Added: June 17, 2006
Motivation as a subjective experience, is the readiness to act or behave in a particular way. People do what they do or behave the way they do, because it helps them to satisfy some of their needs and experience pleasure or it helps them to avoid thwarting of certain needs and consequent experience of displeasure. Under certain circumstances people act in such a way that they seek satisfaction of some of their needs (for example the staff listens to the boss whose arguments are logical and convincing). Under other circumstances, a person behaves in such a way that he avoids sources of personal dissatisfaction or failure. For example, an employee behaves properly on the job for fear of disciplinary actions towards him, in other words to avoid a situation in which he has to suffer punishment.
Motivating subordinates is an act on the part or superiors to energise the will and prompt action of their subordinates towards doing their job well. It is influencing their behavior so that they work as expected. The process of motivating subordinates is means to get the work done by them. In making the subordinates to do what their superior wants them to do, he can either force them, using his authority, or can create positive conditions for the satisfaction of their needs and get them to do the job willingly. His first approach is a negative “Motivation Approach” or “Punishment” or “Coercive” approach and his second approach is “Positive Motivation Approach “ or “Reward Approach” or “Persuasive Approach.” The first one creates conditions for the subordinates to avoid ‘potential punishment.’ The practice of administering “Rewards” (providing for need satisfaction) and administering “Punishments” together is known as “carrot and stick” style of management/ leadership.
Organisation tries to influence and control (tries to motivate) its employees by means of its personnel and welfare policies by providing proper work environment and through supportive supervision. The kinds of attempts, superior officers make in motivation their staff, whether they employ predominantly a Positive Motivational approach or predominantly a Negative Motivational Approach or a mixed approach, or even in Motivational Approach, what positive ‘Motivational Techniques will be used, all depend upon their understanding and appreciation of the “process of human Motivation.” The field of psychology has brought about a rich wealth of material on “Human Motivation and Human Behaviour.”
The Psychology of Human Motivation
The first principle is that all our behaviour is purposeful. That is it serves some purpose to the person. The behaviour is aroused by needs. We may not be aware of all needs. Some needs may be operating at the sub-conscious level. That is, we may not be knowing always why we behave or behaved in a particular way. The primary motive (intention, purpose) of a student who studies hard at the time of examination is to get a good pass. This primary motive is clear to him. But, he might also unconsciously want to invite the attention of his parents and to enjoy their appreciation and good will. Similarly, an employee attends his work with punctuality and does a good job, because, he knows clearly that he will have to face punishments, if he is irregular in attendance and neglects his duties. But, there is nothing in the code of conduct to check whether the employee is putting his best. If he puts in the so called ‘day’s work’, he can be safe. But some take more initiative, more responsibility and enjoys working hard, while the same job for other is not so attractive. The reasons for this may not be quite clear to them. In other words, some of the needs that trigger their enthusiasm may be operating at the sub-conscious level.
Multiplicity of Needs
It is not that a single need operates I producing behaviour on the other hand, many needs operate simultaneously. The personal satisfaction or other wise, that result from the needs when they are satisfied or thwarted influence the behaviour of the people. Thus, the behaviour is quite complex, although it can be predicted and controlled with reasonable degree of success.
Needs Crave for Expression and Satisfaction
Infact, whole life, (day to day life) is nothing but our attempt to satisfy our needs or to avoid the discomfort when needs are thwarted. The moments we wake up, we except a cup of tea preferably served by our wives, to satisfy our needs of hunger, approval, belonging appreciation etc. We should take bath, dress up and stand before the mirror trimming moustache or adjusting the collar all to satisfy a combination of our needs such as those of health and hygiene, sense of importance (to look good) etc. Thus, our moment to moment living is an expression of needs for fulfillment or potential fulfillment.
The life, a person spends in the work place is not very different from the life he spends out of office hours – life in the family, with friends etc. when he comes for work, he comes very much as a “need seeking individual”. He does not bundle his needs at the reception, before starting his work in order to pick them up when he returns home. He brings his needs along with him and those needs stay with him while he is at work, craving for expression in the process of his work. These need find expression and satisfaction or potential satisfaction, when conditions conductive to them are available in the work place. How effective a person would work depends upon the type of needs they have and the opportunities available in the work place for their satisfaction. The basic needs which people possess, express themselves as job needs in the work setting. For example, the basic physiological and safety needs for protection take the form of employee expectation for good salary, permanency of tenure of job and attractive social security schemes.
