MGT 370 Chap 12

Job Design for motivation

A job in an organization is a unit of work that a single employee is responsible for performing. Jobs are important because performance of their components may provide rewards that meet employees' needs.

The Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory proposes that humans are motivated by multiple needs, existing in a hierarchical order. He identified five general types of motivating needs in order of ascendance: The lower-order needs take priority in that they must be satisfied before higher-order needs are activated. The needs are satisfied in sequence; once a need is satisfied, it declines in importance and the next higher need is activated. If a lower-level need ceases to be satisfied, however, it will re-emerge and take precedence over higher order needs until it is once again satisfied.

Expectancy theory

Associated with the work of Victor Vroom, suggests that motivation depends on individuals' expectations about their ability to perform tasks and receive desired rewards. It focuses on the thinking process individuals use to obtain rewards. Expectancy theory is based on the relationship among the individual's effort, performance, and the desirability of outcomes associated with high performance.

The most common methods for reducing a perceived inequity are:

Change work effort: such as by decreasing the level of effort or increasing absenteeism. Change outcomes such as by obtaining a salary increase or other additional benefits or perks. Change perceptions such as, by artificially increasing the status attached to one's job. Leave the job: If equity cannot be restored through any of the previous methods, people may decide to leave their jobs rather than suffer the inequity of being underpaid or overpaid expecting to find a more favorable balance of rewards.

Acquired Needs

David McClelland developed acquired needs theory, which proposes that certain types of needs are acquired or learned during an individual's lifetime. People are not born with these needs, but may learn them through life experiences. McClelland addressed three categories of needs.

Employee Growth-Need Strength:

Employee growth-need strength is the final component of the model. It means that people have different needs for growth and development. If a person wants to satisfy low-level needs, such as safety and belongingness, the job characteristics model has less effect. When a person has a high need for growth and development and the desire for personal challenge, achievement, and challenging work, the model is effective.

A Two-Factor Approach to Motivation

Frederick Herzberg asserted that work characteristics associated with dissatisfaction were different from those pertaining to satisfaction. This prompted the idea that two different factors influenced work motivation and an employee's behavior at work, leading to his development of the two-factor theory. The two factors that influence motivation are hygiene factors and motivators. The manager's role is to provide hygiene factors to meet basic needs and use motivators to meet higher-level needs to propel employees toward achievement and satisfaction.

Goal-setting theory

Goal setting increases motivation because it enables people to focus their energies in the right direction. People know what to work toward, so they can direct their efforts toward the most important activities to accomplish the goals. Goals energize behavior because people feel compelled to develop plans and strategies that keep them focused to accomplish the objectives.

work redesign

Hackman and Oldham's research concerns work redesign, defined as altering jobs to increase both the quality of employees' work experience and their productivity.

Exhibit 12.2 in the text illustrates four categories of motives—intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

Intrinsic rewards are the satisfactions a person receives in the process of performing a particular action. Extrinsic rewards are given by another person, typically a manager, and include promotions, praise, and pay increases.

Reinforcement theory

Looks at the relationship between behavior and its consequences. The focus is on changing or modifying the employees' on-the-job behavior through the appropriate use of immediate rewards and punishments.

Expectancy theory

Managers' responsibility is to help subordinates meet their needs and at the same time attain organizational goals. Managers try to find a match between a subordinate's skills and abilities, job demands, and available rewards. Companies use expectancy theory principles by designing incentive systems that identify organizational outcomes and give everyone a chance for rewards. The trick in designing a system that fits with employees' abilities and needs.

Critical Psychological States: This model states that core job dimensions are more rewarding when individuals experience three psychological states in response to job design

Meaningfulness of work. The work itself is satisfying and provides intrinsic rewards. Experienced responsibility. Autonomy influences the experience of responsibility. Knowledge of actual results. Feedback provides information about results. Employees know how they are performing and can change work performance to increase desired outcomes.

Many organizations give employees a voice in how pay and incentive systems are designed, which increases motivation by increasing employees' involvement.

Motivational programs that have the greatest impact typically involve much more than money. Two recent motivational trends are empowering employees and framing work to have greater meaning.

McClelland addressed three categories of needs.

Need for achievement: The desire to accomplish something difficult, attain a high standard of success, master complex tasks, and surpass others. Need for affiliation: The desire to form close personal relationships, avoid conflict, and establish warm friendships. Need for power: The desire to influence or control others, be responsible for others, and have authority over others.

