Rewards As A Motivator In An Organization example essay topic

What gets rewarded gets done Psychological and behavioral explanation The nature of human behavior is, humans do things to satisfy their unmet needs in some way or the other. These needs may vary from the very basic such as hunger to reach the greater heights of life. Whatever it may be, when he realizes that some actions he takes lead to satisfy his needs, he tends to do them in a superior way, expecting the satisfaction of his needs in a greater manner. On the other hand, if a person perceives that the things he does are unable to take him to a state of satisfied on some need or want, and then it's obvious that he does not want to continue the same action. An activity of any kind, a person is involved in takes that person to a result. The result may or may not be desirable.

That depends on the activity and the way that particular person performs that activity. The activities done by a person and the way they are done can be collectively known as the behavior. Therefore, what leads to a result is the behavior. The needed results are led by the right behavior.

The right behavior here is an identified set of activities and the way they should be performed, which at the end take the person to the needed result. The two ideas: 'need-satisfying urge of humans' and 'behavior leads to results', forms the following idea. An individual may act in a certain way to satisfy his unmet needs, but that behavior brings a result, which may be satisfaction of that need itself or satisfaction of that need with something else. If that particular behavior brings some other result in addition to the need satisfaction itself, then it's obvious that encouraging that behavior by means of ensuring greater need satisfaction yields more results.

The above-discussed ideas make up the background for our topic, 'what gets rewarded gets done'. To get done something (i.e. to achieve a result) there has to be a right behavior. Rewards can satisfy some needs of an individual encouraging the right behavior. From that we can say rewarding can lead to the needed result. Management point of view An organization is a setup of goals to be reached, and resources to be utilized in order to reach those goals. Human resource can be stated as the most important and valuable resource among all the resources possessed by an organization.

Without the human creativity no organization is able to reach its goals, though how sufficiently other resources are present. It's also important to recognize that an organization can reach its goals through collective result achievements of individuals. The importance of human resource to an organization and 'reward, behavior and result concept' is the foundation to the greatest management principle, 'What gets rewarded gets done'. In brief, it's as follows. An organization has its goals to reach. For that it needs certain results achieved by its staff.

Workers are needed to follow a certain behavior in order to achieve results. The desired behavior can be achieved by rewarding them. Both the organization and its staff are benefited. Meeting organizational objectives, whilst simultaneously fulfilling the personal needs of individuals, results in a harmony of intent and achievement for the organization and it's staff (Penelope, 2001). In an organizational context, there is another important aspect to be looked upon. Without a motivated staff, it's quite difficult for an organization to achieve the intended goals.

Rewarding is a key factor for motivating employees. Fidler (1997) suggests that rewards are symbolically important in organizations, as far as motivation is considered. But according to Whitaker (1995), motivation, even by means of rewarding, is a process to harness the potential of individuals, rather than to control or prescribe their behavior. Rewarding for results in practice Rewarding for achieve required results is done within three major steps in an organization. O First, the management has to identify what the results or the outcomes the organization is expecting from its staff are. This has to be done through the consideration of organizations goals and objectives.

Those identified results or outcomes have to be clearly defined. O Second, it has to be identified what the right behaviors expected from the employees in order to achieve those defined results or outcomes. O Third, those identified behaviors should be rewarded. Bring this into practice is easier said than done. This needs lot of analytical effort and understanding of human behavior, within the organizational boundaries as well as in general. Reward as a Motivator What is motivation?

Some common definitions of motivation are. Internal state or condition that activates behavior and gives it direction. Desire or want that energizes and directs goal-oriented behavior. Influence of needs and desires on the intensity and direction of behavior Importance of Motivation Research and observations show that well motivated employees are more productive and creative. The inverse also holds true. Performance, which is the productivity and creativity, is considered to be a function of ability and motivation.

Ability in turn depends on education, experience and training and its improvement is a slow and long process. On the other hand motivation can be improved quickly. There is a gap between an individual's actual state and some desired state and the manager tries to reduce this gap. Motivation is, in effect, a means to reduce and manipulate this gap.

It is inducing others in a specific way towards goals specifically stated by the motivator. Naturally, these goals as well as the motivation system must conform to the corporate policy of the organization. The motivational system must be tailored to the situation and to the organization. There are number of ways to motivate employees. Some of them can be listed as follows (without any particular order): . Positive reinforcement / high expectations.

