to the same stimuli? Why do in some cases they work with inspiration, in others waste their working time on talking and smoke breaks? Why does your competitor have a queue of people wishing working for him, and you can’t manage to find sensible employees, or routine business ruins the production plan? These questions are a headache for many managers. They are joined by a common theme - motivation. What motivates people to work? How to make the staff get interested in the result and work with full feedback? How to find and keep the employee?
High motivation of employees is one of the conditions of success of an organization. Understanding the essence, structure and role of motivation as an integral part of any activity and the ability to analyze the human component of the production process are basic management tools.
The secret of successful selection of the employee is simple: it is necessary to find people who themselves want to do, what you would like them to do. Hans Selye
Three-level pyramid
So, motivation. What is this?
Motive (Latin moveo - move) is a material or ideal object, achieving which is the meaning of activity. The motive is presented to a person as specific feelings, either positive emotions of expected accomplishment, or negative, associated with the incompleteness of the present situation (lack of something). Researchers who are looking for ways and means of working motivation have come to a conclusion, that the starting point of motivation of certain employees is the knowledge and registration of their needs.
To understand what needs, types and hierarchy are, we should refer to the simple and clear A.Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid. The pyramid has three levels.
The first level: basic needs, ensuring the survival and security, procreation, good health.
The second level: social needs for love, belonging, social status, self-evaluation and self-respect.
The third level: revealing capabilities and spirit, the need for self-actualization.
A musician must go in for music; an artist – painting, a poet – writing poetry, if they want to live in peace with themselves. An individual feels that he must comply with his own nature. And this is the need for self-actualization.
Motive groups
Motive is a materialized (objectified) need. Motivation is a complex of motives urging a person to activity; it is always linked with satisfaction of needs of one or another level, and in a harmoniously developed personality – of all levels. Let us look from this point of view what groups of motives can be singled out.
1. Procedural-content motives – urge to activity by process and content of particular activities, but not external factors. An individual likes to perform this activity, to be active in this direction. He is interested in the content of what he is doing. It is intrinsic motivation.
Just such motives make up the most working motivation – a professional’s position. They are connected with the needs of the highest level – self-actualization. The same is with the core of workaholism, but a workaholic cannot be called a harmonious personality as his needs of the other level are not implemented.
2. Extrinsic motives
Extrinsic motives are when actions are impelled not by the content and the process of activity, but the factors directly linked with it. They are:
– motive of gaining material benefits (material motives);
– motive of duty and responsibility;
– motive of self-determination and self-improvement;
– desire for obtaining the approval;
– desire for higher social status;
– desire for external attributes;
– motives for avoiding troubles and punishment (negative reinforcement).
If in the process of activities, extrinsic motives are not backed by procedural-content motives, i.e interest to the content of the activities, you cannot expect maximum effect from work.
3. Pro-social motives are associated with realization of public significance of activities. In this case an individual’s identification with a group takes place. He considers himself to be a member of a particular social group, identifying himself with it and lives its needs, interests and goals. For individuals urged by pro-social motives, normalization, loyalty to group standards, recognition and protection of group values, desire to implement a group target are typical. Without this kind of motivation it is impossible to build a team. This group of motives is the foundation of quite successful Japanese personnel management system, which is called ‘family’.
4. Negative motivation is a motive caused by the fear of loss, inconvenience, punishment. Forms of negative sanctions are various:
– verbal (reprimand, condemnation);
– material sanctions;
– social (neglect, disregard, rejection by a group, isolation).
The main defect of negative sanctions is their short-term influence. Negative motivation doesn’t urge to efficient activity, it limits, makes refrain from something.
Salary is a necessary but insufficient condition of working motivation…
Motivators’ map
From Adam Smith’s time it is thought that if an employee gets payment for his work, he should be satisfied. Work is often considered, and by employers themselves, only as means of earnings. Meanwhile management practice shows that salary is a necessary but insufficient condition of working motivation. Constant wage increase doesn’t contribute to maintaining working activity up to the mark. The application of this method can be useful for rather short-run results. Finally institutionalization to this kind of impact takes place.
Incentive payments are always presented as rewards for high quality of work. However such a phenomenon can appear; they immediately turn into the rights. The cancel of incentive payments or part of them is taken as a punishment. The increased demands for economic rewards quickly destroy their usefulness as incentives.