Individual Needs and Motivation

People have needs—such as for recognition, achievement, or monetary gain—that translates into an internal tension that motivates specific behaviors with which to fulfill various needs. Needs motivate specific behavior designed to fulfill those needs. Feedback tells people whether they were successful in fulfilling their needs. If so, they feel rewarded by their success. Managers who understand the motives that compel people to initiate, alter, or continue a desired behavior are more successful as motivators

five general types of motivating needs in order of ascendance:

Physiological needs. Safety needs. Belongingness needs. Esteem needs. Self-actualization needs.

Core Job Dimensions: The more a job contains these core characteristics, the higher the motivation, quality of performance, and satisfaction will be. A job's motivational potential includes:

Skill variety. The number of diverse activities that compose a job and the number of skills used to perform it. Task identity. The degree to which an employee performs a total job with a recognizable beginning and ending. Task significance. The degree to which a job is perceived as important and having an impact on the company or customers. Autonomy. The degree to which the worker has freedom, discretion, and self-determination in planning and carrying out tasks. Feedback. The extent to which doing the job provides information to the employee about his/her performance.

law of effect

The basic assumption underlying behavior modification, which states that behavior that is positively reinforced tends to be repeated, and behavior that is not reinforced tends not to be repeated.

Personal And Work Outcomes:

The impact of the five job characteristics on the psychological states of experienced meaningfulness, responsibility, and knowledge of actual results leads to the personal and work outcomes of high work motivation, high work performance, high satisfaction, and low absenteeism and turnover.

Managers as Motivators

The importance of motivation is that it can lead to behaviors that reflect high performance and profits within organizations. Managers have to find the right combination of motivational techniques and rewards to keep workers satisfied and productive in a variety of organizational situations.

Physiological needs.

The most basic human physical needs including food, water, and oxygen. In the organizational setting, these needs include adequate heat, air, and base salary to ensure survival.

Belongingness needs.

These needs are the desire to be accepted by one's peers, have friends, be part of a group, and be loved. On the job, this translates into a desire for good relationships with co-workers, participation in a work group, and a positive relationship with supervisors.

Self-actualization needs.

This is the highest need category and represents the need for self-fulfillment—developing one's full potential, increasing one's competence, and becoming a better person. These needs can be met in an organizational setting by providing opportunities to grow, encouraging creativity, and providing training for challenging assignments and advancement.

Behavior modification

is the technique by which reinforcement theory is used to modify behavior.

E P expectancy

involves determining whether putting effort into a task will lead to high performance. The individual must have the ability, previous experience, and necessary resources and opportunity to perform.

Employee engagement

means that people enjoy their jobs and are satisfied with their work conditions, contribute enthusiastically to meeting team and organizational goals, and feel a sense of belonging and commitment to the organization.

Empowering employees involves giving them four elements that enable them to act more freely to accomplish their jobs: information, knowledge, power, and rewards.

Employees receive information about company performance. In companies where employees are fully empowered, all employees have access to all financial and operational information. Employees have knowledge and skills to contribute to company goals. Companies use training programs to help employees acquire the knowledge and skills they need to contribute to organizational performance. Employees have the power to make substantive decisions. Empowered workers have the authority to directly influence work procedures and organizational performance, often through quality circles or self-directed work teams. Employees are rewarded based on company performance. Organizations that empower workers often reward them based on the results shown in the company's bottom line.

Esteem needs.

Esteem needs relate to the desire for a positive self-image and the need to receive attention, recognition, and appreciation from others. These needs are reflected in organizations as a desire for recognition, increased responsibility, high status, and credit for contributions to the organization.

ERG theory identified three categories of needs.

Existence needs. These are the needs for physical well-being. Relatedness needs. These pertain to the need for satisfactory relationships with others. Growth needs. These focus on the development of human potential and the desire for personal growth and increased competence.

Job enrichment

Job rotation systematically moves employees from one job to another, increasing the number of different tasks an employee performs. Job enlargement combines a series of tasks into one new, broader job. The primary trend is toward job enrichment, which incorporates high-level motivators into the work including job responsibility, recognition, and opportunities for growth, learning, and achievement. Employees have control over the resources necessary for the job, make decisions on how to do the work, experience personal growth, and set their own work pace. Job enrichment increases employees' motivation and job satisfaction.

