Motivation Theories

By Libyza on May 26th, 2010

In the past, employees were not given much of a thought, not over another input in to the production of goods & services. Worker motivation was not the main concern of the managers.
Although the managers began to concentrate on motivating employees thereafter, this was not an simple task to do, as understanding the staff & motivating them needed cautious consideration. If not so ever, then the funds & time spent on motivating employees may be of no use to the organization or the worker, if the staff were motivated the wrong way.As a result, to understand the whole idea of motivation & help the managers over out the strategy, it is important to look in to the theories of motivation, which developed soon after the study of the Hawthorne Experiment.
The motivation theories developed, because of the researches carried out by the theorists focusing understanding what motivated employees & how they were motivated. Hence so, let us have a closer look at three of the lovely motivational theories that explains what motivates employees, in order to understand & do the best feasible way to motivate them.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs Theory
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is one of the important theories that provide an insight to understand what fundamentally motivates employees & the way it ought to be done if the staff are to be motivated. Maslow identified four levels of needs. They are,
Self Actualization ( level 5 – highest level)
Esteem ( level 4 )
Social belonging & love needs ( level 3)
safety ( level 2 )
Physiology ( level 1 – lowest level)
These four levels of needs must be satisfied if the staff are to be motivated. In other words, it is said that motivation is thus driven by the existence of these unsatisfied needs. Maslow pointed out the fact that, in order to motivate the staff, to start with the lower level of needs must be met before the next higher level of needs. What they meant by this was that only three times the lower level of needs have been satisfied the worker will be motivated to satisfy the next higher level of needs. For example, an is at the lowest level of the hierarchy will only be motivated by a lovely pay well to afford his basic needs than safety of his work area & stability of the job etc. As a result, the hierarchy of needs theory highlights the fact that employees do differ from each other, & in the event that they are to be motivated it is thus vital to look in to their needs first & then come up with the appropriate motivation techniques effectively.
Hertzberg’s One Factor Theory
The Hertzberg’s one factor theory is another vital theory that provides the managers with a clear understanding to how the staff could be motivated. They also pointed out the fact that motivating employees are not feasible without the presence of inherent factors.
According to Hertzberg, they fundamentally identified one separate groups of factors that had a powerful impact on motivation. His first group of factors were the hygiene factors which consisted of factors such as the working conditions, quality of supervision, wage,status,safety, company policies, & administration. They tends to think that the hygiene factors strongly influenced feelings of dissatisfaction among the staff thus paving way to affect the job performance. However, they also went in to point out that the presence of these factors won’t fundamentally motivate the staff as such, but they are necessary to have them right in the first place, if the organization intends to motivate the factors. The second group of factors identified by hertzberg were the motivating factors. These included factors such as recognition,achievement, responsibility, fascinating job, growth & advancement to higher level tasks etc. Accordingly, they went in to say that these factors do bring job satisfaction among employees which will finally lead to worker motivation.
Vroom’s Expectancy theory
Another theory that explained what fundamentally motivated the staff was the Expectancy theory of Victor Vroom in 1964. Actually Vroom believed that worker work will pave the way for job performance & thus job performance will lead to rewards. In other words, they highlighted the fact that employees tend to think that by putting work it will lead to a lovely performance & likewise because of the lovely performance they are going to be rewarded. It is these rewards that motivate the staff. If the rewards are positive & welcoming , then obviously the staff will be motivated, or else in the event that they turn out to be negative or not beautiful then the chances of employees being de-motivated are high indeed.
Adam’s Equity Theory
Adam’s Equity theory is a motivation theory that points out the fact that the mangers ought to seek a fair balance between the employees’ inputs( work, loyalty, hard work, sacrifice, etc) & their outputs ( recognition, status, wage, status etc), in order to motivate employees( Adams, 1965). They also said that it is vital to make the worker feel that they is treated if the managers are to accomplish positive outcomes & motivate the staff effectively. However, if the staff tend to feel that they have been treated unfairly intending to say that their inputs are greater than the outputs, then they are going to be de-motivated.Ans this will no doubt reduce their inputs such as work & hard work etc.
In conclusion, the tasks of the managers to motivate the staff are indeed not that simple.This is because each & every worker has got their own needs that tend to motivate them. However, the managers need to have some kind of aknowledge that will help them to understand the staff well & think of better ways of motivating them. This is where the motivational theories come in to considertaion. It is these theories that provide an explanation of how to motivate them based on what motivates them. The Hierarchy of needs theory & Hertzberg’s one factor theory deals with explaining how the staff are to be motivated by way of looking in to their needs. On the other hand, Adams theory also helps the managers to understand that a fair balance between inputs & outputs of employees are important. The Expectancy theory shows that rewards tend to motivate the staff. However, overall all motivation theories do state that rewarding & recognising employees are important in order to motivate employees thus acting as the foundation to motivate employees.

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