The stick and the carrot system as a combination of economic incentives and negative motivation is rather a primitive management tool.
With all of the effectiveness and universality of money rewards and clearly defined sanctions, limitation by only incentives of material-negative motivation will not bring the desired result. Members of any group are people with different life values and attitudes; at the same time it is difficult to contribute to group cohesion by means of prizes, bonuses and fines. Some kind of nonmaterial compensation and balance factor as methods of nonmaterial reward are practically always necessary.
So, the leader must know his employees’ needs, understand that people greatly differ from each other in the sense of purpose, in needs of different level and extent intensity, and remember that any activity is many-motivating.
Therefore, the development of the motivational system of an enterprise requires thorough analysis and an individual approach. First of all, try to analyze what type of needs and in what way can satisfy employees. Try to create, taking into account the capabilities of the enterprise, your own motivators’ map, making it a full-fledged management tool.
Practical tips
Here are a few ways of how to increase motivation and improve the quality of work of employees, who have approved themselves in human resource management practice in successful companies in the Russian market.
1. Admit that your subordinates are real people made of flesh and blood and have their own interests.
2. Teach the subordinates to measure the degree of success of the work done. How to achieve this? Any objective of the work should be measurable in a simple scoring system.
3. Ask your employees what they would like to have. Their goals and desires are different, and therefore it is necessary to provide them with different opportunities.
4. Try to make the information exchange in your company the most effective. The more you understand what is happening - the higher motivation is.
5. Clearly explain accepted by you rewards system. Arbitrariness in rewards leads to cynicism and de-motivates the staff.
6. Strengthen interaction; show that you are linked together by interest in a common cause. Learn what your subordinates think about the production process. They may have good ideas. Create the atmosphere of participation, using joint "bank of ideas."
7. Motivate with knowledge. Remember: the most motivated people are professionals, those who aspire for becoming the best in their specialty. Encourage and support training.
8. Award individuals for the total contribution of the group. When counting on team work inattention to personal merits can de-motivate active employees.
9. Develop the program of incentives, providing employees’ rewards based on colleagues’ survey. Use such form as colleagues’ words of gratitude.
10. Look for the people with the internal (procedural-content) motivation. Much easier is to train a motivated employee than endlessly stimulate an experienced specialist who does not want to work.
11. Be careful: you should know whether the work is fit for your subordinate. Attempts to motivate an employee, who does not like his work, will give no result.
12. Award your employees in smaller quantities but more often. Plan your expenses for promotion in such a way that to oftener reward your subordinates; - as a result the relation between the work and the result will be more evident.
13. Show your subordinates, that you respect them. More often ask questions, supposing a detailed answer, beginning with the words “Why”, “What do you think”,”What did you mean, when”, etc.
14. Use the effect of novelty. By no means let the rewards become commonplace.
15. Arrange creative contests and competitions.
16. Be sure to congratulate your subordinates on significant dates, do it personally yourself. Be aware of the peculiarities of your subordinates’ lives. Provide targeted assistance.
17. Inform the staff about the general and individual achievements.
18. Develop incentives for employees whose work is difficult to quantify, because their work is usually little noticeable.
Basic needs determine the content of aspirations, likings and interests, the general personal orientation. They do not depend on external circumstances, and are due to stable characteristics of the personality. Satisfaction of vital needs is a necessary condition of emotional well-being and happiness of an individual. Their satisfaction at present and lack of hope for their satisfaction in the foreseeable future leads to a state of excessive emotional tension, unstable behavior, conflicts and low efficiency. Management without regard to stimulating and de-motivating factors is blind management. And where can the blind captain sail his ship to?
Author: Alexandra Sidorova
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alexandra SIDOROVA: higher pedagogical education, the second higher education is psychological; specialization: a practical psychologist, the experience of advisory work is 15 years. Professional characteristics: individual and group diagnostics, analytics of organizations, the development of personal programs of correction and progress, tuitional analysis, psychological follow-up at all stages of changes of the organization (individual and group counseling, trainings), manager’s coaching. The methodological base: positive psychology, transactional analysis, the theory of leading tendencies, transpersonal psychology, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). Managerial work experience is 7 years.
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