McClelland studied human needs and their implications for management.

People with a high need for achievement are frequently entrepreneurs. People with high need for affiliation are successful integrators, whose job is to coordinate the work of several departments in an organization. A high need for power is often associated with successful attainment of top levels in the organizational hierarchy.

Safety needs.

These are the needs for a safe and secure physical and emotional environment and free from threats of violence. In an organizational workplace, safety needs are for safe jobs, fringe benefits, and job security.

The ERG model and Maslow's need hierarchy are similar

both are hierarchical and presume individuals move up the hierarchy one need at a time. However, the ERG model suggests reduced number of need categories and the movement up the hierarchy as more complex reflecting a frustrationregression principle. The ERG model suggests that individuals may move down as well as up the hierarchy depending on their ability to satisfy needs.

Empowerment

can mean encouraging workers' ideas while managers retain authority, or it can mean employees have the freedom and power to make decisions and exercise initiative. Current methods fall along a continuum from no discretion for workers to full empowerment where workers participate in formulating strategy.

ERG theory

developed by Clayton Alderfer and is a modification of Maslow's theory in an effort to simplify it and respond to criticisms of its lack of empirical verification. ERG theory identified three categories of needs.

content theories

emphasize the needs that motivate people; people have a variety of needs at any point in time. These needs translate into an internal drive that motivates specific behaviors in an attempt to satisfy the needs. To the extent that managers understand employees' needs, they can design reward systems that meet them direct employees' energies and priorities toward attaining organizational goals.

Process theories

explain how employees select behaviors with which to meet their needs and determine if their choices were successful. The basic process theories are goal-setting, equity theory, and expectancy theory.

P O expectancy

involves determining whether successful performance will lead to the desired outcome. It is the belief that high performance will lead to a desired reward.

Reinforcement

is defined as anything that causes a certain behavior to be repeated or inhibited. There are four common reinforcement tools: positive reinforcement, avoidance learning, punishment, and extinction.

A thriving workforce

is one in which people are just not satisfied and productive but also engaged in creating the future—their own and that of the organization. Two components of thriving workforce are vitality and learning. Managers can promote thriving workforce by applying many of the motivational techniques, such as meeting higher-level needs, helping people get intrinsic rewards from their work, and providing regular feedback on performance and progress. Two specific approaches that can be used to build thriving workforce are empowering employees and creating an environment that promotes employee engagement.

Vicarious learning or observational learning

occurs when an individual sees others perform certain behaviors and get rewarded for them. This can be made used by managers to enhance employees' motivation to perform desired behaviors by ensuring that the employee (i) has a chance to observe the desirable behaviors (ii) accurately perceives the behavior (iii) remembers the behaviors (iv) has the necessary to skills to perform the behaviors (v) sees that the behaviors are rewarded by the organization.

Goal-setting theory includes four key components:

Goal specificity: The degree to which goals are concrete and unambiguous. Goal difficulty: The notion that hard goals are more motivating than easy ones. Goal acceptance: Employees must "buy into" the goals and be committed to them. Feedback: People get information about how well they are doing in progressing toward goal achievement.

The job characteristics model

comprises core job dimensions, critical psychological states, and employee growth-need strength.

Equity theory

developed by J. Stacy Adams, focuses on individuals' perceptions of how fairly they are treated relative to others. People evaluate equity by a ratio of inputs to outcomes. Inputs to a job include such things as education, experience, effort, and ability. Outcomes from a job include such things as pay, recognition, benefits, and promotions.

Empowerment

is power sharing, the delegation of power or authority to subordinates in an organization. Increasing employee power heightens motivation for task accomplishment because people improve their own effectiveness, choosing how to do a task using their creativity. Empowering employees involves giving them four elements that enable them to act more freely to accomplish their jobs: information, knowledge, power, and rewards.

Social learning theory

is related to the reinforcement perspective, but it proposes that an individual's motivation can result not just from direct experience of rewards and punishments, but also from the person's thoughts and beliefs and his or her observations of other people's behavior.

Positive reinforcement

is the application of a pleasant and rewarding consequence following a desired behavior. Praise for a job well done increases the likelihood the excellent work behavior will occur again. Studies show that positive reinforcement improves performance.

