CH 11 & 12 Managing Individual Differences & Behavior/Motivating Employees

4. Unsupportive Social Atmosphere

Diverse employees may be excluded from office camaraderie and social events.

Diversity

Diversity represents all the ways people are unlike and alike—the differences and similarities in age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, capabilities, and socioeconomic background.

Content Perspectives

Content perspectives, also known as need-based perspectives, are theories that emphasize the needs that motivate people.

Alderfer's ERG Theory: Existence, Relatedness, & Growth

Developed by Clayton Alderfer in the late 1960s, ERG theory assumes that three basic needs influence behavior—existence, relatedness, and growth, represented by the letters E, R, and G.

The Job Characteristics Model: Five Job Attributes for Better Work Outcomes

Developed by researchers J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham, the job characteristics model of design is an outgrowth of job enrichment. The job characteristics model consists of (a) five core job characteristics that affect (b) three critical psychological states of an employee that in turn affect (c) work outcomes—the employee's motivation, performance, and satisfaction.

Motivation & Compensation

Most people are paid an hourly wage or a weekly or monthly salary. Both of these are easy for organizations to administer, of course. But by itself a wage or a salary gives an employee little incentive to work hard. Incentive compensation plans try to do so, although no single plan will boost the performance of all employees.

Motivation

Motivation may be defined as the psychological processes that arouse and direct goal-directed behavior.

6. Lack of Support for Career-Building Steps

Organizations may not provide diverse employees with the types of work assignments that will help qualify them for positions in senior management. In addition, organizations may fail to provide the kind of informal training or mentoring that will help them learn the political savvy to do networking and other activities required to get ahead.

When Attitudes & Reality Collide: Consistency & Cognitive Dissonance

One of the last things you want, probably, is to be accused of hypocrisy—to be criticized for saying one thing and doing another. Like most people, you no doubt want to maintain consistency between your attitudes and your behavior. But what if a strongly held attitude bumps up against a harsh reality that contradicts it? Suppose you're extremely concerned about getting AIDS, which you believe you might get from contact with body fluids, including blood. Then you're in a life-threatening auto accident in a third-world country and require surgery and blood transfusions—including transfusions of blood from (possibly AIDS-infected) strangers in a blood bank. Do you reject the blood to remain consistent with your beliefs about getting AIDS?

People with Differing Physical & Mental Abilities

One out of six Americans has a physical or mental disability, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Since 1992 we have had the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against the disabled and requires organizations to reasonably accommodate an individual's disabilities. Even so, disabled people have difficulty finding work. Although two-thirds of people with disabilities want to work, roughly two-thirds are unemployed. (Among working-age blind adults, for example, about 70% are out of work.) Here, too, is a talent pool that managers will no doubt find themselves tapping into in the coming years.

Buffers

Or administrative changes, that managers can make to reduce the stressors that lead to employee burnout.

Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior (OB), which is dedicated to better understanding and management of people at work.

3. Evaluating Behavior That Exceeds Work Roles: Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Organizational citizenship behaviors are those employee behaviors that are not directly part of employees' job descriptions—that exceed their work-role requirements. Examples, according to one description, include "such gestures as constructive statements about the department, expression of personal interest in the work of others, suggestions for improvement, training new people, respect for the spirit as well as the letter of housekeeping rules, care for organizational property, and punctuality and attendance well beyond standard or enforceable levels." Research demonstrates a significant and moderately positive correlation between organizational citizenship behaviors and job satisfaction, productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

3. Organizational Commitment

Organizational commitment reflects the extent to which an employee identifies with an organization and is committed to its goals. For instance, some managers question whether mothers with children can be fully committed to their jobs, although one survey found that only 4% of more than 2,612 women said that their bosses think they are not as committed to their jobs because they have children. Research shows a strong positive relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction and a moderate association with job performance. Thus, managers are advised to increase job satisfaction to elicit higher levels of commitment. In turn, higher commitment can facilitate higher performance. It can also reduce employee turnover.

Contextual Factors

Organizational culture Cross-cultural values Physical Environment Rewards and Reinforcement Group norms Communication technology Leader behavior Organizational design

Organizational Dimensions

Organizational dimensions include management status, union affiliation, work location, seniority, work content, and division or department.

5. Emotional Intelligence: "I'm Pretty Good/Not Good at Understanding My Emotions & the Emotions of Others"

Emotional intelligence (EI) has been defined as "the ability to carry out accurate reasoning about emotions and the ability to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought." Said another way, emotional intelligence is the ability to cope, to empathize with others, and to be self-motivated. The trait of emotional intelligence was first introduced in 1909. Since that time much research has examined the components of EI and its consequences.

1. Stereotypes & Prejudices

Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's native country, culture, language, abilities, or behavior is superior to those of another culture. (An example was the "Linsanity" or surprised enthusiasm expressed by sports fans in 2012 over pro basketball player Jeremy Lin, a Harvard-educated economics graduate of Chinese descent, who defied racial stereotypes by scoring at least 23 points—in one case 38 points—in his first four games with the New York Knicks. Before Lin, everyone assumed that blacks and whites were better basketball players than Asian Americans.) When differences are viewed as being weaknesses—which is what many stereotypes and prejudices ultimately come down to—this may be expressed as a concern that diversity hiring will lead to a sacrifice in competence and quality.

4. Group Demands: The Stress Created by Coworkers & Managers

Even if you don't particularly care for the work you do but like the people you work with, that can be a great source of satisfaction and prevent stress. When people don't get along, that can be a great stressor. Alternatively, even if you have stress under control, a coworker's stress might bother you, diminishing productivity. In addition, managers can create stress for employees. People who have bad managers are five times more likely to have stress-induced headaches, upset stomachs, and loss of sleep.

1. Evaluating Behavior When Employees Are Working: Performance & Productivity

Every job has certain expectations, but in some jobs performance and productivity are easier to define than in others. How many contacts should a telemarketing sales rep make in a day? How many sales should he or she close? Often a job of this nature will have a history of accomplishments (from what previous job holders have attained) so that it is possible to quantify performance behavior. However, an advertising agency account executive handling major clients such as a carmaker or a beverage manufacturer may go months before landing this kind of big account. Or a researcher in a pharmaceutical company may take years to develop a promising new prescription drug. In short, the method of evaluating performance must match the job being done.

Fitting Jobs to People

Fitting jobs to people is based on the assumption that people are underutilized at work and that they want more variety, challenges, and responsibility. This philosophy, an outgrowth of Herzberg's theory, is one of the reasons for the popularity of work teams in the United States. The main challenge for managers is "How can we make the work most compatible with the worker so as to produce both high performance and high job satisfaction?" Two techniques for this type of job design include (1) job enlargement and (2) job enrichment.

Five Traits Important in Organizations

Five of the most important personality traits that managers need to be aware of to understand workplace behavior are (1) locus of control, (2) self-efficacy, (3) self-esteem, (4) self-monitoring, and (5) emotional intelligence.

A SIMPLE MODEL OF MOTIVATION

For example, as an hourly worker you desire more money (need), which impels you (motivates you) to work more hours (behavior), which provides you with more money (reward) and informs you (feedback loop) that working more hours will fulfill your need for more money in the future. Rewards (as well as motivation itself) are of two types—extrinsic and intrinsic. Managers can use both to encourage better work performance.

THE DIVERSITY WHEEL

Four layers of diversity.

Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory: From Dissatisfying Factors to Satisfying Factors

Frederick Herzberg arrived at his needs-based theory as a result of a landmark study of 203 accountants and engineers, who were interviewed to determine the factors responsible for job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Job satisfaction was more frequently associated with achievement, recognition, characteristics of the work, responsibility, and advancement. Job dissatisfaction was more often associated with working conditions, pay and security, company policies, supervisors, and interpersonal relationships. The result was Herzberg's two-factor theory, which proposed that work satisfaction and dissatisfaction arise from two different factors—work satisfaction from motivating factors and work dissatisfaction from hygiene factors.

Reinforcement Theory

From these underpinnings has come reinforcement theory, which attempts to explain behavior change by suggesting that behavior with positive consequences tends to be repeated, whereas behavior with negative consequences tends not to be repeated. The use of reinforcement theory to change human behavior is called behavior modification.

Gainsharing

Gainsharing is the distribution of savings or "gains" to groups of employees who reduced costs and increased measurable productivity. Perhaps a quarter of Fortune 1000 companies have adopted gainsharing. In one version (the so-called Scanlon plan), a portion of any cost savings, usually 75%, are distributed to employees. Example: Indianapolis-based Mike's Carwash, which was named one of 2009's top small workplaces by The Wall Street Journal, paid out $569,000 in gainsharing the previous year to 437 employees in 37 locations who had been challenged to beat targets set at the corporate level.

Companies Formal Aspects

If you look at a company's annual report or at a brochure from its corporate communications department, you are apt to be given a picture of its formal aspects: Goals. Policies. Hierarchy. Structure. Could you exert effective leadership if the formal aspects were all you knew about the company? What about the informal aspects? Values. Attitudes. Personalities. Perceptions. Conflicts. Culture. Clearly, you need to know about these hidden, "messy" characteristics as well.

Sabbaticals

Intel and Apple understand that in a climate of 80-hour weeks people need to recharge themselves. But even McDonald's offers sabbaticals to longtime employees, giving a month to a year of paid time off in which to travel, learn, and pursue personal projects. The aim, of course, is to enable employees to recharge themselves but also, it is hoped, to cement their loyalty to the organization.

Internal Dimensions

Internal dimensions of diversity are those human differences that exert a powerful, sustained effect throughout every stage of our lives: gender, age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, physical abilities. These are referred to as the primary dimensions of diversity because they are not within our control for the most part. Yet they strongly influence our attitudes and expectations and assumptions about other people, which in turn influence our own behavior. What characterizes internal dimensions of diversity is that they are visible and salient in people. And precisely because these characteristics are so visible, they may be associated with certain stereotypes—for example, that black people work in menial jobs. For instance, an African American female middle manager reports that, while on vacation and sitting by the pool at a resort, she was approached by a 50ish white male who "demanded that I get him extra towels. I said, 'Excuse me?' He then said, 'Oh, you don't work here,' with no shred of embarrassment or apology in his voice."

Expectancy Theory: How Much Do You Want & How Likely Are You to Get It?

Introduced by Victor Vroom, expectancy theory suggests that people are motivated by two things: (1) how much they want something and (2) how likely they think they are to get it. In other words, assuming they have choices, people will make the choice that promises them the greatest reward if they think they can get it.

Ethnocentrism

Is the belief that one's native country, culture, language, abilities, or behavior is superior to those of another culture.

Equity Theory: How Fairly Do You Think You're Being Treated in Relation to Others?

Fairness—or, perhaps equally important, the perception of fairness—can be a big issue in organizations. For example, if, as a salesperson for Target, you received a 10% bonus for doubling your sales, would that be enough? What if other Target salespeople received 15%?

Reducing Stressors in the Organization

There are all kinds of buffers, or administrative changes, that managers can make to reduce the stressors that lead to employee burnout. Examples: Extra staff or equipment at peak periods. Increased freedom to make decisions. Recognition for accomplishments. Time off for rest or personal development. Assignment to a new position. Three- to five-day employee retreats at off-site locations for relaxation and team-building activities. Sabbatical leave programs to replenish employees' energy and desire to work.

Positive Reinforcement

There are several aspects of positive reinforcement, which should definitely be part of your toolkit of managerial skills: Reward only desirable behavior. You should give rewards to your employees only when they show desirable behavior. Thus, for example, you should give praise to employees not for showing up for work on time (an expected part of any job) but for showing up early. Give rewards as soon as possible. You should give a reward as soon as possible after the desirable behavior appears. Thus, you should give praise to an early-arriving employee as soon as he or she arrives, not later in the week. Be clear about what behavior is desired. Clear communication is everything. You should tell employees exactly what kinds of work behaviors are desirable and you should tell everyone exactly what they must do to earn rewards. Have different rewards and recognize individual differences. Recognizing that different people respond to different kinds of rewards, you should have different rewards available. Thus, you might give a word of praise verbally to one person, shoot a line or two by e-mail to another person, or send a hand-scrawled note to another.

The Sources of Job-Related Stress

There are six sources of stress on the job: (1) demands created by individual differences, (2) individual task demands, (3) individual role demands, (4) group demands, (5) organizational demands, and (6) nonwork demands.