Effective discipline and punishment. Treating people fairly. Setting work related goals. Restructuring jobs.

Satisfying employees needs. Rewarding employees In this context we are interested in the last one, 'reward employees'. The last two items, 'satisfying employee needs' and 'rewarding employees' have something in common. Rewarding, at the end should satisfy some employee needs. Otherwise it can have no meaning to the employee, losing the whole purpose of rewarding.

In order to use rewards as a motivator in an organization, it's important to get some idea on the relationship between human behavior and motivation. This can be best done by some of the theories on Motivation. Motivation Theories Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Maslow carried out his investigations into human behavior between 1939 and 1943. Maslow suggested that there are five sets of goals, which may be called basic needs.

These are: . Physiological needs. Safety and security need. Love needs. Esteem needs. Self-actualization or self-fulfillment needs human tends to behave in such a manner that he first try to satisfy lower level unmet needs (i.e. physiological needs).

Once they are satisfied he goes to the next level and looks for fulfillment of needs under that level. Frederick Herzberg's Two Factor Hygiene and Motivation Theory Herzberg, in his studies found that the factors causing job satisfaction (and presumably motivation) were different from those causing job dissatisfaction. He developed the motivation-hygiene theory to explain these results. He called the satisfiers motivators. These factors result from internal generators in employees, yielding motivation. He called the dis satisfiers hygiene factors.

These factors do not lead to higher levels of motivation but without them there is dissatisfaction. The following table presents the top six factors causing dissatisfaction and the top six factors causing satisfaction, listed in the order of higher to lower importance. Factors Affecting Job Attitudes Motivators Hygiene Factors Achievement Company policy Recognition Supervision Work itself Relationship with superior Responsibility Work conditions Advancement Salary Growth Relationship with Peers Implications of the Above TheoriesMaslow's theory implies that a rewarding scheme practiced by an organization should have a clear idea about the needs of each individual. Satisfying a need an individual is trying to meet at a particular time gives the best results.

On the other hand, an organization should essentially provide their staff with the hygiene factors, but for greater results motivators are needed. Rewards can play the major role here as the motivators. Rewards Many writers describe rewards as having basically two dimensions - intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic rewards are to a great extent within the control of the individual. They include feelings of personal satisfaction, a sense of achievement, status, recognition, the opportunities for advancement, responsibility and pride in the work.

They are closely related with Maslow's higher order needs and Herzberg's motivators. Extrinsic rewards on the other hand are those forms of reward, which are outside the control of the individual and at the disposal of others. They have a close relationship with Maslow's hygiene factors. They include such simple matters as salaries and conditions, incentive arrangements, share schemes, pension schemes and insurance. Thus, employees can be rewarded in ways: . Financial rewarding, which includes compensation and benefits...

Non-financial rewarding, which includes recognition and appreciation. Rewards Can Fail Though the management of an organization puts a big effort on a strategic rewarding system towards the organization's staff, there is a possibility of failure. Some of the reasons are summarized as follows: . Excessive dependence on monetary rewards. Lack of recognition value - In addition to their monetary value, rewards should have recognition value. Entitlements - Entitlements include base salary of wages, cost-of-living increases, benefits and any other rewards that are given to employees regardless of performance.

Employees come to expect them just for being there, rather than for being motivated or getting results... The wrong things are rewarded - Although performance-based rewards are certainly a desirable component of any rewards system, they won't be effective if the wrong performances are rewarded... Delay... Generic rewards - Too many reward system are inflexible, and do not acknowledge individual differences.

Organizations have tended to assume that one size fits all... Short-term impact - Another major impediment to the motivational effectiveness of rewards is the short-term impact that most rewards seem to have. Pay increases have a motivational impact of less than two weeks, and other types of rewards suffer from this phenomenon as well. Conclusion Rewarding can be used to induce right behavior, which can lead to required results. This ultimately could lead the organization to its goals. The right behavior to be rewarded has to be identified through the understanding and definition of results to be achieved by the employees.

Motivation boosts productivity. Rewarding is a motivator as well. Identification of the correct reward to be given yields better results. Needs of employees and motivational factors should be of major concern. Rewards have basically two dimensions - intrinsic and extrinsic. There are different types of rewards, which fall under above two.

They can be again categorized as financial and non-financial. Rewards have the possibility to fail and loose its original purpose.