Motivation

You probably have seen or heard that there are hardworking people that do something tirelessly and never giving up. Do you know why some people do certain thing tirelessly? Yes, because they have motive which drives them to do something. Motivation is a reason or a fuel for people’s action and willingness to do something. It is the process of stimulating people to reach their goals.

There are four early motivation theories : Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, McGregor’s Theories X and Y, Herzberg’s two-factor theory, and McClelland’s three-needs theory.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

Maslow was a psychologist who proposed that within every person is a hierarchy of five needs:

1. Physiological needs : Needs for food, drink, shelter, sex, and other physical requirements.

2. Safety needs : Needs for security and protection from physical and emotional harm.

3. Social needs : Needs for affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship.

4. Esteem needs : Needs for internal esteem factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and achievement and external esteem factors such as status, recognition, and attention.

5. Self=actualization needs : Needs for growth achieving potential, self-fulfillment.

The theory says that to motivate employees, managers do things to satisfy employees’ needs. But the theory also says that once a need is substantially satisfied, and individual is no longer motivated to satisfy that need. Therefore, to motivate a person, you need to know and understand at what need level that person is on in the hierarchy.

McGregor’s Theories X and Y

Simply, McGregors’s theories X and Y is proposing two assumptions of negative view and positive view. It’s either giving the harsh truth motivation or more positively motivation. Theory X is a harsh approach, but it might work for some employees.

Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory

Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory proposes that intrinsic factors are related to job satisfaction, while extrinsic factors are associated with job dissastification. Managers who sought to eliminate factors that created job dissastification could keep people from being dissastified but not necessarily motivate them. The extrinsic factors that could create job dissastification were called hygiene factors. To motivate people, Herzberg suggested emphasizing motivators, the intrinsic factors have to do with the job itself.

McClelland’s Three-Needs Theory

This theory says that these three acquired needs are major motives in work. These three are the need for achievement (nAch); the drive to succeed, the need for power (nPow); the need to make others behave in a way they would not have behaved otherwise, and the need for affiliation (nAff); the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationship. The need for achievement has been searched the most.

Contemporary Theories of Motivation

Contemporary theories represent current explanations of employee motivation. These contemporary motivation approaches are goal-setting theory, reinforcement theory, job design theory, equity theory, expectancy theory and high involvement work practices.

1. Goal setting theory : says that specific goals increase performance and that difficult goals result in higher performance than easy goals. Commitment is most likely when goals are made and when the individual has its own self-set and an internal locus of control.

2. Reinforcement theory : says that behavior is a function of its consequences. Those consequences that immediately follow a behavior and increase the probability that the behavior will be repeated, reinforcers. This theory ignores factors such as goals, expectations, and needs.

3. Job design theory : defined motivation as systematic and purposeful allocation of tasks within an organization. These are five core job characteristics of job design; skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback.

In my opinion, motivating employees is about knowing their needs and goals first. Then we can approach with the most effective way. There’s also systematic motivation which requires bonus for its employee. There are so many ways we can use to motivate employees. It’s all depend on the organization’s type and the employees’ needs.

Reference : Management global edition by Stephen P. Robbins, Mary Coulter. (14th Edition)