Educational Levels: Mismatches Between Education & Workforce Needs

Two important mismatches between education and workplace are these: College graduates may be in jobs for which they are overqualified. About 27% of people working have a college degree. But some are underemployed—working at jobs that require less education than they have—such as tending bar, managing video stores, or other jobs that someone with less education could do. High-school dropouts and others may not have the literacy skills needed for many jobs. A 2009 study found that 8% of all people in the United States between the ages of 16 and 24 had dropped out of high school in 2009. More than one in five U.S. men were dropouts. In addition, literacy has dropped at every level of education. If, as has been alleged, more than two-thirds of the American workforce reads below ninth-grade level, that is a real problem for employers, because about 70% of the on-the-job reading materials are written at or above that level.

Type A Behavior Pattern

Type A behavior pattern, meaning they are involved in a chronic, determined struggle to accomplish more in less time.

Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWB)

Types of behavior that harm employees and the organization as a whole.

The Three Kinds of Needs

Unlike Maslow's theory, ERG theory suggests that behavior is motivated by three needs, not five, and that more than one need may be activated at a time rather than activated in a stair-step hierarchy. From lowest to highest level, the three needs are as follows: 1. E—Existence Needs Existence needs are the desire for physiological and material well-being. 2. R—Relatedness Needs Relatedness needs are the desire to have meaningful relationships with people who are significant to us. 3. G—Growth Needs Growth needs are the desire to grow as human beings and to use our abilities to their fullest potential. Alderfer also held that if our higher-level needs (such as growth needs) are frustrated, we will then seek more intensely to fulfill our lower-level needs (such as existence needs). This is called the frustration-regression component.

Motivation: What It Is, Why It's Important

Why do people do the things they do? The answer is this: they are mainly motivated to fulfill their wants, their needs.

Important Workplace Behaviors

Why, as a manager, do you need to learn how to manage individual differences? The answer, as you might expect, is so that you can influence employees to do their best work. Among the types of behavior are (1) performance and productivity, (2) absenteeism and turnover, (3) organizational citizenship behaviors, and (4) counterproductive work behaviors.

Stock Options

With stock options, certain employees are given the right to buy stock at a future date for a discounted price. The motivator here is that employees holding stock options will supposedly work hard to make the company's stock rise so that they can obtain it at a cheaper price. By giving stock options to all employees who work 20 or more hours a week, Starbucks Corp. was able, prior to the recession, to hold its annual turnover rate to 60%—in an industry (fast food and restaurants) in which 300% is not unheard of.(The use of stock options has been criticized recently because many companies allowed "backdating"—permitting their executives to buy company stock at low purchase prices from previous days or weeks. As one writer points out, this is sort of like being able to make a fortune by betting on a Kentucky Derby whose outcome you've known for some time.)

Work-Life Benefits

Work-life benefits, according to Kathie Lingle, are programs "used by employers to increase productivity and commitment by removing certain barriers that make it hard for people to strike a balance between their work and personal lives." Lingle, who is national work-life director for KPMG, an accounting and consulting firm, emphasizes that work-life benefits "are not a reward, but a way of getting work done." After all, some employees are low performers simply because of a lack of life-work balance, with great demands at home. "If you only give these 'rewards' to existing high performers," says Lingle, "you're cutting people off who could, with some support, be high performers." Nevertheless, handing out extra time off can be used to reward performance and prevent burnout.94 Besides alternative scheduling, work-life benefits include helping employees with day care costs or even establishing on-site centers; domestic-partner benefits; job-protected leave for new parents; and provision of technology such as mobile phones and laptops to enable parents to work at home.

Underemployed

Working at jobs that require less education than they have.

Personal Factors

Personality Ability Core Self-evaluations Emotions Attitudes Need

Punishment: Also Weakens Behavior

Punishment is the process of weakening behavior by presenting something negative or withdrawing something positive. Example: A supervisor might tell an unsuccessful salesperson who's been lazy about making calls to clients and so didn't make quota, "Well, if this keeps up, you'll probably be let go." This could inhibit the salesperson from being so lackadaisical about making calls to clients. (Incidentally, criticism has a stronger impact than praise, suggests one social psychologist, and is longer lasting in its effects.)

Race/Ethnicity Stereotypes

Race/ethnicity stereotypes don't bear repeating here, but it is noteworthy that there are not a lot of Hispanic and African American managers in the United States. For example, in 2012, only 25.7% of Hispanics and Latinos held managerial, professional, and related jobs and only 32% of blacks, compared with 42.8% of whites and 46.7% of Asians. An encouraging sign, incidentally, is that analysis of census data found that in 14 of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, including Boston, New York, and San Francisco, more immigrants (who can be of any race, of course, but are often stereotyped as racial minorities) were employed in white-collar occupations than in lower-wage work, such as construction or cleaning.

Why High EI Is Important

Recent research underscores the importance of developing higher EI. It was associated with (1) better social relations for children and adults, (2) better family and intimate relationships, (3) being perceived more positively by others, (4) better academic achievement, and (5) better psychological well-being. Daniel Goleman, a psychologist who popularized the trait of EI, concluded that EI is composed of four key components: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

REINFORCEMENT PERSPECTIVES ON MOTIVATION

Reinforcement evades the issue of people's needs and thinking processes in relation to motivation, as we described under the need-based and process perspectives. Instead, the reinforcement perspective, which was pioneered by Edward L. Thorndike and B. F. Skinner, is concerned with how the consequences of a certain behavior affect that behavior in the future. Skinner was the father of operant conditioning, the process of controlling behavior by manipulating its consequences. Operant conditioning rests on Thorndike's law of effect, which states that behavior that results in a pleasant outcome is likely to be repeated and behavior that results in unpleasant outcomes is not likely to be repeated.

The Four Types of Reinforcement: Positive, Negative, Extinction, & Punishment

Reinforcement is anything that causes a given behavior to be repeated or inhibited, whether praising a child for cleaning his or her room or scolding a child for leaving a tricycle in the driveway. There are four types of reinforcement: (1) positive reinforcement, (2) negative reinforcement, (3) extinction, and (4) punishment.

Barriers to Diversity

Some barriers are erected by diverse people themselves. In the main, however, most barriers are put in their paths by organizations. When we speak of "the organization's barriers," we are, of course, referring to the people in the organization—especially those who may have been there for a while—who are resistant to making it more diverse. Resistance to change in general is an attitude that all managers come up against from time to time, and resistance to diversity is simply one variation. It may be expressed in the following six ways:

3. Resistance to Diversity Program Priorities

Some companies, such as 3M, offer special classes teaching tolerance for diversity, seminars in how to get along. Some employees may see diversity programs as distracting them from the organization's "real work." In addition, they may be resentful of diversity-promoting policies that are reinforced through special criteria in the organization's performance appraisals and reward systems.

2. Fear of Reverse Discrimination

Some employees are afraid that attempts to achieve greater diversity in their organization will result in reverse discrimination—that more black or Asian employees will be promoted to fire captain or police lieutenant, for example, over the heads of supposedly more qualified whites.

2. Individual Task Demands: The Stress Created by the Job Itself

Some occupations are more stressful than others. Being a retail store manager, for instance, can be quite stressful for some people. But being a home-based blogger, paid on a piecework basis to generate news and comment, may mean working long hours to the point of exhaustion. Low-level jobs can be more stressful than high-level jobs because employees often have less control over their lives and thus have less work satisfaction. Being a high-speed data processor or doing telemarketing sales, for instance, can be quite stressful.

SOME WAYS THAT MANAGERS CAN BOOST EMPLOYEE SELF-ESTEEM

• Reinforce employees' positive attributes and skills. • Provide positive feedback whenever possible. • Break larger projects into smaller tasks and projects. • Express confidence in employees' abilities to complete their tasks. • Provide coaching whenever employees are seen to be struggling to complete tasks.

CAUTIONS ABOUT USING PERSONALITY TESTS IN THE WORKPLACE

•Use professionals. Rely on reputable, licensed psychologists for selecting and overseeing the administration, scoring, and interpretation of personality and psychological tests. This is particularly important, since not every psychologist is expert at these kinds of tests. •Don't hire on the basis of personality test results alone. Supplement any personality test data with information from reference checks, personal interviews, ability tests, and job performance records. Also avoid hiring people on the basis of specified personality profiles. As a case in point, there is no distinct "managerial personality." •Be alert for gender, racial, and ethnic bias. Regularly assess any possible adverse impact of personality tests on the hiring of women and minorities. This is truly a matter of great importance, since you don't want to find your company (or yourself) embroiled in a lawsuit at some point downstream. •Graphology tests don't work, but integrity tests do. Personality traits and aptitudes cannot be inferred from samples of people's penmanship, as proponents of graphology tests claim. However, dishonest job applicants can often be screened by integrity tests, since dishonest people are reportedly unable to fake conscientiousness, even on a paper-and-pencil test.

3. Valence

"How Much Do I Want the Outcome?" Valence is value, the importance a worker assigns to the possible outcome or reward. Example: If you assign a lot of importance or a high value to Target's prospective bonus or pay raise, then your valence is said to be high. For your motivation to be high, you must be high on all three elements—expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. If any element is low, you will not be motivated. Your effort-to-performance expectancy might be low, for instance, because you doubt making an effort will make a difference (because retail clothing selling has too much competition). Or your performance-to-reward expectancy might be low because you don't think Target is going to give you a bonus for being a star at selling. Or your valence might be low because you don't think the bonus or raise is going to be high enough to justify working evenings and weekends.

Onboarding

Programs help employees to integrate and transition to new jobs by making them familiar with corporate policies, procedures, culture, and politics by clarifying work-role expectations and responsibilities.

USING COMPENSATION & OTHER REWARDS TO MOTIVATE

"In the past, people could see the fruits of their labor immediately: a chair made or a ball bearing produced," writes Wall Street Journal columnist Jared Sandberg. However, in the information age, when so much of a person's time is spent looking into a smartphone display or computer screen and working on partial tasks seemingly unconnected to something whole, "it can be hard to find gratification from work that is largely invisible." As work becomes more invisible and intangible, more team based rather than individual based, it also becomes harder to measure, harder to define its successful accomplishment—and harder to motivate employees to perform well at it.

WORK-RELATED ATTITUDES & BEHAVIORS MANAGERS NEED TO DEAL WITH

"Keep the employees happy." It's true that attitudes are important, the reason being that attitudes affect behavior. But is keeping employees happy all that managers need to know to get results? We discuss motivation for performance in the next chapter. Here let us consider what managers need to know about key work-related attitudes and behaviors. Three types of attitudes managers are particularly interested in are (1) employee engagement, (2) job satisfaction, and (3) organizational commitment.

2. Instrumentality

"What Outcome Will I Receive If I Perform at This Level?" Instrumentality is the expectation that successful performance of the task will lead to the outcome desired. This is called the performance-to-reward expectancy. Example: If you believe that making higher sales will cause Target to give you a bonus, then you have high performance-to-reward expectancy. You believe if you can achieve your goals, the outcome will be worthwhile. This element is independent of the previous one—you might decide you don't have the ability to make the extra sales, but if you did, you'll be rewarded. (Lately, because of the public's concern about the quality of the educational system in the United States, school boards and politicians are implementing programs that tie teachers' pay to performance.)

Burnout

"When you keep investing more energy and the return remains low, that's when you burn out," suggests Michael Staver, founder of an executive training company. Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and even physical exhaustion, expressed as listlessness, indifference, or frustration. Clearly, the greatest consequence of negative stress for the organization is reduced productivity. Overstressed employees are apt to call in sick, miss deadlines, take longer lunch breaks, and show indifference to performance. However, some may put in great numbers of hours at work without getting as much accomplished as previously.

1. Expectancy

"Will I Be Able to Perform at the Desired Level on a Task?" Expectancy is the belief that a particular level of effort will lead to a particular level of performance. This is called the effort-to-performance expectancy. Example: If you believe that putting in more hours working at Target selling clothes will result in higher sales, then you have high effort-to-performance expectancy. That is, you believe that your efforts will matter. You think you have the ability, the product knowledge, and so on so that putting in extra hours of selling can probably raise your sales of clothes.

Three practical lessons that can be drawn from equity theory are as follows.

1. Employee Perceptions Are What Count Probably the most important result of research on equity theory is this: no matter how fair managers think the organization's policies, procedures, and reward system are, each employee's perception of those factors is what counts. Thus, managers should provide positive recognition about employee behavior and performance and explain the reasons behind their decisions. 2. Employee Participation Helps Managers benefit by allowing employees to participate in important decisions. For example, a recent study showed that employees were more satisfied with changes to their jobs when they participated in creating the changes. 3. Having an Appeal Process Helps When employees are able to appeal decisions affecting their welfare, it promotes the belief that management treats them fairly. Perceptions of fair treatment promote job satisfaction, commitment, and citizenship behavior and reduce absenteeism and turnover.

MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

1. Physiological Needs These are the most basic human physical needs, in which one is concerned with having food, clothing, shelter, and comfort and with self-preservation. 2. Safety Needs These needs are concerned with physical safety and emotional security, so that a person is concerned with avoiding violence and threats. 3. Love Needs Once basic needs and security are taken care of, people look for love, friendship, and affection. 4. Esteem Needs After they meet their social needs, people focus on such matters as self-respect, status, reputation, recognition, and self-confidence. 5. Self-Actualization Needs The highest level of need, self-actualization is self-fulfillment—the need to develop one's fullest potential, to become the best one is capable of being.

The Four Steps in the Perceptual Process

1. Selective Attention - Did I notice something? 2. Interpretation & evaluation - What was it I noticed and what does it mean? 3. Storing in memory - Remember it as an event, concept, person, or all three 4. Retrieving memory to make judgements & decisions

THE TRAITS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

1. Self-awareness. The most essential trait. This is the ability to read your own emotions and gauge your moods accurately, so you know how you're affecting others. 2. Self-management. This is the ability to control your emotions and act with honesty and integrity in reliable and adaptable ways. You can leave occasional bad moods outside the office. 3. Social awareness. This includes empathy, allowing you to show others that you care, and organizational intuition, so you keenly understand how your emotions and actions affect others. 4. Relationship management. This is the ability to communicate clearly and convincingly, disarm conflicts, and build strong personal bonds.

Some Practical Results of Goal-Setting Theory

A goal is defined as an objective that a person is trying to accomplish through his or her efforts. To result in high motivation and performance, according to recent research, goals must have a number of characteristics, as follows: 1. Goals Should Be Specific Goals such as "Sell as many cars as you can" or "Be nicer to customers" are too vague. Instead, goals need to be specific—usually meaning quantitative, as in "Boost your revenues 25%" and "Cut absenteeism by 10%." 2. Goals Should Be Challenging but Achievable Goals should be tailored to fit individual abilities and training, not set so low that lots of people can achieve them nor set so high that most people will give up. Difficult goals will lead to higher performance only when employees are committed to them; if they are not, difficult goals may simply lead to low performance. 3. Goals Should Be Linked to Action Plans An action plan outlines the activities or tasks that need to be accomplished in order to obtain a goal and reminds us of what we should be working on. Both individuals (such as college students) and organizations are more likely to achieve their goals when they develop detailed action plans. 4. Goals Need Not Be Set Jointly to Be Effective It doesn't seem to matter whether goals are set by managers, by employees, or by both together to be effective. Thus, managers should probably do whatever suits the individual and the situation (a contingency approach). On the other hand, employees should be encouraged to develop their own action plans, which will foster stronger goal commitment. 5. Feedback Enhances Goal Attainment Feedback lets employees know if they are on or off course, provides them with performance standards, and gives them the information they need to adjust their efforts. Some of the preceding recommendations are embodied in the advice we presented in Chapter 5—namely, that goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, and have Target dates.

The Proactive Personality

A person who scores well on the Big Five dimension of conscientiousness is probably a good worker. He or she may also be a proactive personality, someone who is more apt to take initiative and persevere to influence the environment. Research reveals that proactive people tend to be more satisfied with their jobs, committed to their employer, and produce more work than nonproactive individuals.

2. Self-Efficacy: "I Can/Can't Do This Task"

A related trait is self-efficacy, belief in one's personal ability to do a task. Unlike locus of control, this characteristic isn't about how much fate controls events (as in believing whether getting a high grade in a course is determined by you or by outside factors, such as the grade curve or trick questions). Rather, it's about your personal belief that you have what it takes to succeed. Have you noticed that those who are confident about their ability tend to succeed, whereas those preoccupied with failure tend not to? Indeed, high expectations of self-efficacy have been linked with all kinds of positives: not only success in varied physical and mental tasks but also reduced anxiety and increased tolerance for pain. One study found that the sales performance of life-insurance agents was much better among those with high self-efficacy. A meta-analysis involving 21,616 people also found significant positive correlation between self-efficacy and job performance. Low self-efficacy is associated with learned helplessness, the debilitating lack of faith in one's ability to control one's environment. Among the implications for managers: -Assign jobs accordingly. Complex, challenging, and autonomous jobs tend to enhance people's perceptions of their self-efficacy. Boring, tedious jobs generally do the opposite. -Develop self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a quality that can be nurtured. Employees with low self-efficacy need lots of constructive pointers and positive feedback. Goal difficulty needs to match individuals' perceived self-efficacy, but goals can be made more challenging as performance improves. Small successes need to be rewarded. Employees' expectations can be improved through guided experiences, mentoring, and role modeling.

Sex-Role Stereotypes

A sex-role stereotype is the belief that differing traits and abilities make males and females particularly well suited to different roles. Although research shows that men and women do not differ in stereotypical manners, the stereotypes still persist. Thus, for example, people tend to prefer male bosses and generally view women leaders as being less effective than men. Some good news is that there doesn't seem to be a pro-male bias in hiring recommendations or in performance ratings. Unfortunately, promotional decisions may still be affected by sex-role stereotyping. A study of a multinational Fortune 500 company, for example, revealed that men received more favorable evaluations than women in spite of controlling for age, education, organizational tenure, salary grade, and type of job.

Thoughtfulness: The Value of Being Nice

A study by Walker Information, an Indianapolis-based research firm, found that employers spend too little time showing workers they matter, as manifested in lack of communication and lack of interest in new ideas and contributions. A majority of employees feel underappreciated, according to one survey. Forty percent of employees who rated their boss's performance as poor said they were likely to look for a new job; only 11% of those who rated it excellent said they would.90 "Being nice" to employees means, for example, reducing criticism, becoming more effusive in your praise, and writing thank-you notes to employees for exceptional performance. The number one reason people quit their jobs, it's believed, is their dissatisfaction with their supervisors, not their paychecks. Thus, industrial psychologist B. Lynn Ware suggests that if you learn valued employees are disgruntled, you should discuss it with them. Employers can promote personal relationships, which most employees are concerned about on the job, by offering breaks or other opportunities in which people can mix and socialize.

JOB DESIGN PERSPECTIVES ON MOTIVATION

About half of workers reported in a recent year that their current job was stagnant. Is there anything that can be done about this? Job design is (1) the division of an organization's work among its employees and (2) the application of motivational theories to jobs to increase satisfaction and performance. There are two different approaches to job design, one traditional, one modern, that can be taken in deciding how to design jobs. The traditional way is fitting people to jobs; the modern way is fitting jobs to people. Fitting people to jobs is based on the assumption that people will gradually adapt to any work situation. Even so, jobs must still be tailored so that nearly anyone can do them. This is the approach often taken with assembly-line jobs and jobs involving routine tasks. For managers the main challenge becomes "How can we make the worker most compatible with the work?" One technique is job simplification, the process of reducing the number of tasks a worker performs. When a job is stripped down to its simplest elements, it enables a worker to focus on doing more of the same task, thus increasing employee efficiency and productivity. This may be especially useful, for instance, in designing jobs for mentally disadvantaged workers, such as those run by Goodwill Industries. However, research shows that simplified, repetitive jobs lead to job dissatisfaction, poor mental health, and a low sense of accomplishment and personal growth.

How the Model Works

According to the job characteristics model, these five core characteristics affect a worker's motivation because they affect three critical psychological states: meaningfulness of work, responsibility for results, and knowledge of results. (Refer to Figure 12.9 on p. 392 again.) In turn, these positive psychological states fuel high motivation, high performance, high satisfaction, and low absenteeism and turnover. One other element—shown at the bottom of Figure 12.9—needs to be discussed: contingency factors. This refers to the degree to which a person wants personal and psychological development. Job design works when employees are motivated; to be so, they must have three attributes: (1) necessary knowledge and skill, (2) desire for personal growth, and (3) context satisfactions—that is, the right physical working conditions, pay, and supervision. Job design works. A meta-analysis of 259 studies involving 219,625 people showed that job design was positively associated with employee performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and physical and psychological well-being. Job design also was associated with lower absenteeism and intentions to quit. Similar results were found in another meta-analysis involving studies of over 75,000 people.

Using Equity Theory to Motivate Employees

Adams suggests that employees who feel they are being underrewarded will respond to the perceived inequity in one or more negative ways, as by reducing their inputs, trying to change the outputs or rewards they receive, distorting the inequity, changing the object of comparison, or leaving the situation. By contrast, employees who think they are treated fairly are more likely to support organizational change, more apt to cooperate in group settings, and less apt to turn to arbitration and the courts to remedy real or imagined wrongs.

Age Stereotypes

Age stereotypes tend to depict older workers as less involved in their work, less satisfied, less motivated, and less committed than younger workers. This may be why workers over age 55 found it harder to get jobs than younger colleagues during the 2009 recession year. But in fact research shows that as employees' age increases, so does their job involvement and satisfaction, work motivation, and organizational commitment. Stereotypes also depict older workers as being less creative and more accident prone; however, this is not borne out. Finally, the stereotype that older workers have higher absenteeism—when an employee doesn't show up for work—is not supported by the research; if anything, managers should focus more attention on absenteeism among younger rather than older workers. Because the median age of Americans is currently 36.9 years—the oldest in our history—it seems clear that managers will probably be dealing with an older workforce. Moreover, by 2050, about one-fifth of the population will be over age 65, but many, whether by choice or by necessity, will continue working.54 World-famous heart surgeon Michael DeBakey, for instance, who was born in 1908, continued to work into his late nineties.

Pay for Performance

Also known as merit pay, pay for performance bases pay on one's results. Thus, different salaried employees might get different pay raises and other rewards (such as promotions) depending on their overall job performance. Examples: One standard pay-for-performance plan, already mentioned, is payment according to a piece rate, in which employees are paid according to how much output they produce, as is often used with farmworkers picking fruit and vegetables. Another is the sales commission, in which sales representatives are paid a percentage of the earnings the company made from their sales, so that the more they sell, the more they are paid. A good deal of the criticism of excessive executive pay is that it has not been tied to company performance.

Pay for Knowledge

Also known as skill-based pay, pay for knowledge ties employee pay to the number of job-relevant skills or academic degrees they earn. Example: The teaching profession is a time-honored instance of this incentive, in which elementary and secondary teachers are encouraged to increase their salaries by earning further college credit. However, firms such as FedEx also have pay-for-knowledge plans.

Four Distortions in Perception

Although there are other types of distortion in perception, we will describe the following: (1) stereotyping, (2) the halo effect, (3) the recency effect, and (4) causal attribution.

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Are those employee behaviors that are not directly part of employees' job descriptions—that exceed their work-role requirements.

Do Personality Tests Work for the Workplace?

As a manager, you would want to know if the Big Five model in particular and personality testing in general can help predict behavior in the workplace. Is a personality test helpful in predicting a match between personality and job performance? Two findings: Extroversion—the outgoing personality. As might be expected, extroversion (an outgoing personality) has been associated with success for managers and salespeople. Also, extroversion is a stronger predictor of job performance than agreeableness, across all professions, according to researchers. "It appears that being courteous, trusting, straightforward, and soft-hearted [that is, agreeableness] has a smaller impact on job performance," conclude the researchers, "than being talkative, active, and assertive [that is, extroversion]." Conscientiousness—the dependable personality. Conscientiousness (strong work ethic) has been found to have the strongest positive correlation with job performance and training performance. According to researchers, "those individuals who exhibit traits associated with a strong sense of purpose, obligation, and persistence generally perform better than those who do not."

6. Nonwork Demands: The Stresses Created by Forces Outside the Organization

As anyone knows who has had to cope with money problems, divorce, support of elderly relatives, or other serious nonwork concerns, the stresses outside one's work life can have a significant effect on work. Even people with ordinary lives can find the stress of coping with family life rugged going.

What trends in workplace diversity should managers be aware of?

Assumption: Illegal immigrants dramatically impact the U.S. economy. No, says a study by the Migration Policy Institute. Undocumented immigrants represent only about 5% of the workforce and contribute just 0.03% of the U.S. gross domestic product. Assumption: Customer bias favoring white men has just about disappeared. Unfortunately not, suggests a study of college students, which found that people give higher ratings for customer satisfaction to white men than to women and members of minorities. Assumption: Young workers earn less than they used to. Yes, evidently. In the decade ending 2011, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage for male college graduates dropped 11% and for female college graduates 7%. The United States is becoming more diverse in its ethnic, racial, gender, and age makeup—more nonwhite, more single, more working parents, and so on—and the consequences are not always what you would expect. In the view of Scott E. Page, professor of complex systems, political science, and economics at the University of Michigan, diversity and variety in staffing produces organizational strength. "Diverse groups of people bring to organizations more and different ways of seeing a problem," he told an interviewer, "and, thus, faster/better ways of solving it... . There's certainly a lot of evidence that people's identity groups—ethnic, racial, sexual, age—matter when it comes to diversity in thinking." Diversity may have its benefits, but it can also be an important management challenge. Let's consider this.