The basic human needs when expressed on the job as job needs or employee expectations are called “Incentives”. For example permanency of tenure is an incentive which is provided by the employer for security (long term economic protection). When the organisation provides security of tenure to all confirmed employees, it is providing a substantial incentive. The employees need not fear of losing their jobs and of facing economic problem as faced by those by working in the unorganized sector. The department provides some of the incentives under legal obligations such as the minimum salary, normal hours of work (work load), leave, holidays, toilet and rest cum lunch room as well as recreation and sports facilities, Educational allowance for children subsidized, canteen etc. are given voluntarily as a mark of organisations’ welfare concerns towards their employees. In other words, these are given out of good will of the organisation towards the staff and also to promote the concept of a ‘one family’.
Needs, Incentives and Motives
A need in a person when activated by an incentive takes the form of ‘Motive’. Need activates behaviour, only when it is in a Motive state. Motives are, activated needs. The word “Motivation” comes from the word “Motives” which are activated needs which set off behaviours.
Human Needs
Human needs are numerous. To make handling of the needs wieldy, an American Psychologist, Abraham Maslow classified human needs into the following five categories operating in a hierarchical order. This comes to be known as Maslow’s theory of Need Hierarchy.
The need categories are:
1. Physiological Needs: These needs are starting points in motivating people. They are needs of survival and maintenance. The need for food, clothing, shelter, air, and other necessities of life are examples. These are expressed in the job as expectations for a good salary and other monetary incentives like availability of consumer co-operatives, subsidized canteen, bonus, L.T.C etc.,
2. Safety and Security Needs: These include need for long term economic security and protection against any risks, and also psychological security. Permanency job tenure, retirement benefits, Insurance against occupational and other health risks, Gratuity and Employee Provident Fund and loans for House Building etc., are measures provided to take care of safety and security needs of employees.
Sharing of job information with the employees about their job as a whole, their individual duties and responsibilities, interest taken by the superior in knowing what each one is doing and how they are doing and discussion with them about the problems they face, giving them feed back that they are meeting the expectations of their superiors in their work and conduct, developing clear cut authority and accountability and keeping the staff posted with organisation information give them the feeling of personal security and help development of “Self Identify” among the staff. On the contrary lack of definite policies on the part of top administration, lack of adequate sharing of departmental information with the staff (making them to guess), giving conflicting instructions, conflicting expectations between the officers and their subordinates regarding the criteria used in writing confidential records, destructive criticism, reprimands, bullying etc., by the officers in their dealings with their subordinate staff, the practice of placing one against another (the philosophy of divide and rule, acts of favoritism etc, thwart the staff need for security. They feel insecure (a pure psychic experience not born out of any monetary considerations), some times they feel helpless, anxious and tense, all characteristic of poor mental health.
The sense of insecurity shared by the staff may lead to all kinds of irrational behaviours in the work situation such as excessive pre-occupation with rules and regulations, rigidity in thinking, total resistance to anything new and unconventional etc., Any change envisaged such as “switching over to computerized handling of accounts, automation etc., is perceived as a threat, even if the organisation assures protection of employees from the effects of such automation and even when such measure could benefit the employees. From this it is clear that both the Top Administration, and the middle and first level officers should not create conditions, which lead to accumulated feelings of insecurity in the minds of staff, in their day to day dealings with them. If sense of insecurity is developed in the minds of staff in the day to day dealings, it will nullify the positive effect of even the well intended programmes such as the practice of giving permanency in jobs, social security measures etc. which are implemented to meet security needs.
3. Social Needs: Man is a social animal, although the strength of this need varies from individual to individual depending upon their family and socio-cultural background. He is interested in conversation, companionship, in seeking belongingness, in seeking acceptance in a group etc., These social needs are also called “Affiliation” needs. They express in the job situation in several ways. For example, they express as:
- The need to like and to be liked.
- The need to have people around who care for each other.
- The need to be listened to them and to show genuine interest in their problems.
- The need to be in good books of the boss.
