Erg Theory Another Popular Content Motivation Theory example essay topic

II. INTRO One of the key aspects of management is motivating. Finding the right form of motivation is a problem that's been around ever since motivation in the work place was conceived as an idea. As of now, there are several theories to what kind of motivation works the best to get an employee motivated to produce their best work. Unfortunately, many try motivating employees by using extrinsic rewards, such as cash or the like. What they don't realize is that in the long run, this is making their employees less productive than they were to start with..

Define Motivation To be able to understand what motivates someone, we first must look at what motivation is. According to Webster's dictionary, motivation is something (as a need or desire) that causes a person to act (Dictionary). Motivation is also said to be an inner desire to satisfy an unsatisfied need. What this is telling us is that we are motivated if we need or desire something. Motivation is based upon a satisfaction of something deep inside us. IV.

Hierarchy of Needs There was a famous Psychological theorist by the name of Abraham Maslow. Maslow is well known for his theory known as the Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow's hierarchy is set up in a pyramid starting with the most basic needs at the bottom and working up to the most advanced needs. He claimed that we as humans are motivated by unsatisfied needs. Also, certain lower needs have to be satisfied before higher needs can be obtained. At the lowest level, we need certain physical needs, such as food, air, and water.

Next up, we need safety. We need order and security to satisfy this stage. Above this we find love. We need to feel like we belong, and that we can communicate with others. After this we have esteem as the need. We need to feel achievement, status, prestige, and mastery.

The highest level of the hierarchy is self actualization. This involves true personal fulfillment. The problem most encountered by managers is that they focus on motivating by satisfying the lower level needs. They never are able to motivate someone beyond their base needs. V. INTRINSIC REWARDS Needs are broken up into 2 different categories, intrinsic and extrinsic; first we " ll take a look at intrinsic needs.

It is very important for managers to understand that intrinsic rewards are imperative to unlocking personal motivation in employees. Some say that as you cannot motivate your employees. You can force, coerce, bribe, and even attempt to energize, but you cannot motivate them (Bowen). Motivation is something that has to come from within the employee. As a manager you can influence and encourage others, but you have to be very careful not to treat rewards as anything other than an outcome from doing good work. The key to understanding intrinsic rewards is accomplished when you can understand self-actualization.

You have to consider an employees perspective as well as value when using intrinsic rewards. The reward must be of value to the employee. It's very hard not to attach some kind of extrinsic reward to an intrinsic. However, a good manager should be able to unlink the incentives of both. VI.

EXTRINSIC REWARDS Extrinsic rewards are usually material things that you are offered in return for a service you will provide. Many time extrinsic rewards are gifts, money, or something of the sort. Several times managers make mistakes by offering extrinsic rewards for tasks that would normally be accomplished from pure interest (Tan). Extrinsic rewards have long been used to motivate employees. Most managers that use these frequently do so because it's the fast and easy way. Many times, the manager may have not been trained correctly to use intrinsic motivation.

It has been said that extrinsic rewards can actually reduce intrinsic motivators (Tan). A good example of utilizing intrinsic rewards is in the case of knowledge. Knowledge is something that is very important to us, not just in business, but in life. The intrinsic reward with knowledge is mastering some area of learning. An extrinsic reward based on this would be things like pay-to-learn programs. If a manager plays this trump card right away and doesn't try to include the intrinsic reward, they may the key to unlocking motivation in that employee.

You don't want your employees to learn for you, you want them to learn for them. In order for employees to take advantage of this, it has to be something the want to learn to start out with. Once employees experience the intrinsic reward of learning new skills and knowledge, they are motivated to learn more. There are two types of employees you will find in the workplace. The first type put everything they have into their work. They find their work engaging, challenging, inspiring, and fulfilling.

The other type of worker you find dreads every minute of the work day. They sit and complain in work, or at home about their job. They count the hours until the work day is finished, and when Friday roles around, they are overjoyed. The difference between these two employees is that the first one is motivated by intrinsic rewards, while the second one lacks this. Enthusiasm is the best thing you can do as a manager to keep your workers motivated. Enthusiasm helps to make work meaningful, and to find ways to make work meaningful.

You must also look at the structure and the content of work. Managing these will drastically improve the intrinsic value of your work. VII. CONTENT MOTIVATION There are two types of theories that people use to base their management styles upon. These two types are content motivation and process motivation. Content motivation theories focus on identifying people's needs in order to understand what motivates them.