Personality

At the center of the diversity wheel is personality. It is at the center because, as we said in Section 11.1, personality is defined as the stable physical and mental characteristics responsible for a person's identity.

Bonuses

Bonuses are cash awards given to employees who achieve specific performance objectives. Example: Nieman Marcus, the department store, pays its salespeople a percentage of the earnings from the goods they sell. Unfortunately, the documents that most companies file (proxy documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission) to explain what specific targets executives had to meet to earn their bonuses are not very clear, being couched mainly in legalese.(Bonuses for bankers in particular became a hot-button political issue after banks received a $700 billion rescue from taxpayers in 2008, then surging financial markets caused a rebound that allowed such companies to set aside billions of dollars for year-end bonuses.)

Race & Ethnicity: More People of Color in the Workforce

By 2050, racial and ethnic minorities are expected to make up about half of the population, with whites projected to change from two-thirds in 2000 to 50.1%, African Americans from 14% to 12.7%, Asians from 5.1% to 8%, and Hispanics or Latinos from 15% to 24.4%. We already mentioned that people of color have hit the glass ceiling, with whites holding more of the managerial and professional jobs. In addition, there are two other trends that show that American businesses need to do a lot better by minority populations. First, minorities tend to earn less than whites. Median household income in 2009 (a recession year) was $32,584 for African Americans and $38,039 for Hispanics. It was $51,861 for non-Hispanic whites. (Asians had the highest median income, at $65,469.) Second, a number of studies have shown that minorities experienced more perceived discrimination, racism-related stress, and less psychological support than whites did.

4. Causal Attributions

Causal attribution is the activity of inferring causes for observed behavior. Rightly or wrongly, we constantly formulate cause-and-effect explanations for our own and others' behavior. Attributional statements such as the following are common: "Joe drinks too much because he has no willpower; but I need a couple or three drinks after work because I'm under a lot of pressure." Even though our causal attributions tend to be self-serving and are often invalid, it's important to understand how people formulate attributions because they profoundly affect organizational behavior. For example, a supervisor who attributes an employee's poor performance to a lack of effort might reprimand that person. However, training might be deemed necessary if the supervisor attributes the poor performance to a lack of ability. As a manager, you need to be alert to two attributional tendencies that can distort one's interpretation of observed behavior—the fundamental attribution bias and the self-serving bias. -Fundamental attribution bias. In the fundamental attribution bias, people attribute another person's behavior to his or her personal characteristics rather than to situational factors. Example: A study of manufacturing employees found that top managers attributed the cause of industrial back pain to individuals, whereas workers attributed it to the environment. -Self-serving bias. In the self-serving bias, people tend to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure. Example: The way students typically analyze their performance on exams shows self-serving bias, with "A" students likely to attribute their grade to high ability or hard work and "D" students blaming factors such as bad luck, unclear lectures, and unfair testing. Another example: Europeans blamed Wall Street for the 2010 economic collapse in Greece. However, a Wall Street Journal article points out that a close look at Greece's finances "over the nearly 10 years since it adopted the euro shows not only that Greece was the principal author of its debt problems, but also that fellow European governments repeatedly turned a blind eye to its flouting of rules."

EXAMPLES OF WAYS TO REDUCE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Change attitude and/or behavior: Gregory Withow once belonged to the White Aryan Resistance and other racist groups. He preached hatred and bashed Japanese tourists in San Francisco. Then he met Sylvia, who rejected his white-supremacist ideas. As he grew to love her, he found himself caught between his ideas and her disapproval. To decrease this cognitive dissonance, he renounced his old racist beliefs and changed his behavior, even becoming a spokesperson for the antiracist Anti-Defamation League. Belittle importance of the inconsistent behavior: All cigarette smokers are repeatedly exposed to information that smoking is hazardous to health. But many belittle the habit as not being as risky as the antismoking messages suggest. ("My grandmother smokes, and she's in her 80s.") Find consonant elements that outweigh dissonant ones: Ethics professor Sissela Bok says students may justify cheating on an exam by saying, "I don't usually do this, but here I really have to do it." As one MIT graduate student said, students see cheating take place and "feel they have to. People get used to it, even though they know it's not right."

CONTENT PERSPECTIVES ON EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

Content perspectives, also known as need-based perspectives, are theories that emphasize the needs that motivate people. Content theorists ask, "What kind of needs motivate employees in the workplace?" Needs are defined as physiological or psychological deficiencies that arouse behavior. They can be strong or weak, and, because they are influenced by environmental factors, they can vary over time and from place to place. In addition to McGregor's Theory X/Theory Y (see Chapter 2), content perspectives include four theories: 1. Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory 2. Alderfer's ERG theory 3. McClelland's acquired needs theory 4. Herzberg's two-factor theory

McClelland's Acquired Needs Theory: Achievement, Affiliation, & Power

David McClelland, a well-known psychologist, investigated the needs for affiliation and power and as a consequence proposed the acquired needs theory, which states that three needs—achievement, affiliation, and power—are major motives determining people's behavior in the workplace. McClelland believes that we are not born with our needs; rather we learn them from the culture—from our life experiences.

Attitude

Defined as a learned predisposition toward a given object.

How to Think About Diversity: Which Differences Are Important?

Diversity represents all the ways people are unlike and alike—the differences and similarities in age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, capabilities, and socioeconomic background. Note here that diversity is not synonymous with differences. Rather, it encompasses both differences and similarities. This means that as a manager you need to manage both simultaneously. To help distinguish the important ways in which people differ, diversity experts Lee Gardenswartz and Anita Rowe have identified a "diversity wheel" consisting of four layers of diversity: (1) personality, (2) internal dimensions, (3) external dimensions, and (4) organizational dimensions.

2. The Halo Effect: "One Trait Tells Me All I Need to Know"

Do you think physically attractive people have more desirable traits than unattractive people—that they are happier, kinder, more successful, more socially skilled, more sensitive, more interesting, independent, exciting, sexually warm, even smarter and nicer? All of these traits have been attributed to attractive people. This situation is an example of the halo effect, in which we form an impression of an individual based on a single trait. (The phenomenon is also called the horn-and-halo effect, because not only can a single positive trait be generalized into an array of positive traits but the reverse is also true.) As if we needed additional proof that life is unfair, it has been shown that attractive people generally are treated better than unattractive people. Attractive members of Congress get more TV coverage. Attractive students have higher expectations by teachers in terms of academic achievement. Attractive employees are generally paid higher salaries than unattractive ones are. Clearly, however, if a manager fails to look at all an individual's traits, he or she has no right to complain if that employee doesn't work out.

Using Two-Factor Theory to Motivate Employees

During the 2007-2009 Great Recession, with fewer jobs available, more people were stuck in jobs they disliked (61% in 2009, compared with 45% in 1987). Another survey found that employee job satisfaction in the United States reached its peak in 2009, possibly because employees were especially grateful for their jobs at that time, but since then, satisfaction has been dropping slightly each year. If you were managing such employees, the basic lesson of Herzberg's research is that you should first eliminate dissatisfaction (hygiene factors), making sure that working conditions, pay levels, and company policies are reasonable. You should then concentrate on spurring motivation by providing opportunities for achievement, recognition, responsibility, and personal growth (motivating factors). Positive hygiene factors could include allowing pets at work; offering videogame arcades, fitness classes, and intramural sports (volleyball, soccer); and providing a library of free movies, books, and magazines.

Nonmonetary Ways of Motivating Employees

Employees who can behave autonomously, solve problems, and take the initiative are apt to be the very ones who will leave if they find their own needs aren't being met—namely: The need for work-life balance. A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 2,500 university students in 11 countries found that 57% named as their primary career goal "attaining a balance between personal life and career." A 25-year study of values in the United States found that "employees have become less convinced that work should be an important part of one's life or that working hard makes me a better person." Millennials in particular are apt to say the most important things in life are "being a good parent" (52%) and "having a successful marriage" (30%) rather than "having a high-paying career" (15%). The need to expand skills. Having watched their parents undergo downsizing, younger workers in particular are apt to view a job as a way of gaining skills that will enable them to earn a decent living in the future. The need to matter. Workers now want to be with an organization that allows them to feel they matter. They want to commit to their profession or fellow team members rather than have to profess a blind loyalty to the corporation. There is a whole class of nonmonetary incentives to attract, retain, and motivate employees. The foremost example is the flexible workplace—including part-time work, flextime, compressed workweek, job sharing, and telecommuting, as described in the Practical Action box. Other incentives can be expressed simply as treat employees well, some examples of which follow.

Equity Theory

Equity theory focuses on employee perceptions as to how fairly they think they are being treated compared with others. Developed by psychologist J. Stacey Adams, equity theory is based on the idea that employees are motivated to see fairness in the rewards they expect for task performance. Employees are motivated to resolve feelings of injustice. How, for example, might employees respond to knowing that the average pay for CEOs is 300 times the average worker's pay and that many workers are still struggling to find jobs? (The average American with a bachelor's degree makes $2.3 million—over a lifetime. By contrast, Apple CEO Timothy Cook earns that amount in a shade over two days.)35 How about the fact that in 2010 women made only 77% of men's earnings? Some experts suggest that such imbalances are partly responsible for the more than $50 billion a year in employee theft. (One time in France, workers about to be laid off at Caterpillar were so angry that they took their managers hostage.)

External Dimensions

External dimensions of diversity include an element of choice; they consist of the personal characteristics that people acquire, discard, or modify throughout their lives: educational background, marital status, parental status, religion, income, geographic location, work experience, recreational habits, appearance, personal habits. They are referred to as the secondary dimensions of diversity because we have a greater ability to influence or control them than we do internal dimensions. These external dimensions also exert a significant influence on our perceptions, behavior, and attitudes. If you are not a believer in the Muslim religion, for example, you may not perceive the importance of some of its practices—as with some managers at Atlanta-based Argenbright Security Inc., who sent seven Muslim female employees home for wearing Islamic head scarves at their security jobs at Dulles International Airport. Because wearing head scarves in no way affected their job performance, the company had to reimburse the women for back pay and other relief in a settlement negotiated with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Extinction: Weakens Behavior

Extinction is the weakening of behavior by ignoring it or making sure it is not reinforced. Example: A supervisor might tell a successful salesperson, "I know you exceeded your quota, but now that our company has been taken over by another firm, we're not giving out bonuses anymore." Presumably this will weaken the salesperson's efforts to perform better in the future.

Sexual Orientation: Gays & Lesbians Become More Visible

Gays and lesbians make up, by some estimates, up to 6% of the U.S. population. Between a quarter and two-thirds report being discriminated against at work (with negative attitudes directed toward them held more by men than by women). One study found that 41% of gay employees said they had been harassed, pressured to quit, or denied a promotion because of their sexual orientation. Homosexual workers report higher levels of stress compared with heterosexual workers, and one source of this may be the fact that in many states homosexuality is still a legitimate legal basis for firing an employee. Finally, gay and bisexual male workers were found to earn 11%-27% less than equally qualified heterosexual counterparts. How important is the issue of sexual orientation? Once again, if managers are concerned about hiring and keeping workplace talent, they shouldn't ignore the motivation and productivity of 6% of the workforce. Many employers are recognizing this: 430 of the top 500 U.S. companies now offer policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, and more than half offer domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples.

HOW DOES GOAL SETTING WORK?

Goal setting helps motivate you by doing the following: •Directing your attention—toward goal-relevant tasks and away from irrelevant ones. •Regulating the effort expended—with the effort generally proportional to the goal's difficulty. •Increasing your persistence—so that obstacles become challenges to be overcome, not reasons to fail. •Fostering use of strategies and action plans—so that you are more likely to realize success.

Goal-Setting Theory: Objectives Should Be Specific & Challenging but Achievable

Goal-setting theory suggests that employees can be motivated by goals that are specific and challenging but achievable. According to psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, who developed the theory, goal setting has four motivational mechanisms. (See Table 12.2.) It is natural for people to set and strive for goals; however, the goal-setting process is useful only if people understand and accept the goals.

