Motivation in Organizations, Free Essay Example

Motivation levels to the desire to achieve certain goals within a given time frame or using a specific amount of resources. The motivation theories are concepts that are utilized in getting to understand what drives the human beings to work towards a given outcome or remain activated. Various theories exist, and they are classified based on the area of life that they unearth an individual's desire for success. They include Herzberg, McClleand, Alderfer, Maslow and Equity theories. Different scholars have raised their arguments on the application of these theories, their benefits, and weaknesses.

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According to an article titled A Review of Employee Motivation Theories and their Implications for Employee Retention within Organizations that is written by Sunil, motivation is the factors that usually trigger psychological arousal and direction and the willingness to utilize energy towards some organizational objectives (Ramlall, 2004). The theories differ depending on the energy source and the specific needs that a person wants to fulfill. There exist several strategies that are used in the process of explaining behavior which are the features of employment, cognition, reinforcement, feelings, and needs and they facilitate in the evolution of the human behavioral concepts, and they include the equity and need theories.

According to Sunil, the need theory of motivation covers the factors within an individual that usually enables them to be energized to complete a given activity. The needs are the psychological elements that usually trigger the body of a person to feel that they want to perform a given activity. The wants can be described as either weak or strong based on a personal desire to achieve a goal, and they are influenced by the environmental factors an indication that they vary based on the time of the day and the region that an individual is based. The needs of several people may not be the same, and the author states that under the Maslow's Need Hierarchy Theory, Maslow believed that the human being's potential is not fully utilized despite their desire always to be self-actualized. In the life of a person, there exist five essential needs which are love, esteem, safety, physiological and self-actualization. They are thus motivated to ensure that there exist conditions that support the above needs, and it is thus critical for managers in a firm to devise ways that they manage the unmet desires of the staff members. Resources should be allocated towards measures that can assist the workers to relieve stress and ensure that they are always focused on achieving the primary goals.

Sunil states that according to the McClelland's Need Theory, people are usually under the illusion that they are can perform a given duty better that it has ever been done and three elements are considered under this theory which are the affiliation, achievement, and power. Through achievement, people strive to excel while under power, it is the urge to make others behave in a certain way they would not have done before. Affiliation makes someone feel the desire to engage in an interpersonal relationship.

According to Sunil, equity theory enables people not only to consider the number of rewards they receive for their efforts but what others are getting with the aim of ensuring that there is equality. Tension is created whenever there is an imbalance between the input and the outcome among the various individuals involved in activity since there should be fairness in the distribution of the rewards for the efforts made. The Motivator-Hygiene Theory states that workers describe issues that they find satisfying based on the factors that are in line with the concept of work that they perform and they may include variables, such as recognition, growth, advancement, and responsibility. Any experience that would be described as dissatisfying mainly result from activities that are not work-related like the policies set by the firm of the salary levels. According to Sunil, eliminating the elements behind the workers' dissatisfaction would not result in satisfaction considering that these factors are not related, and there is a need to tackle them separately. According to Yang et al. (2011), in an article titled An empirical study of the existence, relatedness and growth (ERG) theory in consumers selection of mobile value-added services, Alderfer erg theory gives a description of the relationships that exist between the human desires and the needs satisfaction (Yang, Hwang & Chen, 2011). It is divided into three sections that are the relatedness, growth and existence needs.

According to Avneet Kaur, Maslow theory is useful to managers in a company considering that it gives suggestions on the steps that they can be undertaken to keep their workers motivated and self- actualized. The process enables them to work optimally raising the entity's output levels and levels of earnings made. Therefore, organizations are better placed to experience growth and expansion and a strong workforce that is better placed to support the measures put in place by the management to reach new markets (Kaur, 2013). It recognizes their accomplishment, provides the staff members with financial security, and promotes a healthy workforce. However, the theory is criticized in some way since not all individuals manage to satisfy the higher-order needs like in the case of the low-level supervisors who can only meet their deficiency needs. Equity theory, on the other hand, triggers a rise in the productivity of the employees when they understand that the organization is treating them equally. Their retention rate is likely to be high for they feel that the policies of the company are equitable in addition to facilitating diversity (Frey & Osterloh, 2002). However, the theory fails to predict the conditions for the overpayment and the way that people handle such situations and the individual differences that influences the equity are not taken into consideration.

In the workplace, I find the equity theory of motivation being the best to apply at the place of work. When all the workers are receiving equal compensation for the same levels of service delivered, it leads to the creation of an environment of togetherness where everyone feels equal to the others. The issue is enough reason to keep the workers motivated, and the management do not have to keep working on programs or policies that will eliminate the demoralizing elements. It enables the staff's members to raise their levels of output thus ensuring the business makes more money that can be utilized in the growth, expansion and improving their financial levels. Cases of disinterested employees are not common when the theory is applied in the workplace, and this gives the management an easier opportunity to manage their workforce. Therefore, in addition to relying on the other theories of motivation, management should be critical of the equity theory due to the many benefits derived from relying on it.

References

Frey, B. S., & Osterloh, M. (2002). Successful Management by Motivation: Balancing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Incentives. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Kaur, A. (2013). Maslow's need hierarchy theory: Applications and criticisms. Global Journal of Management and Business Studies, 3(10), 1061-1064.

Ramlall, S. (2004). A review of employee motivation theories and their implications for employee retention within organizations. Journal of American Academy of Business, 5(1/2), 52-63.

Yang, C. L., Hwang, M., & Chen, Y. C. (2011). An empirical study of the existence, relatedness and growth (ERG) theory in consumers selection of mobile value-added services. African Journal of Business Management, 5(19), 7885-7898.