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Section 6: Motivation in the Workplace
So far in this chapter, we’ve discussed the components of motivation and some of the most well-known and useful motivational theories. There are more theories out there, and we could go on for quite a while describing them. However, it’s important for managers to understand that all of them seek to predict human behavior and understand the mystery that is motivation, and that all of them bring some amount of clarity to the issue.
Now it’s time to dig into how motivation impacts the workplace.
Now that we understand a bit more about what motivation is and the theories behind its origins and development, we can put them to work in a managerial setting. Let’s take a look at some managerial responses to motivation.
We talked a bit about management by objectives (MBO) when we discussed goal setting as a part of the work component of motivation. Management by Objective is a response to the goal-setting theory as a motivator.
The goal-setting theory has an impressive base of research support, and MBO makes it operational. As a reminder, MBO sets individual goals for employees based on department goals, which are based on company goals. It looks like this:
MBO advocates specific, measurable goals and feedback. There is only implication, though, that goals are perceived as attainable. The approach is most effective when the individual has to stretch to meet the goals set.
MBO can be a participative process. When individuals are consulted in the creation of their own goals, it often results in workers setting a goal that stretch them further. MBO does not require that the individual worker participate, though. The process seems to be about as effective when goals are assigned by a manager to the individual.
MBO is a widely used and successful practice for many industries. Failures occur when unrealistic expectations come into play, or cultural incompatibilities thwart the process.
Employee recognition programs cover a wide variety of activities, ranging from private “thank yous” to publicized recognition ceremonies. It strengthens the link between performance and outcome of the expectancy framework. Recognition continues to be cited on surveys as one of the most powerful motivators for an employee.
Types of recognition might include:
In an environment where there are layoffs and increased workloads all across the country, recognition programs go a long way toward motivating employees and provide a relatively low-cost way to boost performance.
Employee participation and participative management, employee ownership, workplace democracy . . . these are all a part of the catch-all term called “employee involvement programs.” Specifically, employee involvement is a process that uses the entire capacity of employees and is designed to increase employee’s commitment to the organization’s success.
Here are a few types of employee involvement:
Looking at these employment involvement programs through the Theory X & Theory Y lens, the approach certainly leans more toward the Theory Y approach of people management. These programs can also satisfy an employee’s needs for responsibility, achievement, etc., and thus fit well with the ERG theory as well. They can be part of a good balance of motivational offerings.
Clever redesign of jobs to accommodate employees’ needs for additional flexibility can serve to motivate them. Managers looking to reshape jobs in order to make them more motivating might look toward a few redesign and scheduling options.
Job redesign and scheduling can be linked to several motivational theories. Herzberg’s two-factor theory supports the idea of job enrichment in its proposal that increasing intrinsic factors of a job will increase an employee’s satisfaction with a job. Flexibility is an important link in linking rewards to personal goals in the expectancy theory.
While we’ve already discussed that pay isn’t always a motivator for employees, revamping an organization’s compensation system to incentivize employees can play well into increasing motivation and productivity. Examples of variable pay programs include piece-rate programs, where employees are compensated by the number of units they produce, or profit-sharing plans, where organizations share compensation with employees based on the company’s profitability.
Variable-pay programs increase motivation and productivity, as organizations with these plans are shown to have higher levels of profitability than those who don’t. Variable-pay is most compatible with the expectancy theory predictions that employees should perceive a strong relationship between their performance and the rewards they receive.
These programs help managers address differences in individual needs and allow employees to participate in decisions that affect them. Combining some of these tactics with MBO so that employees understand what’s expected of them, linking performance and rewards through recognition and making sure the system is equitable can help make a manager’s organization productive.
A warning for managers everywhere—motivation theories are culture-bound.
The theories you’ve read about have been developed by American psychologists and scientists for the American workplace, and the behaviors suggested are dictated by the American culture. Managers working for international companies who have remote international teams may find it difficult to apply the suggestions of these theories to everyone on their team.
For instance, Maslow’s theory, which suggests that humans follow a needs path from physiological needs to needs of safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization, is a typically American point of view. Greece and Mexico, countries with cultures that look for a significant set of rules and guidelines in their lives, might have safety at the top of their pyramids, while Scandinavian countries, well known for their nurturing characteristics, might have social needs at the top of theirs. If these differences are well understood, managers can adapt accordingly, and understand that group work is more important for their Scandinavian workers, and so on.
What other theories fall short when you stand them up against other cultures? Well, the need to achieve and a concern for performance is found in the US, UK and Canada, but in countries like Chile and Portugal, it’s almost non-existent. The equity theory, which we talked about in the first section of this module, is embraced in the US, but in the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, workers expect their rewards to reflect their personal needs as well as their performance. It stands to reason that US pay practices might be perceived as unfair in these countries.
Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and a former IBM employee, conducted some pioneering research on cross-cultural groups in organizations, which led to his cultural dimensions theory.
In this theory, Hofstede defines culture as the unique way in which people are collectively taught in their environments. He looks to compare and understand the collective mindset of these groups of people and how they differ. His conclusions were that cultural differences showed themselves in six significant buckets. Hofstede created an “index” for each category to show where individual cultures fell along the spectrum:
The Hofstede Insight website takes the guesswork out of comparing countries’ cultures and can help you understand the collective viewpoint of their people as they relate to these six indices.
When you compare Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as we briefly did above, you can see where cultural differences shift the order of needs on the pyramid. We mentioned above that Belgium and Germany score high on the uncertainty avoidance dimension—they don’t like social ambiguity, they want to be able to control their futures and feel threatened by the unknown. So it would make sense that, while “safety” is the second rung of the pyramid here in the United States, it’s a more significant need to satisfy in German culture.
Hofstede’s cultural dimension highlight the importance cultures place on different needs. These dimensions can be used to determine differences in individual needs based on their cultural teachings and beliefs.
Now that we’ve discussed this in some detail, it’s important to understand that not all motivational drivers are culture-bound. For example, the desire for interesting work appears to be important to all workers everywhere. Growth, achievement, and responsibility were also highly rated across various cultures. The manager of an international team doesn’t have to approach everything differently. But keeping in mind that cultural differences drive individuals’ needs will help a manager create motivating circumstances for all his workers.
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