Formal

Goals Policies Hierarchy Structure

Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse

Have an employee who's often late? Who frequently calls in sick on Mondays? Who is somewhat sloppy? Maybe he or she is afflicted with alcoholism, a chronic, progressive, and potentially fatal disease characterized by a growing compulsion to drink. Alcoholics come from every social class, from students to college professors to priests to airline pilots. Alcoholism may not interfere with a person's job in an obvious way until it shows up in absenteeism, accidents, slipshod work, or significant use of a company's medical benefits. Alcohol is the most common drug of abuse, but the misuse of others may also affect a person's productivity—legal drugs such as tranquilizers or illegal drugs such as marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine, or heroin. If you as a manager think you might be dealing with an employee with a substance-abuse problem, it's suggested you not try to make accusations but firmly point out that productivity is suffering and that it's up to the subordinate to do something about it. While not doing any counseling yourself, you can try to steer the employee to the human resources department, which may have an employee assistance program to help employees overcome personal problems affecting their job performance. Incidentally, although many people swear by 12-step programs, such as that offered by Alcoholics Anonymous, an examination of several studies found that such programs were no more and no less successful than other interventions in reducing alcohol dependence and alcohol-related problems.

Trends in Workforce Diversity

How is the U.S. workforce apt to become more diverse in the 21st century? Let's examine five categories on the internal dimension—age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and physical/mental abilities—and one category on the external dimension, educational level.

EQUITY THEORY

How people perceive they are being fairly or unfairly rewarded. Inputs—"What do you think you're putting into the job?" The inputs that people perceive they give to an organization are their time, effort, training, experience, intelligence, creativity, seniority, status, and so on. Outputs or rewards—"What do you think you're getting out of the job?" The outputs are the rewards that people receive from an organization: pay, benefits, praise, recognition, bonuses, promotions, status perquisites (corner office with a view, say, or private parking space), and so on. Comparison—"How do you think your ratio of inputs and rewards compares with those of others?" Equity theory suggests that people compare the ratio of their own outcomes to inputs against the ratio of someone else's outcomes to inputs. When employees compare the ratio of their inputs and outputs (rewards) with those of others—whether coworkers within the organization or even other people in similar jobs outside it—they then make a judgment about fairness. Either they perceive there is equity, and so are satisfied with the ratio and so they don't change their behavior. Or they perceive there is inequity, and so they feel resentful and act to change the inequity.

3. Self-Esteem: "I Like/Dislike Myself"

How worthwhile, capable, and acceptable do you think you are? The answer to this question is an indicator of your self-esteem, the extent to which people like or dislike themselves, their overall self-evaluation. Research offers some interesting insights about how high or low self-esteem can affect people and organizations. People with high self-esteem. Compared with people with low self-esteem, people with high self-esteem are more apt to handle failure better, to emphasize the positive, to take more risks, and to choose more unconventional jobs. However, when faced with pressure situations, high-self-esteem people have been found to become egotistical and boastful. Some have even been associated with aggressive and violent behavior. People with low self-esteem. Conversely, low-self-esteem people confronted with failure have been found to have focused on their weaknesses and to have had primarily negative thoughts.19 Moreover, they are more dependent on others and are more apt to be influenced by them and to be less likely to take independent positions. Can self-esteem be improved? According to one study, "low self-esteem can be raised more by having the person think of desirable characteristics possessed rather than of undesirable characteristics from which he or she is free." Some ways in which managers can build employee self-esteem are shown in the table at the top of the next page.

Personality

How would you describe yourself? Are you outgoing? aggressive? sociable? tense? passive? lazy? quiet? Whatever the combination of traits, which result from the interaction of your genes and your environment, they constitute your personality. More formally, personality consists of the stable psychological traits and behavioral attributes that give a person his or her identity. As a manager, you need to understand personality attributes because they affect how people perceive and act within the organization.

Popular Incentive Compensation Plans

How would you like to be rewarded for your efforts? Some of the most well-known incentive compensation plans are pay for performance, bonuses, profit sharing, gainsharing, stock options, and pay for knowledge.

AN INTEGRATED MODEL OF MOTIVATION

However, motivation can also be expressed in a simple model, as shown on the next page. (See Figure 12.2.) That is, people have certain needs that motivate them to perform specific behaviors for which they receive rewards that feed back and satisfy the original need. Unfulfilled Need - Desire is created to fulfill a need as for food, safety, recognition Motivation - You search for ways to satisfy the need Behaviors - You choose a type of behavior you think might satisfy the need Rewards - Two types of rewards satisfy needs - extrinsic or intrinsic

HERZBERG'S TWO-FACTOR THEORY: SATISFACTION VERSUS DISSATISFACTION

Hygiene factors—"Why are my people dissatisfied?" The lower-level needs, hygiene factors, are factors associated with job dissatisfaction—such as salary, working conditions, interpersonal relationships, and company policy—all of which affect the job context in which people work. An example of a hygiene factor is the temperature in a factory that's not air-conditioned during the summer. Installing air-conditioning will remove a cause of job dissatisfaction. It will not, however, spur factory workers' motivation and make them greatly satisfied in their work. Because motivating factors are absent, workers become, in Herzberg's view, merely neutral in their attitudes toward work—neither dissatisfied nor satisfied. Motivating factors—"What will make my people satisfied?" The higher-level needs, motivating factors, or simply motivators, are factors associated with job satisfaction—such as achievement, recognition, responsibility, and advancement—all of which affect the job content or the rewards of work performance. Motivating factors—challenges, opportunities, recognition—must be instituted, Herzberg believed, to spur superior work performance. An example of a motivating factor would be to give factory workers more control over their work. For example, instead of repeating a single task over and over, a worker might join with other workers on a team in which each one does several tasks. This is the approach that Swedish automaker Volvo took in building cars.

PERCEPTION & INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR

If you were a smoker, which warning on a cigarette pack would make you think more about quitting? "Smoking seriously harms you and others around you." A blunt "Smoking kills." Or a stark graphic image showing decaying teeth. This is the kind of decision public health authorities in various countries are wrestling with. (A 2010 study found that highly graphic images about the negative effects of smoking had the greatest impact on smokers' intentions to quit.) These officials, in other words, are trying to decide how perception might influence behavior.

1. Stereotyping: "Those Sorts of People Are Pretty Much the Same"

If you're a tall African American man, do people make remarks about basketball players? If you're of Irish descent, do people believe you drink a lot? If you're Jewish, do people think you're money-oriented? If you're a woman, do people think you're automatically nurturing? All these are stereotypes. Stereotyping is the tendency to attribute to an individual the characteristics one believes are typical of the group to which that individual belongs. Principal areas of stereotyping that should be of concern to you as a manager are (1) sex-role stereotypes, (2) age stereotypes, and (3) race/ethnicity stereotypes.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory: Five Levels

In 1943, one of the first researchers to study motivation, Brandeis University psychology professor Abraham Maslow (mentioned previously in Chapter 2) put forth his hierarchy of needs theory, which proposes that people are motivated by five levels of needs: (1) physiological, (2) safety, (3) love, (4) esteem, and (5) self-actualization.

Leon Festinger & Cognitive Dissonance

In 1957, social psychologist Leon Festinger proposed the term cognitive dissonance to describe the psychological discomfort a person experiences between his or her cognitive attitude and incompatible behavior. Because people are uncomfortable with inconsistency, Festinger theorized, they will seek to reduce the "dissonance" or tension of the inconsistency. How they deal with the discomfort, he suggested, depends on three factors: 1. Importance. How important are the elements creating the dissonance? Most people can put up with some ambiguities in life. For example, many drivers don't think obeying speed limits is very important, even though they profess to be law-abiding citizens. People eat greasy foods even though they know that ultimately they may contribute to heart disease. 2. Control. How much control does one have over the matters that create dissonance? A juror may not like the idea of voting for the death penalty but believe that he or she has no choice but to follow the law in the case. A taxpayer may object to his taxes being spent on, say, special-interest corporate welfare for a particular company but not feel that he or she can withhold taxes. 3. Rewards. What rewards are at stake in the dissonance? You're apt to cling to old ideas in the face of new evidence if you have a lot invested emotionally or financially in those ideas. If you're a police officer who worked 20 years to prove a particular suspect guilty of murder, you're not apt to be very accepting of contradictory evidence after all that time.

5. Lack of Support for Family Demands

In 2010, there were over 34.5 million married couples with children under 18 in the United States. In 58.1% of such families, both parents worked; in 30.2%, only the father worked; and in 7.4%, only the mother worked. But more and more women are moving back and forth between being at-home mothers and being in the workforce, as economic circumstances dictate. Yet in a great many households, it is still women who primarily take care of children, as well as other domestic chores. When organizations aren't supportive in offering flexibility in hours and job responsibilities, these women may find it difficult to work evenings and weekends or to take overnight business trips.

Hygiene Factors Versus Motivating Factors

In Herzberg's theory, the hygiene factors are the lower-level needs, the motivating factors are the higher-level needs. The two areas are separated by a zone in which employees are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.

Characteristics of the Best Incentive Compensation Plans

In accordance with most of the theories of motivation we described earlier, for incentive plans to work, certain criteria are advisable, as follows. (1) Rewards must be linked to performance and be measurable. (2) The rewards must satisfy individual needs. (3) The rewards must be agreed on by manager and employees. (4) The rewards must be believable and achievable by employees.

The Five Levels of Needs

In proposing this hierarchy of five needs, ranging from basic to highest level, Maslow suggested that needs are never completely satisfied. That is, our actions are aimed at fulfilling the "deprived" needs, the needs that remain unsatisfied at any point in time. Thus, for example, once you have achieved safety (security), which is the second most basic need, you will then seek to fulfill the third most basic need—love (belongingness). In order of ascendance, from bottom to top, the five levels of needs are as follows.

The Big Five Personality Dimensions

In recent years, the many personality dimensions have been distilled into a list of factors known as the Big Five. The Big Five personality dimensions are (1) extroversion, (2) agreeableness, (3) conscientiousness, (4) emotional stability, and (5) openness to experience. Extroversion. How outgoing, talkative, sociable, and assertive a person is. Agreeableness. How trusting, good-natured, cooperative, and soft-hearted one is. Conscientiousness. How dependable, responsible, achievement-oriented, and persistent one is. Emotional stability. How relaxed, secure, and unworried one is. Openness to experience. How intellectual, imaginative, curious, and broad-minded one is. Standardized personality tests are used to score people on each dimension to draw a person's personality profile that is supposedly as unique as his or her fingerprints. For example, if you scored low on the first trait, extroversion, you would presumably be prone to shy and withdrawn behavior. If you scored low on emotional stability, you supposedly would be nervous, tense, angry, and worried. (An example of a personality test is the Myer-Briggs

Place Rate

In which employees are paid according to how much output they produce

Sales Commission

In which sales representatives are paid a percentage of the earnings the company made from their sales

Halo Effect

In which we form an impression of an individual based on a single trait.

Can You Raise Your EI?

Is there any way to raise your own emotional intelligence, to sharpen your social skills? Although parts of EI represent stable traits that are not readily changed, other aspects, such as using empathy, can be developed. Two suggestions for improvement are as follows: Develop awareness of your EI level. Becoming aware of your level of emotional intelligence is the first step. The Self-Assessment can be used for this purpose. (Some companies use the Personal Profile Analysis during the hiring process to provide insights into a person's EI.) Learn about areas needing improvement. The next step is to learn more about those EI aspects in which improvement is needed. For example, to improve your skills at using empathy, find articles on the topic and try to implement their recommendations. One such article suggests that empathy in communications is enhanced by trying to (1) understand how others feel about what they are communicating and (2) gaining appreciation of what people want from an exchange. Preliminary evidence suggests that emotional intelligence can land you a job. A simulated interview process indicated that interviewers' assessments of an applicant's emotional intelligence were positively associated with their impression of the applicant. However, given the difficulty of measuring emotional intelligence, further research is needed on this new leadership trait.

Why Is Motivation Important?

It seems obvious that organizations would want to motivate their employees to be more productive. Actually, though, as a manager you will find knowledge of motivation important for five reasons. In order of importance, you want to motivate people to ... 1. Join your organization. You need to instill in talented prospective workers the desire to come to work for you. 2. Stay with your organization. Whether you are in good economic times or bad, you always want to be able to retain good people. 3. Show up for work at your organization. In many organizations, absenteeism and lateness are tremendous problems. 4. Be engaged while at your organization. Engaged employees produce higher-quality work and better customer service. 5. Do extra for your organization. You hope your employees will perform extra tasks above and beyond the call of duty (be organizational "good citizens").

Job Design

Job design is (1) the division of an organization's work among its employees and (2) the application of motivational theories to jobs to increase satisfaction and performance.

Job Enrichment: Putting More Responsibility & Other Motivating Factors into a Job

Job enrichment is the practical application of Frederick Herzberg's two-factor motivator-hygiene theory of job satisfaction. Specifically, job enrichment consists of building into a job such motivating factors as responsibility, achievement, recognition, stimulating work, and advancement. However, instead of the job-enlargement technique of simply giving employees additional tasks of similar difficulty (known as horizontal loading), with job enrichment employees are given more responsibility (known as vertical loading). Thus, employees take on chores that would normally be performed by their supervisors. For example, one department store authorized thousands of its sales clerks to handle functions normally reserved for store managers, such as handling merchandise-return problems and approving customers' checks.