There are several types of motivation theories out there now. We already covered one of the biggest which was Maslow's Hierarchy of needs theory. ERG Theory Another popular content motivation theory is the ERG Theory. This theory was designed to cover some of the limitations that Maslow's theory has. Maslow's theory describes needs in a hierarchy. ERG stands for existence, relatedness, and growth.

Maslow's theory was found to have some overlap in the middle levels, so the ERG was shortened to just the 3 levels. Existence covers the physiological and safety needs. Relatedness covers social and external esteem needs. Growth covers self-actualization and internal esteem needs. This theory is also hierarchical, but you can go about fulfilling the needs in different steps. If managers use this theory, they have to be careful to recognize each level of needs.

If growth opportunities are not provided to employees for each level, their motivation may regrets to a very low state. Two Factor Theory The Two Factor Theory is another popular content motivation theory. The two factors are hygiene and motivation. The way this theory works is that both of the parts have to be satisfied at the same time to promote motivation in the employees. Hygiene includes things like the company, its policies, employee status, security, etc. The motivators are things like achievement, interest in the job, and recognition.

So if you meet their needs through hygiene, their motivators will advance at the same time. V. PROCESS MOTIVATION Process motivation theories look at what people are thinking about when they decide whether or not to put effort into a particular activity. One of the most popular of these theories is the Equity Theory. Equity Theory The Equity Theory argues that people are motivated by inequity. That means that a person looks at others who are doing the same or similar jobs to them and compare how much effort that they put into the job and how much they are rewarded for their work. For example, a person who was working very hard in a job may see another employee does not put in much effort at all, but gets the same rewards of salary, promotion, and other things. This would probably be a negative motivator.

This would discourage that person from working so hard. There are, on the other hand, positive motivators where a person feels that they receive more than others in the same job and so feel that they are being rewarded for their efforts (Barrier). Goal-Setting Theory The Goal-Setting theory is another popular process motivation theory. This theory puts the employee in the driver's seat. In order for them to be motivated, they set goals for themselves that are clear, challenging, and achievable. If someone else sets up the goals, we have a tendency to lose our motivation to work hard because we did not set the goals ourselves.

Feedback helps out a lot with letting you know where you are in accomplishing your goals. You have to be careful to avoid negative feedback because it can be very demotivating in some cases. Depending on the type of goal we have, we will go about achieving it differently. A directional goal is one where we are motivated to arrive at a particular conclusion. We will in turn narrow our thinking, selecting beliefs, etc. that support the conclusion. The lack of thoughtfulness or consideration also tends to make us more optimistic about achieving the goal.

An accuracy goal is one where we are motivated to arrive at the most accurate possible conclusion. These occur when the cost of being inaccurate is high. People have a habit of investing more effort in achieving accuracy goals. Their deliberation (or lack of consideration) also makes them realize that there is a real chance that they will not achieve their goal. When we have accuracy goals we never get to a good enough point and stop thinking about it, we continue to search for ways to improve them (Lamey). Expectancy Theory According to the Expectancy Theory, we are constantly predicting likely futures; we create expectations about future events.

If things seem reasonably likely and attractive, we know how to get there and we believe we that we can make the difference, then this will motivate us to act to make this future come true. This theory tells us that motivation is a combination of these three things; valence, instrumentality, and expectancy. Valence is the value of the perceived outcome. In other words, what's in it for me? Instrumentality is the belief that if you complete certain actions then you will achieve the outcome. Expectancy is the belief that you are able to make the complete the actions; you are capable.

IX. CONCLUSION There are several different ways to go about motivating your employees. We have discussed the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. We have gone over when it is ok to use both of these types of rewards.

We covered several theories that are being used today by managers in the workplace to promote motivation. Intrinsic rewards are the key to motivating employees to give you high performance. It's up to you to choose which will work the best to motivate your employees to do their best work. Remember, that your employees are motivated most when they are able to appreciate the motivation. X.

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XI: GRAPH OF PROFITSMemorandumTo: Office of the President Bushy George Beak and Skiffs Lumber Associates From: Human Resources Date: 4/4/2005 Re: Motivational Communication CONFIDENTIAL It has been brought to my personal attention that our employees seem to be having a problem with motivation.