Job design

is the application of motivational theories to the structure of work for improving productivity and satisfaction.

Punishment

is the application of unpleasant consequences following undesirable behavior. The use of punishment in organizations is controversial because it fails to indicate the correct behavior. Almost all managers find the need to impose punishment occasionally, from reprimands to employee suspensions or firings

Avoidance learning

is the removal of an unpleasant consequence following a desired behavior, sometimes called negative reinforcement. Employees learn to do the right thing by avoiding unpleasant situations. An example would be when a supervisor stops criticizing an employee once the incorrect behavior has stopped.

Extinction

is the withdrawal of a positive reward following undesirable behavior. Extinction involves withholding pay raises, praise, and other positive outcomes with the idea in mind that behaviors that are not positively reinforced will be less likely to occur in the future.

Variable compensation and forms of "at risk" pay are

key motivational tools and are becoming more common than fixed salaries at many companies. The programs can be effective if they are used appropriately and combined with motivational ideas that also provide intrinsic rewards and meet higher level needs.

making progress principle

making progress principle is the idea that the single most important factor that can boost motivation, positive emotions, and perceptions during a workday is making progress toward meaningful goals. Recent research indicates the importance of making progress toward goals as a key to motivation

input-to-output ratio

may be compared with another person in the work group or to a perceived group average. If people perceive that their input-to-outcome ratio is equal to that of those to whom they compare themselves, they believe their treatment is fair and equitable. A state of equity exists whenever the ratio of one person's outcomes to incomes equals the ratio of another person. Inequity exists when these ratios are not equal. Perceived inequity creates tensions within individuals that motivate them to bring equity into balance.

Goal-setting theory

proposes that specific, challenging goals increase motivation and performance when the goals are accepted by subordinates who receive feedback to indicate progress toward goal achievement.

Motivation

refers to the forces either within or external to a person that arouse enthusiasm and persistence to pursue a certain course of action. Employee motivation affects productivity, and part of a manager's job is to channel motivation toward accomplishment of organizational goals. The study of motivation helps understand what prompts people to initiate action, what influences their choice of action, and why they persist in that action over time.

Motivators

relate to higher-order needs and include things such as achievement, recognition, responsibility, the work itself, and the opportunity for personal growth. When motivating factors are present, workers are highly motivated and satisfied. The absence of motivating factors removes satisfaction, but does not cause dissatisfaction. Instead, employees are neutral toward work.

Hygiene factors

relate to lower-order needs and involve the absence or presence of job dissatisfiers, such as working conditions, pay and security, company policies, supervisors, and interpersonal relationships. When hygiene factors are poor, work is dissatisfying. Good hygiene factors remove the dissatisfaction, but they do not cause satisfaction or motivation. Instead, employees are neutral toward work.

frustrationregression principle

suggests that failure to meet a higher-order need may trigger regression to an already fulfilled lower-order need. For example, a worker who cannot fulfill a need for personal growth may revert to a lower-order social need and redirect his or her efforts toward making a lot of money.

The implication of equity theory for managers

that employees evaluate the perceived equity of their rewards compared to others'. An increase in salary or promotion will not motivate if it is perceived as inequitable relative to other employees. Smart managers try to keep employees' feelings of equity in balance to keep their workforce motivated.

Valence

the value of outcomes, or attraction to outcomes, for the individual. If an employee does not value the outcomes available from high effort and good performance, motivation will be low. If outcomes have a high value, motivation will be higher. Expectancy theory attempts to establish that needs and rewards exist and may be different for every individual.

Smart managers see that having engaged, motivated employees has less to do with extrinsic rewards than with fostering an environment in which people can flourish. The behavior of managers is what makes the biggest difference in employee motivation and whether employees flourish at work. The three elements to creating employee engagement are: a sense of meaningfulness, a sense of connection, and a sense of growth. The manager's role is to organize the workplace in such a way to create these feelings in order for employee engagement to grow, leading to high motivation and high organizational performance.

People feel they are working toward something of importance. People experience a sense of meaningfulness when they have a chance to accomplish something that provides real value to the world. People feel connected to the company, to one another, and to their managers. People have the chance to learn, grow, and advance. To be fully engaged, people need not only to feel that they are competent to handle what is asked of them, but also that they have the chance to learn and expand their potential.