2. Job Satisfaction: How Much Do You Like or Dislike Your Job?

Job satisfaction is the extent to which you feel positive or negative about various aspects of your work. Most people don't like everything about their jobs. Their overall satisfaction depends on how they feel about several components, such as work, pay, promotions, coworkers, and supervision. Among the key correlates of job satisfaction are stronger motivation, job involvement, organizational commitment, and life satisfaction and less absenteeism, tardiness, turnover, and perceived stress. Reportedly only 45% of U.S. workers were satisfied with their jobs in the recession year 2009, down from 52% in 2005 and 61% in 1987, according to a study of 5,000 households. But another survey found that employee job satisfaction reached its peak in 2009 (possibly because employees were especially grateful for their jobs) but since then had been dropping slightly each year. In the aftermath of the recession, when Americans had been forced to work longer hours and often for the same or less pay, many struck back by suing employers for violating wage-and-hour laws, as by forcing them to work off the clock or without overtime pay. But what is the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance—does more satisfaction cause better performance or does better performance cause more satisfaction? This is a subject of much debate among management scholars. One comprehensive study found that (1) job satisfaction and performance are moderately related, meaning that employee job satisfaction is a key work attitude managers should consider when trying to increase performance; but (2) the relationship between satisfaction and performance is complex and it seems that both variables influence each other through a host of individual differences and work-environment characteristics.

Job Simplification

Job simplification, the process of reducing the number of tasks a worker performs.

Skill-Building & Educational Opportunities

Learning opportunities can take two forms. Managers can see that workers are matched with coworkers from whom they can learn, allowing them, for instance, to "shadow" (watch and imitate) workers in other jobs or be in interdepartmental task forces. There can also be tuition reimbursement for part-time study at a college or university.

1. Locus of Control: "I Am/Am Not the Captain of My Fate"

Locus of control indicates how much people believe they control their fate through their own efforts. If you have an internal locus of control, you believe you control your own destiny. If you have an external locus of control, you believe external forces control you. Research shows internals and externals have important workplace differences. Internals exhibit less anxiety, greater work motivation, and stronger expectations that effort leads to performance. They also obtain higher salaries. These findings have two important implications for managers: -Expect different degrees of structure and compliance for each type. Employees with internal locus of control will probably resist close managerial supervision. Hence, they should probably be placed in jobs requiring high initiative and lower compliance. By contrast, employees with external locus of control might do better in highly structured jobs requiring greater compliance. -Employ different reward systems for each type. Since internals seem to have a greater belief that their actions have a direct effect on the consequences of that action, internals likely would prefer and respond more productively to incentives such as merit pay or sales commissions.

The Three Needs

Managers are encouraged to recognize three needs in themselves and others and to attempt to create work environments that are responsive to them. The three needs, one of which tends to be dominant in each of us, are as follows.

Using Acquired Needs Theory to Motivate Employees

McClelland associates the three needs with different sets of work preferences, as follows: Need for Achievement If you (or an employee) are happy with accomplishment of a task being its own reward, don't mind or even prefer working alone, and are willing to take moderate risks, then you probably have a high need for achievement. That being the case, you (or your employee) would probably prefer doing the kind of work that offers pay for performance, challenging but achievable goals, and individual responsibility for results. People high in need for achievement tend to advance in technical fields requiring creativity and individual skills. Need for Power If you, like most effective managers, have a high need for power, that means you enjoy being in control of people and events and being recognized for this responsibility. Accordingly, your preference would probably be for work that allows you to control or have an effect on people and be publicly recognized for your accomplishments. Need for Affiliation If you tend to seek social approval and satisfying personal relationships, you may have a high need for affiliation. In that case, you may not be the most efficient manager because at times you will have to make decisions that will make people resent you. Instead, you will tend to prefer work, such as sales, that provides for personal relationships and social approval.

What Is Motivation & How Does It Work?

Motivation may be defined as the psychological processes that arouse and direct goal-directed behavior. Motivation is difficult to understand because you can't actually see it or know it in another person; it must be inferred from one's behavior. Nevertheless, it's imperative that you as a manager understand the process of motivation if you are to guide employees in accomplishing your organization's objectives. The way motivation works actually is complex, the result of multiple personal and contextual factors, as shown below. (See Figure 12.1.) The individual personal factors that employees bring to the workplace range from personality to ability to emotions to attitudes, many of which we described in Chapter 11. The contextual factors range from organizational culture, to cross-cultural values, to the physical environment, and other matters we discuss in this chapter and the next. Both categories of factors influence an employee's level of motivation and engagement at work.

McCLELLAND'S THREE NEEDS

Need for achievement—"I need to excel at tasks." This is the desire to excel, to do something better or more efficiently, to solve problems, to achieve excellence in challenging tasks. Need for affiliation—"I need close relationships." This is the desire for friendly and warm relations with other people. Need for power—"I need to control others." This is the desire to be responsible for other people, to influence their behavior or to control them. McClelland identifies two forms of the need for power. The negative kind is the need for personal power, as expressed in the desire to dominate others, and involves manipulating people for one's own gratification. The positive kind, characteristic of top managers and leaders, is the desire for institutional power, as expressed in the need to solve problems that further organizational goals.

Needs

Needs are defined as physiological or psychological deficiencies that arouse behavior.

Negative Reinforcement: Also Strengthens Behavior

Negative reinforcement is the process of strengthening a behavior by withdrawing something negative. Example: A supervisor who has been nagging a salesperson might say, "Well, so you exceeded your quota" and stop the nagging. Note the neutral statement; there is no praise but also no longer any negative statements. This could cause the sales rep to maintain his or her existing behavior.

Symptoms of Stress

Negative stress reveals itself in three kinds of symptoms: Physiological signs. Lesser physiological signs are sweaty palms, restlessness, backaches, headaches, upset stomach, and nausea. More serious signs are hypertension and heart attacks. Psychological signs. Psychological symptoms include boredom, irritability, nervousness, anger, anxiety, hostility, and depression. Behavioral signs. Behavioral symptoms include sleeplessness, changes in eating habits, and increased smoking/alcohol/drug abuse. Stress may be revealed through reduced performance and job satisfaction.

Perception

Perception is the process of interpreting and understanding one's environment. The process of perception is complex, but it can be boiled down to four steps.

Is Money the Best Motivator?

Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when you think about motivating performance is compensation—how much money you or your employees can make. But consider how motivation worked for Mary Morse, a software engineer, who turned down several offers from other San Francisco-area tech firms, at least one of which would have made her wealthy, in order to stay with the computer-aided design firm Autodesk. The reason? She liked her bosses. Morse demonstrates the truth of several surveys that found that most workers rate having a caring boss higher than they value monetary benefits. The Great Place to Work Institute has determined that great employers have three traits in common: employee trust in management, pride in the company, and camaraderie with colleagues. Clearly, then, motivating doesn't just involve dollars.

Positive Reinforcement: Strengthens Behavior

Positive reinforcement is the use of positive consequences to strengthen a particular behavior. Example: A supervisor who's asked an insurance salesperson to sell more policies might reward successful performance by saying, "It's great that you exceeded your quota, and you'll get a bonus for it. Maybe next time you'll sell even more and will become a member of the Circle of 100 Top Sellers and win a trip to Paris as well." Note the rewards: praise, more money, recognition, awards. Presumably this will strengthen the behavior and the sales rep will work even harder in the coming months.

The Consequences of Stress

Positive stress is constructive and can energize you, increasing your effort, creativity, and performance. Negative stress is destructive, resulting in poorer-quality work, dissatisfaction, errors, absenteeism, and turnover.

Process Perspectives

Process perspectives are concerned with the thought processes by which people decide how to act—how employees choose behavior to meet their needs. Whereas need-based perspectives simply try to understand employee needs, process perspectives go further and try to understand why employees have different needs, what behaviors they select to satisfy them, and how they decide if their choices were successful. In this section we discuss three process perspectives on motivation: Equity theory Expectancy theory Goal-setting theory

Profit Sharing

Profit sharing is the distribution to employees of a percentage of the company's profits. Example: In one T-shirt and sweatshirt manufacturing company, 10% of pretax profits are distributed to employees every month, and more is given out at the end of the year. Distributions are apportioned according to such criteria as performance, attendance, and lateness for individual employees.

Using the Hierarchy of Needs Theory to Motivate Employees

Research does not clearly support Maslow's theory, although it remains popular among managers. Still, the importance of Maslow's contribution is that he showed that workers have needs beyond that of just earning a paycheck. To the extent the organization permits, managers should first try to meet employees' level 1 and level 2 needs, of course, so that employees won't be preoccupied with them. Then, however, they need to give employees a chance to fulfill their higher-level needs in ways that also advance the goals of the organization.

1. Employee Engagement: How Connected Are You to Your Work?

Research on job involvement has evolved into the study of an individual difference called employee engagement, defined as an individual's involvement, satisfaction, and enthusiasm for work. Engaged employees are expected to have feelings of urgency, intensity, and enthusiasm, as well as focus, which make them more committed to their employer and to put more effort into their jobs. In other words, such employees "give their all" at work. Some consulting firms have collected data to support the practical value of employee engagement. For example, when an employee is engaged, it can take 10 times as much money to lure him or her away as a disengaged employee, according to some data. Case studies further suggest that employee performance increases 10% when employees are highly engaged and increase 50% when they have both high engagement and high enablement (such as a supportive environment). People who are positive or optimistic, proactive, conscientious, and mindful (focused in the present, not daydreaming) are thought to be more likely to be more engaged employees. Employees are also more likely to become engaged when an organization has the kind of culture that promotes employee development, recognition, and trust between management and employees. Job security and feelings of psychological safety (when employees feel free of fear in trying new ideas) also propel job engagement.

Roles

Roles are sets of behaviors that people expect of occupants of a position.

3. Individual Role Demands: The Stress Created by Others' Expectations of You

Roles are sets of behaviors that people expect of occupants of a position. Stress may come about because of role overload, role conflict, and role ambiguity. Role overload. Role overload occurs when others' expectations exceed one's ability. Example: If you as a student are carrying a full course load plus working two-thirds of the time plus trying to have a social life, you know what role overload is—and what stress is. Similar things happen to managers and workers. Role conflict. Role conflict occurs when one feels torn by the different expectations of important people in one's life. Example: Your supervisor says the company needs you to stay late to meet an important deadline, but your family expects you to be present for your child's birthday party. Role ambiguity. Role ambiguity occurs when others' expectations are unknown. Example: You find your job description and the criteria for promotion vague, a complaint often voiced by newcomers to an organization.

Some general organizational strategies for reducing unhealthy stressors are the following:

Roll out employee assistance programs. Employee assistance programs (EAPs) include a host of programs aimed at helping employees to cope with stress, burnout, substance abuse, health-related problems, family and marital issues, and any general problem that negatively influences job performance. Recommend a holistic wellness approach. A holistic wellness program focuses on self-responsibility, nutritional awareness, relaxation techniques, physical fitness, and environmental awareness. This approach goes beyond stress reduction by encouraging employees to strive, in one definition, for "a harmonious and productive balance of physical, mental, and social well-being brought about by the acceptance of one's personal responsibility for developing and adhering to a health promotion program." Create a supportive environment. Job stress often results because employees work under poor supervision and lack freedom. Wherever possible, it's better to keep the organizational environment less formal, more personal, and more supportive of employees. Make jobs interesting. Stress also results when jobs are routinized and boring. Better to try to structure jobs so that they allow employees some freedom. Make career counseling available. Companies such as IBM make career planning available, which reduces the stress that comes when employees don't know what their career options are and where they're headed.

Intrinsic rewards

Satisfaction in performing the task itself. An intrinsic reward is the satisfaction, such as a feeling of accomplishment, that a person receives from performing the particular task itself. An intrinsic reward is an internal reward; the payoff comes from pleasing yourself. Example: Jenny Balaze left her post in Ernst & Young LLC's Washington, DC, office to spend 12 weeks in Buenos Aires as a volunteer providing free accounting services to a small publishing firm. It was among "the best three months of my life," says the 27-year-old business advisory services manager.

Extrinsic rewards

Satisfaction in the payoff from others. An extrinsic reward is the payoff, such as money, that a person receives from others for performing a particular task. An extrinsic reward is an external reward; the payoff comes from pleasing others. Example: An experiment by General Electric found that paying employees who were smokers up to $750—an extrinsic reward—to quit and stay off cigarettes was three times as successful as a comparison group that got no paid incentives. (Some firms are asking their employees to pay higher insurance premiums or adopt other financial incentives to spur them to quit smoking, lose weight, or join a fitness program.)

