Employee Motivation and Knowledge Management in the Workplace
Motivation of Workers
For people to conduct activities as planned, the company must address motivating them.
Main Theories on Motivation
A) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Human needs explain all human behavior. Maslow divided needs into five levels:
- Primary: Those related to survival (eating, drinking, etc.).
- Safety: Avoiding risks from ignorance about the future.
- Social: Integration into the family and groups; feeling accepted and loved.
- Esteem: Appreciation and respect from others; recognition.
- Self-actualization: Realizing the ideals and values necessary for personal satisfaction.
As the individual satisfies the most basic needs, they will be raised to a higher level of needs (satisfaction-progression process).
B) Alderfer’s ERG Theory
Alderfer considered that the needs of individuals are sorted in a hierarchy. He proposes only three types of needs:
- Existence (E): Satisfied with items like food, shelter, air, etc.
- Relatedness (R): Satisfaction with social and interpersonal relationships.
- Growth (C): Met when the individual makes productive contributions.
Alderfer agrees that most individuals follow the satisfaction-progression process, but he also says that if an individual is frustrated in their attempts to meet growth needs, relatedness needs reappear as the main motivating force, compelling them to satisfy their needs of a lower order.
C) Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
Herzberg argues that for dissatisfaction to be low, basic needs must be covered, and motivation needs to focus on higher levels. He reached two conclusions:
- Certain characteristics of jobs (maintenance factors) are necessary to maintain some level of satisfaction.
- Motivational factors, such as the work itself, recognition, promotion, etc., are directly associated with the job.
Leadership and Motivation
Effective leadership can work together to get motivated workers.
- Delegate authority and responsibility: Some people are hesitant to take on more responsibility, but most accept it and consider it a sign that their superiors are satisfied.
- Communicate to employees what is expected of them.
- Recognize workers’ merits: Knowing how to appreciate is important for motivation.
- Give workers the means to know the progress made at work: If this happens, people are much more willing to accept and commit to them.
- Facilitate the training and personal development of workers: This raises the human capital of the company, and workers would benefit most because of their greater education and more important human values.
- Ensure pay and promotion match merits: The company is interested in ensuring that their best workers are well paid if they want to retain them and that positions are covered by the most suitable people.
- Stimulate the creativity of employees.
Knowledge Management
There are certain periods when changes are realized at a speed that we sometimes call revolutionary. To the traditional factors of production (land, labor, etc.), another is added: knowledge.
To achieve the objectives of the organization, there are two types of resources:
- Tangible: Easily imitated by other firms (packaging, formulas, etc.).
- Intangible: Such as knowledge, it is more relevant to acquire and maintain, identify and exploit the intelligible assets of the enterprise, and build new ones.
Types of Knowledge
- Tacit: What we have but cannot explain.
- Explicit: Documents that can be represented, such as instruction books, web pages, etc.
- Individual: Possessed by a single person.
- Social: Falls on a group of individuals.
- Conscious: Individual and explicit; can be articulated so that it can be shared.
- Automatic: Individual and tacit; includes skills acquired through experience.
- Objectified: Social and explicit; based on the organization’s operational activity.
- Collective: Social and tacit; routines, behaviors, etc.