Employee Motivation and the Design of Work Week 7 Dr. Ronan Carbery [email protected]

Learning Objectives • Explain the role of motivation in the workplace • Outline the different theories of motivation • Give reasons for why job design is important in an organisation • Critically discuss the concepts of job enlargement and job enrichment • Explain the concept of High Performance Work Systems and give examples of the key features of HPWS.

Motivation Definitions: • Set of processes that stimulate, guide and sustain human behaviour towards accomplishing some goal • Motivation centres on the expenditure of effort toward achieving an objective the organisation wants accomplished (DuBrin, 1978)

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Motivation • Reasons for the interest in motivation: – Managers cannot avoid concern for major behavioural requirements of the organisation – All-encompassing nature of the concept – Competitive trends of the business environment coupled with increased business regulation – Issue of technological advancement – Issue of planning horizons

Key Features of Motivation • It is an internal state experienced by the individual • The individual experiences a motivational state in a way that gives rise to a desire, intention or pressure to act • Motivation brings an element of choice • Action & performance are in part a function of motivation

Elements of Work Motivation • Direction of Behaviour – Which behaviours does a person choose to perform in an organisation?

• Level of Effort – How hard does a person work to perform a chosen behaviour?

• Level of Persistence – When faced with obstacles, roadblocks & stone walls, how hard does a person keep trying to perform a chosen behaviour successfully?

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Motivation Theories • Explain how work & its rewards satisfy the individual employee’s needs • If needs are satisfied, employees are motivated to work at high-performance levels (vice versa) • Motivation is only one of a number of factors affecting performance levels

Motivation Theories • Can be divided into two categories 1. Content Theories – Focuses on the wants & needs that individuals are trying to satisfy or achieve • • • •

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Alderfer’s ERG theory Theory X / Theory Y Herzberg’s dual-factor theory

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

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Criticisms of Maslow’s Theory • Difficult to apply to the workplace • Little support for the concept that individuals have completely separate needs • Career advancement may be the true factor underlying changes in need deficiencies • Theory attempts to demonstrate an imputed rationality in human actions that may not exist • Needs don’t often group together as predicted

Alderfer’s ERG theory

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Alderfer’s ERG theory • Critique of ERG Theory – Represents a more valid version of the need hierarchy – More consistent with our knowledge of individual differences among people – Problem with this theory is that it does not work in some organisations

Herzberg’s dual-factor theory • Based on premise that the elimination of dissatisfaction is NOT the same as motivating an employee

Critique of Herzberg’s theory • Gained recognition as differentiated between the impact of intrinsic & extrinsic factors on employees’ motivation • Criticisms have focused on its reliability of application to all types of jobs • Criticised for the view of job satisfaction as being almost synonymous with motivation

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Motivation Theories (ctd) • Second category 2. Process Theories – Focuses on how the external context drives individuals to behave in a particular fashion • •

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory Adam’s Equity Theory

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory • A process theory that explains individual differences in terms of goals, motives & behaviour • Focuses on the relationship between effort put into completion of activities & the expectations that accrue as a result of effort • Individuals base decisions about behaviour on the expectation that a certain behaviour will lead to needed or desired outcomes – Influenced by factors such as personality, perception, motives, skills & abilities, & organisational factors e.g. culture, structure & managerial style

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Vroom’s Expectancy Theory • Combination of three factors: – Expectancy • Probability that work effort will be followed by a given level of task performance

– Instrumentality • Probability that a given level of achieved task performance will lead to various work outcomes

– Valence • Value attached by the individual to various work outcomes

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory • Critique of Expectancy Theory – Difficult to test empirically – It assumes a type of rationality with respect to how the individual thinks and behaves, which may not exist – What is valued may vary from one individual to another

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Adam’s Equity Theory • Based on a comparison between inputs (what an individual brings to employment) & outputs (factors received in return for input) • Focuses on peoples’ feelings about how fairly they have been treated in comparison with treatment received by others • Where inequity is perceived, the individual tries to restore equity. He/she will do this by: – Distorting inputs or outcomes – Disregarding the comparable other & referring to a new one – Terminating the relationship

Critique of Equity Theory • Support for the theory • Strongest for predictions about underpayment inequity • Offers a useful approach to understanding a wide variety of social relationships, which may occur in the workplace

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Work / Job Design

Job/Work Design • Focuses on results and outcomes • How work is organised and designed significantly influences the extent to which it is seen as satisfying and therefore a source of motivational influence on work behaviour • Central issue is how to design to ensure best fit • Work organisational design refers to the way the various tasks in the organisation are structured and carried out

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Job/Work Design • Job design is concerned with the specification of the contents, methods, and relationships of jobs in order to satisfy technological & organisational requirements, as well as the social & personal requirements of the job holder • 3 parties have an explicit interest in job restructuring: – Labour – Management – The State

Classical Job Design • Adam Smith: specialisation – gains from trade, efficiency – economises on human capital investments • Frederick Taylor: industrial engineering – figure out the single most efficient process & replicate • squeeze out variations & uncertainty • replicate, get economies of scale • Effects – assembly lines, long runs, narrow product lines – centralised quality control – job design: specialization, low skills, few decision rights

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Task Specialisation • Traditional approach to the organisation of work to maximise the efficiency of the technical system • Scientific management (Taylorism) focuses on: – – – – –

Bureaucratic work structure Top-down supervisory control Task fragmentation Clearly defined jobs Payment-by-results

• Suggests employees must be coerced to work productively

Task Specialisation • Org. Advantages – Improved efficiency – Promoted systematic approach to selection, training, work measurement & pay systems

• Org. Disadvantages – Led to high turnover & absenteeism – Low motivation – Long-term reductions in organisation effectiveness

Job Enlargement • Job enlargement makes one’s job bigger to make jobs more varied & less repetitive • It refers to the combination of more than two tasks into one • Doesn’t deal with motivation issues • Job enlargement studies have ignored external variables & people’s differing attitudes to work

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Job Enrichment • Developed for the advancement of the dualfactor theory of work motivation • Job enrichment adds something to the job to increase the employees’ psychological growth • Suggests employees gain most satisfaction from work itself • Vertical loading • The Job Characteristics Model (Hackman & Oldham, 1980) is the basis of the expectancy theorists’ job enrichment strategy

Comparison

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High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) • Motive behind HPWS is desire & need to improve overall competitive position of the organisation • Adopts a culture of continuous improvement and innovation • Main aim is to generate high levels of commitment & involvement of employees & managers • Progressive HR systems to support • Involves new/different approaches to management of employees & structure of jobs & systems • Organic and flexible structures

High Performance Work Systems (HPWS)

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Revision Questions • In Adam’s equity theory only those with negative inequity are motivated to change their behaviours and responses: – True – False

Revision Questions • Content theories emphasise the thought processes concerning how and why people chose one action over another in the workplace: – True – False

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