4. Self-Monitoring: "I'm Fairly Able/Unable to Adapt My Behavior to Others"

Self-monitoring is the extent to which people are able to observe their own behavior and adapt it to external situations. Of course, we would all like to think we are high in self-monitoring—able to regulate our "expressive self-presentation for the sake of desired public appearances," as some experts write, "and thus be highly responsive to social and interpersonal cues" of others. But whereas some high self-monitors are criticized for being chameleons, always able to adapt their self-presentation to their surroundings, low self-monitors are often criticized for being on their own planet and insensitive to others. Instead, their behavior may reflect their own inner states, including their attitudes and feelings. It might be expected that people in top management are more apt to be high self-monitors able to play different roles—even contradictory roles—to suit different situations. Research shows a positive relationship between high self-monitoring and career success. Among 139 MBA graduates who were tracked for five years, high self-monitors enjoyed more internal and external promotions than did their low self-monitoring classmates. Other research has found that managerial success (in terms of speed of promotions) was tied to political savvy (knowing how to socialize, network, and engage in organizational politics).

2. Evaluating Behavior When Employees Are Not Working: Absenteeism & Turnover

Should you be suspicious of every instance of absenteeism? Of course, some absences—illness, death in the family, or jury duty, for example—are legitimate. However, a lot of no-show behavior is related to job dissatisfaction. One study of 700 managers found 20% called in sick simply because they didn't feel like going to work that day. The top three reasons for employees taking bogus sick days are for doing personal errands, catching up on sleep, and relaxing. Absenteeism may be a precursor to turnover, when employees leave their jobs. Every organization experiences some turnover, as employees leave for reasons of family, better job prospects, or retirement. However, except in low-skill industries, a continual revolving door of new employees is usually not a good sign, since replacement and training is expensive. For an hourly employee, experts estimate the cost of turnover is about 30% of annual salary and for professional employees it is up to 150%. Experience demonstrates five practical ways to reduce turnover: (1) Base hiring decisions on the extent to which an applicant's values fit the organization's values. (2) Provide post-hiring support, which is referred to as onboarding. Onboarding programs help employees to integrate and transition to new jobs by making them familiar with corporate policies, procedures, culture, and politics by clarifying work-role expectations and responsibilities. (3) Focus on enhancing employee engagement. (4) Incorporate realistic job previews (RJPs, discussed in Chapter 9) into the hiring process. (5) Offer employees benefits, such as flexible work hours (discussed in Chapter 12), that meet their needs and values.

Gender: More Women Working

Since the 1960s women have been flooding into the workplace in great numbers, with about 75% of women ages 25-54 in the workforce, up from about 40% in the late 1950s. In addition, more and more businesses are now owned by women—about 28% of all U.S. businesses. Finally, women are gaining ground in the top rungs of business. In 2012, 18 Fortune 500 companies were run by women (up from 15 in 2009); 3.2% of CEOs of 3,049 publicly traded companies were female—up from 2.9% in 2009. But if pay discrepancies between women and men have improved slightly, as of 2010 women overall still earned only 77 cents to every $1 for a man. Traditionally, women have earned roughly the same pay as men only in jobs paying $25,000-$30,000 a year, but the farther up the pay scale and the higher the education level, the wider the earnings gap. Recently it was found that, for every dollar a man earns, a woman cashier earns 93 cents, an administrative assistant 93 cents, and a registered nurse 88 cents. But for a woman physician or surgeon, it is 59 cents, a woman lawyer or judge 69 cents, a woman college professor 75 cents, and a woman psychologist 83 cents. In financial services, women earn as little as 65 cents to a man's dollar. The obstacles to women's progress are known as the glass ceiling—the metaphor for an invisible barrier preventing women and minorities from being promoted to top executive jobs. For instance, according to the Association of Executive Search Consultants, 56% of 357 global senior executives reported their companies have one or no women among their top executives. At Fortune 500 companies in 2011, females accounted for only 16.4% of corporate-officer positions. What factors are holding women back? Three that are mentioned are negative stereotypes, lack of mentors, and limited experience in line or general management. For women who have become vice president or higher in Fortune 1000 companies, four strategies were identified as critical to their success: consistently exceeding performance expectations, developing a style with which male managers are comfortable, seeking out difficult or challenging assignments, and having influential mentors. Interestingly, however, several studies have suggested that female managers outshine their male counterparts on almost every measure, from motivating others to fostering communication to producing high-quality work to goal-setting to mentoring employees. Indeed, one study, by Catalyst, an advocacy group for women in business, found that companies with more women executives have better financial performance.

1. Demands Created by Individual Differences: The Stress Created by Genetic or Personality Characteristics

Some people are born worriers, those with a gene mutation (known as BDNF) that Yale researchers identify with people who chronically obsess over negative thoughts. Others are impatient, hurried, deadline-ridden, competitive types with the personality characteristic known as Type A behavior pattern, meaning they are involved in a chronic, determined struggle to accomplish more in less time. Type A behavior has been associated with increased performance in the work of professors, students, and life insurance brokers. However, it also has been associated with greater cardiovascular activity and higher blood pressure, as well as to heart disease, especially for individuals who showed strong feelings of anger, hostility, and aggression.

How Does Stress Work?

Stress has both physical and emotional components. Physically, according to Canadian researcher Hans Selye, considered the father of the modern concept of stress, stress is "the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it." Emotionally, stress has been defined as the feeling of being overwhelmed, "the perception that events or circumstances have challenged, or exceeded, a person's ability to cope." Stressors can be hassles, or simple irritants, such as misplacing or losing things, concerns about one's physical appearance, and having too many things to do. Or they can be crises, such as sudden occasions of overwhelming terror—a horrible auto accident, an incident of childhood abuse. Or they can be strong stressors, which can dramatically strain a person's ability to adapt—extreme physical discomfort, such as chronic severe back pain. Stressors can be both negative and positive. That is, one can understand that being fired or being divorced can be a great source of stress but so can being promoted or getting married. As Selye writes, "It is immaterial whether the agent or the situation we face is pleasant or unpleasant; all that counts is the intensity of the demand for adjustment and adaptation." In addition, Selye distinguished between bad stress (what he called "distress"), in which the result of the stressor can be anxiety and illness, and good stress ("eustress"), which can stimulate a person to better coping and adaptation, such as performing well on a test. In this discussion, however, we are mainly concerned with how stress negatively affects people and their performance.

Stress & Stressors

Stress is the tension people feel when they are facing or enduring extraordinary demands, constraints, or opportunities and are uncertain about their ability to handle them effectively. Stress is the feeling of tension and pressure; the source of stress is called a stressor. There's no question that work is stressful. Indeed, a 2012 study by the American Psychological Association found that many Americans continue to report chronic work stress, with two out of five (41%) employees reporting that they typically feel tense or stressed out during the workday. Commonly cited causes of work stress include low salaries (46%), lack of opportunities for growth or advancement (41%), too heavy a workload (41%), long hours (37%), and unclear job expectations (35%).

The Toll of Workplace Stress

The American Institute of Stress estimates that workplace stress costs the U.S. economy over $300 billion a year in health care, missed work, and stress-reduction treatment. Stress can cause conflicts at work, make you fatigued all the time, and generate problems like insomnia, backaches, headaches, and chest pain. Work stress can also, as you might guess, put managers at risk. Men who suppress anger at work are two to five times more likely to suffer heart attacks or die from heart disease as those who express their "desk rage." Losing one's job is, as you might imagine, a very stressful event, being associated with decreased psychological and physical well-being. A Yale study found that layoffs more than doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke among older workers. Workplace stress is negatively related to positive emotions, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance and positively associated with alcohol and illicit drug use, overeating, and turnover. Indeed, historically researchers have generally believed that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between stress and performance. That is, low levels of stress lead to low performance (because people are not "charged up" to perform), but high levels of stress also lead to an energy-sapping fight-or-flight response that produces low performance. Optimal performance, according to this hypothesis, results when people are subjected to moderate levels of stress.

Affective Component

The affective component of an attitude consists of the feelings or emotions one has about a situation.

The Three Components of Attitudes: Affective, Cognitive, & Behavioral

The affective component—"I feel." The affective component of an attitude consists of the feelings or emotions one has about a situation. How do you feel about people who talk loudly on cellphones in restaurants? If you feel annoyed or angry, you're expressing negative emotions or affect. (If you're indifferent, your attitude is neutral.) The cognitive component—"I believe." The cognitive component of an attitude consists of the beliefs and knowledge one has about a situation. What do you think about people in restaurants talking on cellphones? Is what they're doing inconsiderate, acceptable, even admirable (because it shows they're productive)? Your answer reflects your beliefs or ideas about the situation. The behavioral component—"I intend." The behavioral component of an attitude, also known as the intentional component, refers to how one intends or expects to behave toward a situation. What would you intend to do if a person talked loudly on a cellphone at the table next to you? Your action may reflect your negative or positive feelings (affective), your negative or positive beliefs (cognitive), and your intention or lack of intention to do anything (behavioral). All three components are often manifested at any given time. For example, if you call a corporation and get one of those telephone-tree menus ("For customer service, press 1 ...") that never seems to connect you to a human being, you might be so irritated that you would say: -"I hate being given the runaround." [affective component—your feelings] -"That company doesn't know how to take care of customers." [cognitive component—your perceptions] -"I'll never call them again." [behavioral component—your intentions]

Behavioral Component

The behavioral component of an attitude, also known as the intentional component, refers to how one intends or expects to behave toward a situation.

Cognitive Component

The cognitive component of an attitude consists of the beliefs and knowledge one has about a situation.

Surroundings

The cubicle, according to new research, is stifling the creativity and morale of many workers, and the bias of modern-day office designers for open spaces and neutral colors is leading to employee complaints that their workplaces are too noisy or too bland. Some businesses, such as advertising giant Grey Group in New York, have even moved beyond cubicles to completely open offices, which has required a business psychologist to hold "space therapy" sessions to ease employee concerns. "There is no such thing as something that works for everybody," says Alan Hedge, a professor of environmental analysis at Cornell University. An 8-foot-by-8-foot cubicle may not be a good visual trigger for human brains, and companies wanting to improve creativity and productivity may need to think about giving office employees better things to look at.

Learned Helplessness

The debilitating lack of faith in one's ability to control one's environment.

Five Job Characteristics

The five core job characteristics are as follows. 1. Skill Variety—"How Many Different Skills Does Your Job Require?" Skill variety describes the extent to which a job requires a person to use a wide range of different skills and abilities. Example: The skill variety required by a rocket scientist is higher than that for a short-order cook. 2. Task Identity—"How Many Different Tasks Are Required to Complete the Work?" Task identity describes the extent to which a job requires a worker to perform all the tasks needed to complete the job from beginning to end. Example: The task identity for a craftsperson who goes through all the steps to build a handmade acoustic guitar is higher than it is for an assembly-line worker who just installs windshields on cars. 3. Task Significance—"How Many Other People Are Affected by Your Job?" Task significance describes the extent to which a job affects the lives of other people, whether inside or outside the organization. Example: A technician who is responsible for keeping a hospital's electronic equipment in working order has higher task significance than a person wiping down cars in a carwash. 4. Autonomy—"How Much Discretion Does Your Job Give You?" Autonomy describes the extent to which a job allows an employee to make choices about scheduling different tasks and deciding how to perform them. Example: College-textbook salespeople have lots of leeway in planning which campuses and professors to call on. Thus, they have higher autonomy than do toll-takers on a bridge, whose actions are determined by the flow of vehicles. 5. Feedback—"How Much Do You Find Out How Well You're Doing?" Feedback describes the extent to which workers receive clear, direct information about how well they are performing the job. Example: Professional basketball players receive immediate feedback on how many of their shots are going into the basket. Engineers working on new weapons systems may go years before learning how effective their performance has been.

4. Evaluating Behavior That Harms the Organization: Counterproductive Work Behaviors

The flip side of organizational citizenship behaviors would seem to be what are called counterproductive work behaviors (CWB), types of behavior that harm employees and the organization as a whole. Such behaviors may include absenteeism and tardiness, drug and alcohol abuse, and disciplinary problems but also extend beyond them to more serious acts such as accidents, sabotage, sexual harassment, violence, theft, and white-collar crime. Clearly, if an employee engages in some kind of CWB, the organization needs to respond quickly and appropriately, defining the specific behaviors that are unacceptable and the requirements for acceptable behavior. It is more desirable, however, to take preventive measures. One way is to screen for CWB during the hiring process. For instance, it's been found that applicants scoring higher on cognitive ability (intelligence) tests are less likely to be involved in violence and property damage after they are hired. Employees are also less likely to engage in CWB if they have satisfying jobs that offer autonomy or that don't require them to supervise too many people.

