Managing Employee Motivation and Performance

INTERNATIONAL BURCH UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF political economy DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT MANAGING EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE question PAPER by Nedzad ISAKOVIC Project Supervisor M. A. Edin SMAJIC SARAJEVO April, 2012 content 1. Introduction2 1. 1. The Motivation Process2 1. 2. Wath Managers Do In Practice2 2. Motivating by Structuring hire outs to limit Them Interesting3 2. 1. vocation Design3 2. 2. conjecture Enrichment and Job Enlargement3 2. 3. The Job Characteristics Model4 3. Conclusion5 4. References7 1. Introduction Motivation is defined as the cognitive operation that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented looks.Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of piss to reduce thirst, reading a book to collect contendledge or manageing some(prenominal) ad hoc argument assignment to get pay. Why is the motif of employees so of the essence(predicate) at the makeplace? It is important for managers because it determines individual process of the representers along with ability of the motioners and take environment. The most ch completelyenging factor for manager to manipulate of these iii is motif. Individual behavior is a daedal phenomenon, and the manager guides to enter the core of the line if he is going to solve it. 1. 1. The Motivation ProcessThe motive serve up progresses through a series of separate steps. Content, process, and rein coercement perspectives on motivation address contrary parts of this process (Griffin, 2008). Content perspective tries to get word what factor or factors remind citizenry. The most prevalent content theories be Maslows hierarchy of pauperisms, the ERG system and Herzbergs two-factor theory. Process perspectives on motivation look how the motivation process works and how it occurs. They try to cause out why people certain behavior options to fulfill their needs and how workers evaluate their felicitys after their decisions.Theories of process pers pectives argon expectancy theory, equity theory and the newer attribution theory. The reinforcement perspective tries to find out which factors force employees to continue being motivate. It tells us that employees will retell the behavior for which they be pay backed, and they wont plagiarize behavior for which they are punished. Reinforcement perspective uses overbearing reinforcement, avoidance, punishment and extinction as tools to keep employees motivated. These are just theories which protagonist managers to determine what to do in practice. 1. 2.What Managers Do In Practice The most dual-lane thought and strategy among managers in practice is that bills motivates. Because of that managers use large variety of reward systems such(prenominal) as merit reward systems, incentive reward systems and team reward systems to emend motivation and transaction of their employees. Their assumption is correct and employees do actually perform better when they know that they will receive to a greater extent cash for their better performance. But another question arises How long will the improved performance pass if money is key motivator?The answer is that it wont last long. The studies rush shown that individuals let worry recalling the bonus they receive and it does not seem to break the same equal it did within the first hardly a(prenominal) weeks or months of receiving it. Thats because money, in and of itself, will not perpetually motivate individuals. Employees are motivated frequently much(prenominal) if money rewards are combined with recognition and with improved business program. Another bar that arises from development the money as a key factor of motivation is that it cost.The companies need to give large amounts of money to employees as bonuses and there were several cases where bonuses are actually large than annual salaries of some employees. This becomes a real problem if company wants to decrease the amount of bonuses emp loyees receive. Employees become much dissatisfied and unmotivated because they are used to suck large bonuses, so their performance falls quite an a lot. My opinion is that the best way to motivate employees to perform better is to initiation hypothecates by making them more(prenominal)(prenominal) appealing to people. 1. Motivating by Structuring Jobs to Make Them Interesting 2. 3. Job DesignThis approach of motivation is order at upward(a) the essential nature of the work performed by changing the object of the seam. Job design is concerned with structuring melodic lines in order to improve brass efficiency and employee job satisfaction (Snell/Bohlander, 2007). Employees today suck in repetitive movements, which they find passing snatch and monotonous. Not surprisingly, people became bored with such jobs and their performance falls with time. Fortunately, todays organizational scientists hold institute several ways of designing jobs that arent just efficient, bu t are also attractive and motivating.Job enlargement and job enrichment are two approaches that improve motivation by changing job design. 2. 4. Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment One of the first innovational approaches to redesigning jobs suggested that boredom of employees by engaging in highly repetitive jobs could be minimized by having people perform an summationd number of different tasks all at the same level. This approach is known as job enlargement (Greenberg/Baron, 2008). Because of this approach employees dont need high(prenominal) skills or have higher responsibility, but perform more different actions at the same level.Changing job in this way is an step-up in the horizontal job loading. Several studies showed that job enlargement is very useful way to increase employee job satisfaction and employee boredom at the workplace. A more effective approach, job enrichment, gives employees not notwithstanding more jobs to do, but more tasks to perform at a higher leve l of skill and responsibility (Greenberg/Baron, 2008). The main idea of job enrichment is making jobs more interesting to people so that they will be more highly motivated to perform them.Job enrichment gives employees the opportunity to take greater control over how to do their jobs. Because people perform enriched jobs work at higher levels than others, this approach increases a jobs straight job loading. Even the job enrichment is successful it has some problems in slaying. First one is difficulty of implementation because it is expensive to redesign existing facilities. Second problem is lack of employee acceptance because not all employees are ready to accept the changes in their job effect and higher obligations for the work they perform. 2. 5. The Job Characteristics ModelIn previous text edition I stated that employers should enrich the jobs, but I failed to specify precise what elements of a job need to be enriched for it to be effective. Job device characteristics s it answers this question. It assumes that jobs whoremonger be designed so as to help people get enjoyment out of their jobs and get by to the highest degree the work they do (Greenberg/Baron, 2008). It tells us how jobs kitty be redesigned to help employees feel that they are doing meaning(prenominal) and valuable work. The model specifies that enriching certain elements of jobs influences employees mental states in a manner that increases their work effectiveness.It identifies fivesome core job dimensions that help create three critical psychological states, leading to several secure personal and work outcomes. The five critical job dimensions are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. attainment variety shows us how many different tasks the employee performs using several of his skills and talents. Task identity shows us how much is employee involved in one piece of work, from outgrowth to end. Task significance shows us how much impact employees work has on others.Autonomy shows us how much freedom employees have in planning and performing jobs as they wish. Feedback shows us how much the job allows employees to know is their performance efficient enough. The model tells that these various job dimensions have important effects on many critical psychological states. Combination of these job dimensions have effect on experienced meaningfulness of the job performed, which is and so experienced as highly important, valuable and worthwhile. Job dimensions also determine how much employees are personally trustworthy and accountable for their work.When they are free to settle what to do and how to do it they feel more responsible for their work. Finally, these job dimensions impact employees knowledge of the results of their work. When a job is designed to provide employees with information about the effects of their actions, they better understand how effective they are and such knowledge improves their effectivene ss. These critical psychological states change personal and work outcomes such as feelings of motivation, the pure tone of work performed, satisfaction with work, absenteeism and turnover.The higher these psychological states are, the more constructive the personal and work benefits and outcomes will be. The job characteristics model is highly applicable and it has high and positive results. The employees that respond best to this model are the ones which have high need for personal growth and development. The model has been focus of many empirical tests, most of which are supportive of many aspects of the model. One study conducted among a group of South African clerical workers found particularly strong support for the job characteristic model (Greenberg/Baron, 2008). . Conclusion In my opinion fixation employee motivation by changing job design is much more productive and better than improving motivation by incentive reward systems. It is rightful(a) that inducing motivation by changing job design has several problems, such as difficulty of implementation and lack of employee acceptance, but these problems are easier to bastinado than problems that occur when companies use money to motivate their employees. inducing reward systems have problems beside the incredibly high costs to organization.These systems may lead to lower job satisfaction as the employees work until they reach their limit and hence they become unhappy. They can also create emulation within the organization and destroy cooperation among employees. Employees cannot be inured just as machines and the money they receive for their work just isnt enough to satisfy them. They need recognition for their work and they need to see that the work they do is meaningful and worthwhile, and this is the thing that job design allows them to have. They feel respected and fulfilled and, at the end, motivated to perform the best they know. . References Ricky W. Griffin (2008). Management (9th vari ance ed. ). Houghton Mifflin Company. Jerald Greenberg Robert A. Baron (2008). Behavior in Organizations (9th Edition ed. ). Pearson prentice Hall. Luis R. Gomez-Mejia David B. Balkin Robert L. Cardy (2007). Managing forgiving Resources (5th Edition ed. ). Pearson Prentice Hall . Scott Snell George Bohlander (2007). Human Resorce Management. Thomson. http//psychology. about. com/od/mindex/g/motivation-definition. htm , http//www. entrepreneur. com/article/202352