- The need to know whether they are meeting the expectations of their superior.
- The need to be a member of work group and to be in an atmosphere of approval and acceptance by the members of the group.
- The need to have friendly, approachable and helpful boss.
- The need to do something in common with the members of one’s group or to work for a common goal.
- The need to share common values with the members of a group with which one identifies.
- Desire to work with shared understanding of each other’s contributions and mutual support and appreciation. The desire to stay and work in an atmosphere of friendliness, understanding and co-operation rather in an atmosphere of rivalry and unfriendliness.
The strategy of playing against one another creates intense rivalry and conflict in which one tries to destroy the other, although this style might prompt the subordinates to compete with each other in getting into the good books of the Boss, by being subservient and blindly obedient to him and his wishes.
The officers can also manipulates the social need situation in such a way that it is used for punishing the staff. Willfully ignoring or showing indifference towards a staff member, transferring an employee from a key position to a lesser important position and such other practice can amount to punishment. In such cases, the effected individual is deprived of satisfaction of some of his social needs.
4. Self – esteem and Ego (Status) Needs: These include need for status (or feeling important) need for freedom and participation, and need for responsibility and appreciation and recognition of good work. Persons develop self confidence when they experience satisfaction from recognition from superiors and peers and consequently feel that they are important persons.
5. Self actualization needs: These needs express themselves as the desire to do a job well, do a difficult and challenging job, do a whole task and assume responsibility (rather than carrying out fractionated parts of a job), do a job which requires mental application (rather than doing a routine job), to have some goals (targets) to aim at, to know (feed-back) how one is fairing at a task, to learn new ideas, to innovate in work, to undertake special assignments and to utilize one’s skills and special abilities. In the advance stage of self actualization, the person aspires to become more and more what he is capable of becoming.
Maslow conceived these needs categories as following a hierarchical order, in the sense that the needs at the higher levels of the hierarchy operate only when the needs at the lower hierarchical levels are reasonably satisfied. For example – Social needs do not dominate, until physiological and security needs are reasonably satisfied. Similarly, Ego needs are not aroused for expression, until all other needs below it are reasonably satisfied. This truth was expressed by Gandhiji when he said that “to a hungry man even God will appear only in the form of bread” or it was expressed by Lenin when he said that “if food is given to people, they will ask for poetry.”
The other side of the need hierarchy is that man is a wanting animal, he continues to seek something or other. He is never fully satisfied. If one need is satisfied, other need arises. According to the hierarchy of needs, a person can be motivated only if the motivational attempts match with his predominant position in the need hierarchy. For instance, if the person expects satisfaction of social needs much more than that of any other needs, attempts to motivate him by allowing freedom in his work and giving discretion in taking decisions may not work. On the other hand, attempts to motivate such a person with social need-orientation should be related to that orientation and it should be such actions on the part of his superior as encouraging him to work as a member of his work group, behaving with him with a sense of personal touch, listening to his personal problems and counselling him and so on.
Maslow classified the need categories into two broad groups namely lower order needs and higher order needs. Physiological, safety and social class of needs and some of the needs belonging to Ego need category are grouped under lower order needs (also called Deficiency needs) and self-actualization category of needs and some of the needs in the self-esteem category are grouped under higher order needs (also called Growth Needs). Deficiency needs are potent and activate behaviour only till they are satisfied. Once these needs are satisfied they loose their potency to activate behaviour. Man lives for bread alone along as it is not available. Once it is available and once it is satisfied at a particular level, it does not motivate the person. He raises his expectations and he will be motivated only if he sees his chance for satisfaction of other needs. Thus, it may be necessary to provide more and more to meet the perpetually rising levels of expectations and thereby to sustain motivation. An organization may not be able to do this due to practical constraints. In organisational life we find employees asking for more, when their previous expectations are met. Thus, these needs are potent only when they are in a state of deficiency or when they are deprived and hence called “Deficiency Needs” In Contrast to this, the satisfying experience of growth needs continuously energizes motivation (or drive) of the people and keeps him in action. Hence these are called “Growth Needs.”
