Understanding Employee Motivation: Key Theories
Motivation
- Focus of content: Reasoning models answer what motivates behavior? They are based on the assumption that employees are driven by the desire to satisfy their needs.
- Focus of the process model of motivation that emphasizes how and why individuals choose certain behaviors to fulfill their personal goals.
1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maintains that individuals have a complex set of five levels of needs which they try to satisfy in sequence, from base to top (pyramid).
- Physiological needs: (need to breathe, drink water, sleep, regulate homeostasis, eat, release body wastes, sexual activity, physical activity, etc.).
- Security needs: (physical security, employment, income and resources, moral and physiological security, family, health, self-esteem, emotional security, etc.).
- Social needs (affection): Communicate with others, establish friendships, express and receive affection, live in a community, belong to a group, feel accepted (friendship, love).
- Recognition needs (ego or self): Feel appreciated, have prestige, status within their social group, self-appraisal.
- Self-actualization needs (self): Transcendence, personal growth, develop talents to the maximum.
Review of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
- Cultural differences
- Individual differences
2. Alderfer’s ERC Theory
- Existence: Satisfying basic material requirements.
- Relatedness: Maintaining important interpersonal relationships.
- Growth: Intrinsic desire for personal development.
3. McClelland’s Theory of Needs
- Achievement (performance): Drive to excel, succeed in relation to a set of rules, strive for success. Achievement-related behaviors: setting tough goals, focusing on achieving goals, appreciating and applying feedback.
- Power: The need to be influential and control others. Power-related behaviors: influencing others, seeking positions of influence.
- Affiliation: Desire for close and friendly relationships. Affiliation behaviors: seeking to get along with others, enjoying the company of others.
4. Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory
Theory that differentiates between experiences of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
- Motivational factors: Characteristics of a position that generate high levels of motivation.
- Hygiene factors: Aspects of the work environment that, if positive, maintain a reasonable level of work motivation, but do not necessarily increase it.
Factors contributing to dissatisfaction (Hygiene):
Company policies and management, relationship with supervisor, working conditions, salary, relationship with peers, security, prestige.
Factors contributing to job satisfaction (Motivators):
Achievement and accomplishment, recognition, job interest, responsibility, advancement, progress, and growth.
5. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
- Effort-Performance Expectancy: The belief that effort leads to performance.
- Performance-Reward Expectancy: The belief that performance leads to rewards.
- Reward-Personal Goals: (Attractiveness of the reward) Rewards are desired, their value contributes to the personal psychological equation that determines the intensity of motivation.
6. Equity Theory
The process approach that deals with individuals’ assumptions about the fairness with which they are treated compared to their peers, exploring how perceptions of equity and inequity affect motivation.
- Outcomes: Work rewards obtained, both intrinsic and extrinsic (promotion, interesting assignments, salary, good relations with colleagues).
- Inputs: Values that an employee brings to their work to achieve desired outcomes (time, effort, study, commitment to the organization).
7. Reinforcement Model
Explains the use of rewards and punishments to influence employees. This approach to motivation holds that behavior is shaped by its consequences.
Stimulus (situation) – Response (behavior) – Consequences (rewards and punishments) – Future behavior.
- Positive reinforcement: Generating a desirable outcome by implementing a reward to increase the probability that a behavior is repeated.
- Negative reinforcement: Adapting behavior to avoid unpleasant consequences or to achieve pleasant consequences.
- Punishment: Discouraging certain behavior by applying negative consequences.
- Extinction: Absence of reinforcement, both positive and negative, after a behavior.
- Fixed-interval reinforcement schedule: Reinforcement applied at fixed time intervals, such as being paid weekly.
- Variable-interval reinforcement schedule (intermittent): Reinforcement applied at irregular intervals without notice, such as random inspections.