Using Reinforcement to Motivate Employees

The following are some guidelines for using two types of reinforcement—positive reinforcement and punishment.

Using the ERG Theory to Motivate Employees

The frustration-regression component of ERG theory certainly has some applicability to the workplace. For example, if you work as a bill collector making difficult phone calls and having no contact with coworkers, you might lobby your boss for better pay and benefits. Also ERG theory is consistent with the finding that individual and cultural differences influence our need states. It's clear, for instance, that people are motivated by different needs at different times in their lives, which suggests that managers should customize their reward and recognition programs to meet employees' varying needs.

Organizational Behavior: Trying to Explain & Predict Workplace Behavior

The informal aspects are the focus of the interdisciplinary field known as organizational behavior (OB), which is dedicated to better understanding and management of people at work. In particular, OB tries to help managers not only explain workplace behavior but also to predict it, so that they can better lead and motivate their employees to perform productively. OB looks at two areas: Individual behavior. This is the subject of this chapter. We discuss such individual attributes as values, attitudes, personality, perception, and learning. Group behavior. This is the subject of later chapters, particularly Chapter 13, where we discuss norms, roles, and teams.

The Elements of Equity Theory: Comparing Your Inputs & Outputs with Those of Others

The key elements in equity theory are inputs, outputs (rewards), and comparisons.

Glass Ceiling

The metaphor for an invisible barrier preventing women and minorities from being promoted to top executive jobs.

Age: More Older People in the Workforce

The most significant demographic event, the late Peter Drucker suggested, "is that in the developed countries the number and proportion of younger people is rapidly shrinking... . Those shrinking numbers of younger people will have to both drive their economies and help support much larger numbers of older people." Europe, for instance, needs economic growth to solve its present fiscal crisis, but growth requires not only more productivity but also more workers—and not one European country has a fertility rate high enough to replace its current population. By 2050, the European Union could have 52 million fewer people of working age, despite immigration. Even China is looking at a nationwide aging gap, which means the country is now facing a shortage of cheap labor in some locations. The United States, suggested Drucker, is the only developed economy to have enough young people, and that is only because immigrants to the United States still have large families. Even so, the median age of the American worker is predicted to reach 42.8 by 2020, up from 34.3 in 1980.

Job Enlargement: Putting More Variety into a Job

The opposite of job simplification, job enlargement consists of increasing the number of tasks in a job to increase variety and motivation. For instance, the job of installing flat screens in television sets could be enlarged to include installation of the circuit boards as well. Although proponents claim job enlargement can improve employee satisfaction, motivation, and quality of production, research suggests job enlargement by itself won't have a significant and lasting positive effect on job performance. After all, working at two boring tasks instead of one doesn't add up to a challenging job. Instead, job enlargement is just one tool of many that should be considered in job design.

5. Organizational Demands: The Stress Created by the Environment & Culture

The physical environments of some jobs are great sources of stress: poultry processing, asbestos removal, coal mining, fire fighting, police work, ambulance driving, and so on. Even white-collar work can take place in a stressful environment, with poor lighting, too much noise, improper placement of furniture, and no privacy. An organizational culture that promotes high-pressure work demands on employees will fuel the stress response. The pace of information technology certainly adds to the stress. "For example," says Michael Patsalos-Fox, chairman of the Americas region for consulting firm McKinsey & Company, "you used to have media companies and you used to have telecom [telecommunications] companies, right? ... The problem is that they are encroaching on each other. The onset of a lot of technologies is blurring the boundary between industries that were quite separate, creating opportunities for industries to attack each other." Such rapidly changing technologies and financial pressures are what keep top executives up at night.

Using Expectancy Theory to Motivate Employees

The principal problem with the expectancy theory is that it is complex. Even so, the underlying logic is understandable, and research seems to show that managers are not following its principles. When attempting to motivate employees, managers should ask the following questions: What rewards do your employees value? As a manager, you need to get to know your employees and determine what rewards (outcomes) they value, such as pay raises or recognition. What are the job objectives and the performance level you desire? You need to clearly define the performance objectives and determine what performance level or behavior you want so that you can tell your employees what they need to do to attain the rewards. Are the rewards linked to performance? You want to reward high performance, of course. Thus, employees must be aware that X level of performance within Y period of time will result in Z kinds of rewards. In a team context, however, research shows that it is best to use a combination of individual and team-based rewards. Do employees believe you will deliver the right rewards for the right performance? Your credibility is on the line here. Your employees must believe that you have the power, the ability, and the will to give them the rewards you promise for the performance you are requesting.

3. The Recency Effect: "The Most Recent Impressions Are the Ones That Count"

The recency effect is the tendency to remember recent information better than earlier information, perhaps because when you activate your recall, the later recollections are still present in working memory. You see this misperception often operating among investors (even professionals), who are more likely to buy a stock if they see something about it in the news or if it has a high one-day return.

Recency Effect

The recency effect is the tendency to remember recent information better than earlier information.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, or Pygmalion Effect

The self-fulfilling prophecy, also known as the Pygmalion ("pig-mail-yun") effect, describes the phenomenon in which people's expectations of themselves or others lead them to behave in ways that make those expectations come true. Expectations are important. An example is a waiter who expects some poorly dressed customers to be stingy tippers, who therefore gives them poor service and so gets the result he or she expected—a much lower tip than usual. Research has shown that by raising managers' expectations for individuals performing a wide variety of tasks, higher levels of achievement and productivity can be achieved. The lesson for you as a manager is that when you expect employees to perform badly, they probably will, and when you expect them to perform well, they probably will. (In the G. B. Shaw play Pygmalion, a speech coach bets he can get a lower-class girl to change her accent and her demeanor so that she can pass herself off as a duchess. In six months, she successfully "passes" in high society, having become a woman of sensitivity and taste.)

Applying the Job Characteristics Model

There are three major steps to follow when applying the model. Diagnose the work environment to see whether a problem exists. Hackman and Oldham developed a self-report instrument for managers to use called the job diagnostic survey. This will indicate whether an individual's so-called motivating potential score (MPS)—the amount of internal work motivation associated with a specific job—is high or low. Determine whether job redesign is appropriate. If a person's MPS score is low, an attempt should be made to determine which of the core job characteristics is causing the problem. You should next decide whether job redesign is appropriate for a given group of employees. Job design is most likely to work in a participative environment in which employees have the necessary knowledge and skills. Consider how to redesign the job. Here you try to increase those core job characteristics that are lower than national norms. Example: Employers want to save on health costs by helping employees with diabetes, heart disease, and similar chronic conditions avoid emergency room visits and hospital admissions. However, since primary care doctors, who could help patients manage their conditions (as by reminding diabetics to monitor their blood-glucose levels daily), are paid less than physicians in other specialties, the system has turned such doctors "into little chipmunks on a wheel, pumping out patients every five minutes," as one observer described it. The solution? Redesign the job by rewarding primary care doctors for spending more time with patients.

The Four Major Perspectives on Motivation: Overview

There is no theory accepted by everyone as to what motivates people. In this chapter, therefore, we present the four principal perspectives. From these, you may be able to select what ideas seem most workable to you. The four perspectives on motivation are (1) content, (2) process, (3) job design, and (4) reinforcement, as described in the following four main sections.

SOME WAYS EMPLOYEES TRY TO REDUCE INEQUITY

They will reduce their inputs: They will do less work, take long breaks, call in "sick" on Mondays, leave early on Fridays, and so on. They will try to change the outputs or rewards they receive: They will lobby the boss for a raise, or they will pilfer company equipment. They will distort the inequity: They will exaggerate how hard they work so they can complain they're not paid what they're worth. They will change the object of comparison: They may compare themselves with another person instead of the original one. They will leave the situation: They will quit, transfer, or shift to another reference group.

Belittle the importance of the inconsistent behavior.

This happens all the time.

Find consonant elements that outweigh the dissonant ones.

This kind of rationalizing goes on quite often, as when employees are confronted with ethical dilemmas but fear losing their jobs.

Change your attitude and/or behavior.

This would seem to be the most obvious, even rational, response to take when confronted with cognitive dissonance.

Punishment

Unquestionably there will be times when you'll need to threaten or administer an unpleasant consequence to stop an employee's undesirable behavior. Sometimes it's best to address a problem by combining punishment with positive reinforcement. Some suggestions for using punishment are as follows. Punish only undesirable behavior. You should give punishment only when employees show frequent undesirable behavior. Otherwise, employees may come to view you negatively as a tyrannical boss. Thus, for example, you should reprimand employees who show up, say, a half hour late for work but not 5 or 10 minutes late. Give reprimands or disciplinary actions as soon as possible. You should mete out punishment as soon as possible after the undesirable behavior occurs. Thus, you should give a reprimand to a late-arriving employee as soon as he or she arrives. Be clear about what behavior is undesirable. Tell employees exactly what kinds of work behaviors are undesirable and make any disciplinary action or reprimand match the behavior. A manager should not, for example, dock an hourly employee's pay if he or she is only 5 or 10 minutes late for work. Administer punishment in private. You would hate to have your boss chew you out in front of your subordinates, and the people who report to you also shouldn't be reprimanded in public, which would lead only to resentments that may have nothing to do with an employee's infractions. Combine punishment and positive reinforcement. If you're reprimanding an employee, be sure to also say what he or she is doing right and state what rewards the employee might be eligible for. For example, while reprimanding someone for being late, say that a perfect attendance record over the next few months will put that employee in line for a raise or promotion.

Informal

Values Attitudes Personalities Perceptions Conflicts Culture

Behavior: How Values & Attitudes Affect People's Actions & Judgments

Values (global) and attitudes (specific) are generally in harmony, but not always. For example, a manager may put a positive value on helpful behavior (global) yet may have a negative attitude toward helping an unethical coworker (specific). Together, however, values and attitudes influence people's workplace behavior—their actions and judgments.

Values

Values are abstract ideals that guide one's thinking and behavior across all situations.

Values: What Are Your Consistent Beliefs & Feelings About All Things?

Values are abstract ideals that guide one's thinking and behavior across all situations. Lifelong behavior patterns are dictated by values that are fairly well set by the time people are in their early teens. After that, however, one's values can be reshaped by significant life-altering events, such as having a child, undergoing a business failure, or surviving the death of a loved one, a war, or a serious health threat. From a manager's point of view, it's helpful to know that values are those concepts, principles, things, people, or activities for which a person is willing to work hard—even make sacrifices for. Compensation, recognition, and status are common values in the workplace. However, according to numerous surveys, employees are more interested in striking a balance between work and family life rather than just earning a paycheck. For instance, 86% of 550 employees responding to one survey said flexibility to balance their work and personal life was an important aspect of job satisfaction.

Hierarchy of Needs Theory

Which proposes that people are motivated by five levels of needs: (1) physiological, (2) safety, (3) love, (4) esteem, and (5) self-actualization.

Attitudes: What Are Your Consistent Beliefs & Feelings About Specific Things?

Values are abstract ideals—global beliefs and feelings—that are directed toward all objects, people, or events. Values tend to be consistent both over time and over related situations. By contrast, attitudes are beliefs and feelings that are directed toward specific objects, people, or events. More formally, an attitude is defined as a learned predisposition toward a given object. It is important for you to understand the components of attitudes because attitudes directly influence our behavior. Example: If you dislike your present job, will you be happier if you change to a different job? Not necessarily. It depends on your attitude. In one study, researchers found that the attitudes of 5,000 middle-aged male employees toward their jobs were very stable over a five-year period. Men with positive attitudes tended to stay positive, those with negative attitudes tended to stay negative. More revealingly, even those who changed jobs or occupations generally expressed the same attitudes they had previously.

The Three Elements: Expectancy, Instrumentality, Valence

What determines how willing you (or an employee) are to work hard at tasks important to the success of the organization? The answer, says Vroom, is: You will do what you can do when you want to. Your motivation, according to expectancy theory, involves the relationship between your effort, your performance, and the desirability of the outcomes (such as pay or recognition) of your performance. These relationships, which are shown in the following drawing, are affected by the three elements of expectancy, instrumentality, and valence.

CH 12 STARTS HERE: MOTIVATING FOR PERFORMANCE

What would make you rise a half hour earlier than usual to ensure you got to work on time—and to perform your best once there? Among the possible inducements (such as those offered by SAS, Google, and Zynga): free snacks, on-site laundry, child care assistance, freedom to paint your walls, scholarships for employees' children, having your dog at work. Whether employment rates are high or low, there are always companies, industries, and occupations in which employers feel they need to bend over backward to retain their human capital.

Absenteeism

When an employee doesn't show up for work

Turnover

When employees leave their jobs.