Concept of motivation
✓ According to Scott, motivation means a process of stimulating people to accomplish desired goals.
✓ Edwin B. Flippo defines motivation as the process of attempting to influence others to do your will through the possibility of reward.
✓ In simple words, motivation is the process of inducing people inner drives and action towards certain goals and committing their energies to achieve these goals.
Importance of Motivation
✓ Motivation improves employee involvement.
✓ Motivation promotes job satisfaction and thus reduces absenteeism and turnover.
✓ Motivation helps in securing a high level of performance and hence enhances efficiency. and productivity.
✓ Motivation creates a congenial working atmosphere in the organisation and thus promotes interpersonal cooperation.
Theories of Motivation
In order to understand and improve the employee involvement, it is essential to assimilate the underlying theories of motivation. Though there are many theories of motivation, the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory and Herzberg’s two factor theory are more important from our subject of view.
I. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
✓According to Maslow, human motivation is a hierarchy of five needs , as shown in Fig.1.1. The five basic needs are:
| (i) Physiological needs, (ii) Safety needs, (iii) Social needs, (iv) Esteem needs, and (iv) Self-actualisation needs. |
✓ These needs form a hierarchy or ladder and each need becomes active only when the next lower need is reasonably satisfied.
1.Physiological or Survival Needs
✓ Physiological needs are the biological needs required to preserve human life.
✓ These needs include needs for food, clothing and shelter. These needs must be met first before higher level needs emerge.
Fig. 1.1. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
2. Safety Needs
✓ When the physiological needs are reasonably satisfied, then the safety needs become activated.
These needs include:
(i) Protection from physiological dangers (fire, accident);
(ii) Economic security (fringe benefits, health, insurance);
(iii) Desire for an orderly and predictable environment; and
(iv) Desire to know the limits of acceptable behaviour.
✓ These safety needs are really provisions against deprivation in the future. It also involves a sense of protection against danger and threats.
3. Social Needs
✓ After the needs of the body and security are satisfied then a sense of belonging and acceptance becomes predominant in motivating behaviour.
✓ These needs are for love, friendship, exchange of feelings and grievances, recognition, conversation, belongingness, companionship, etc.
4. Esteem Needs
✓ There are two types of esteem needs: Self-esteem and esteem of others.
- Self-esteem needs include those for self-confidence, achievement, competence, self-respect, knowledge, and for independence and freedom.
- The second group of esteem needs is those that related to one’s reputation needs for status, for recognition, for appreciation and the deserved respect of one’s fellows.
5. Self-Actualisation Needs
✓ This is the ultimate need which dominates a person’s behaviour when all lower needs are satisfied.
✓ Self-actualisation, also called self-realisation needs, refers to the desire to become everything that one is capable of becoming.
The first three needs, also known as lower level needs, can be satisfied by monetary and non-monetary compensations. But the last two needs, also known as higher level needs, can be satisfied through participation in decision-making process, delegation of authority and responsibility, more freedom, self development, etc.
✓ Table .1 shows Maslow’s hierarchy of needs together with the associated motivations for quality (Source: Juran and Gryna).
Table 1. Hierarchy of human needs and forms of quality motivation
| Maslow’s List of Human Needs | Usual Forms of Quality Motivation |
| Physiological needs | Opportunity to increase earnings by a bonus for good work. |
| Safety needs | Job security (e.g., quality makes sales; sales make jobs) |
| Social needs | Appeal to the employee as a member of the team he or she must not let the team down. |
| Esteem needs | Appeal to pride of workmanship, to achieving a good score. Recognition through awards, publicity, etc. |
| Self-fulfillment needs | Opportunity to propose creative ideas and participate in creative planning. |
II. Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory
✓ Herzberg’s two factor theory is also called motivation-hygiene theory.
✓ This theory is based on two factors:
|
✓ Various motivation and hygiene factors are listed in Table 2.
Table 2. Motivation and hygiene factors
| Motivation Factors | Hygiene Factors |
|
|
✓ According to Herzberg, maintenance or hygiene factors are necessary to maintain a reasonable level of satisfaction among employees. These factors do not provide satisfaction to the employees but their absence will dissatisfy them. Therefore these factors are called dissatisfiers.
✓ On the other hand, motivational factors creates satisfaction to the workers at the time of presence but their absence does not cause dissatisfaction.
✓ It can be noted that Herzberg’s dissatisfiers are roughly equivalent to Maslow’s lower levels, and the motivators are similar to the Maslow’s upper levels.
Thus the knowledge of motivation is required for any organisation to understand the utilisation of employee involvement.
| Read More Topics |
| What do you mean by strategic planning? |
| Characteristics or behaviours of quality leaders |
| Leadership styles for effective leaders |