Hertzberg Theory of Motivation
Hertzberg, an American Psychologist and his colleagues applied the concept of Maslow’s needs to the job situation in order to study motivating work outcomes. They called the job situation (opportunities in the job for need satisfaction or incentives) as “Job Factors”. They provided some new insights into the relationships between job satisfaction and job performance. They reported certain findings which are summarized below:
The satisfaction of certain classes of job needs which they called ‘Hygienes’ kept the employees from being dissatisfied with their jobs. The Hygiene Factors are salary, good working conditions and supportive supervision. Employee dissatisfaction in regard to these leads to dysfunctional consequences such as tardiness, work indiscipline, accidents, absenteeism and labour turnover. There was no indication that the fulfillment of these needs resulted in better employee performance and work output. These factors are thus comparable to hygiene. For example when garbage is heaped up in a place, the problem of lack of hygiene immediately catches out attention. On the other hand if the place is need and clean, the hygiene aspect goes unnoticed. Similarly, if the above sources of satisfaction are absent, it leads to poor employee – employer relations, which catches immediate attention of the employers. The presence of these factors alone does not contribute to productivity. In contrast to the so called ‘Hygiene factors’, there are other factors, which are in the nature of the work itself (or also called intrinsic factors), the fulfillment of which leads to productivity and personal effectiveness. Hertzberg called them as “Motivators’ some of the Motivators are freedom for employees to exercise control on the job, opportunity to assume responsibility, recognition for achievement, opportunity for learning and development, sense of competition etc. This theory is known as “Two Factor Theory of Motivation.
Though there are certain objections raised against this theory, it has stimulated new thinking about the scope of satisfaction of employee needs and productivity. I casts doubt on the validity of the general assumptions about the nature of employees – such assumptions as employees are intrinsically lazy and prefer to be supervised closely, that they seek only monetary benefits and that they are not concerned with opportunities in the job for satisfaction of higher orders needs, needs concerned with realization of human freedom and dignity and utilization of one’s skills and capabilities. Motivation – Hygiene theory on the other hand emphasizes the importance of fulfilling Hygiene factors for the sake of keeping a contended workforce free from major labour relations problems and that of fulfilling Motivations for performance efficiency and productivity.
One way to look at work motivation is in terms of human needs and their operations as discussed above. Another way is to see it as a readiness on the part of the person to work as best as his abilities permit, when proper conditions are prevailing. This view of motivation is known as “Expectancy Theories” of Motivation. According to Expectancy theories, an employees will try to work to his capacities if he finds that the chance of achieving results are high, when he works hard and that the chance of his getting rewards are also there, if he shows high productivity. Some of the examples of rewards are salary, promotion, appreciation of good work, opportunities to use one’s abilities and special skills, opportunity to learn and increase one’s competence etc.
The perception on the part of employees that the chances of achieving high productivity are high is called the subjective probability related to the first level outcome. Achievement of higher productivity is the First level outcome. Getting rewards as a result of high productivity is the subjective probability with regard to Second level outcome. The second level outcomes are the incentives which attract the employees. Thus, if the job incentives are attractive to the employees (also called valence) and that if working hard and achieving high productivity lead to achievement of rewards, then they will be motivated to put in their best. The incentives (rewards), the instrumentality (the belief that the second level outcomes will be the result of first level outcome) and the expectancy (the belief that the increased efforts will lead to increased production) follow a multiplicative relationship as shown below:
Motivation = Incentives X Instrumentality X Expectancy
or
High Quality effort = High attraction (or valence) for second level outcome X High Instrumentality X High Expectancy
The implication of this multiplicative function is that if any one of these three factors is Zero, the resulting motivation will also be zero, and an increase in each of the factors raises the level of work motivation. In other words, for high motivation, salary, promotion, appreciation and other rewards (second level outcome) should be valued by employees and that they should perceive that these follow high productivity (Instrumentality) and that they will be able to bring about high productivity with their effort (Expectancy). They will be able to produce results with their effort only if they have proper working conditions or only if the conditions associated with their work are under their control. If there are situational factors, which are not under their control, which hampering productivity, they may not feel like putting in their best efforts. Among many rewards, both monetary and non – monetary, the process of working well (Task accomplishment) provides several sources of satisfaction such as the satisfaction from utilizing one’s special abilities and skills, opportunity for learning and development, satisfaction from the sense of challenge, satisfaction from a job well done etc.
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