Employee Motivation: Self-Esteem

Employee Motivation

• Some employees are naturally more inclined to be motivated than others.
• Some employees start jobs with a tendency towards motivation, while others tend to be unmotivated.
• There are three individual differences related to work motivation.
• Self-esteem
• Intrinsic motivation tendency
• Need for achievement

Self-Esteem

• Self-esteem: The extent to which a person values and considers themselves worthy.
• Korman theorized in the 1970s that high self-esteem employees are more motivated and perform better.
• Employees who feel good about themselves are motivated to perform better at work.
• Employees desire to perform at levels consistent with their self-esteem.
• Low self-esteem employees underestimate their abilities, which causes them to desire to perform at lower levels.
• There are three types of self-esteem, all important to job performance:
• Chronic self-esteem: A person's overall feeling about themself.
• Situational self-esteem (self-efficacy): A person's feeling about themself in a specific situation.
• Socially influenced self-esteem: How a person feels about themself based on the expectations of others.
• Performance can be improved by increasing an employee's self-esteem or self-efficacy.
• Organizations can improve employee self-esteem through self-esteem workshops, experience with success, and positive supervisor behavior.

Self-Esteem Workshops

• Workshops provide insights into employee strengths, raising self-esteem by identifying inherent qualities.
• The Enchanted Self is a self-esteem training program where employees learn to think positively.

Experience with Success

• Employees are given an easy task to ensure success, increasing self-esteem and performance.
• The method of experience with success is based on the self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: Individuals will perform as well or as poorly as they expect.
• The relationship between self-expectations and performance is called the Galatea effect.

Supervisor Behavior

• Supervisors are trained to communicate confidence in their employees to increase self-esteem and performance.
• This process is known as the Pygmalion effect, which has been demonstrated in various scenarios.
• The Pygmalion effect has been portrayed in motion pictures, such as My Fair Lady and Trading Places.
• The Golem effect, in contrast, occurs when negative expectations decrease an individual's performance.

Intrinsic Motivation

• Intrinsically motivated people perform tasks because they enjoy them or seek a challenge.
• Extrinsically motivated people perform tasks to receive rewards or avoid negative consequences.
• Intrinsically motivated people don't need external rewards and being paid may even decrease satisfaction.

Needs for Achievement and Power

• McClelland's theory suggests employees differ in motivation levels for achievement, affiliation, and power.
• Employees with a high need for achievement are motivated by challenging, controllable jobs.
• Employees with minimal achievement needs are satisfied with jobs involving little challenge and a high chance of success.
• Employees with a high need for affiliation are motivated by jobs in which they can work with and help others.
• Employees with a high need for power are motivated by a desire to influence others.

Employee Values and Expectations

• Work motivation and job satisfaction are determined by the discrepancy between what employees want, value, and expect, and what their job provides.

Job Expectations

• A discrepancy between what an employee expected a job to be and its reality can affect motivation and satisfaction.

Job Characteristics

• Per the job characteristics theory, employees desire meaningful jobs that provide autonomy and feedback.
• Less motivation will occur if there's a discrepancy between outcomes and needs.
• Jobs will have motivation potential with room for a variety of skills, connecting efforts to useful outcomes, and being appreciated by others.

Needs, Values and Wants

• Discrepancies between an employee’s needs, values, and wants, and what a job offers leads to low motivation.
• Three theories about employee needs and values:
• Maslow’s needs hierarchy
• ERG theory
• Two-factor theory

ERG Theory

• ERG theory: A needs theory developed by Alderfer with three levels:
• Existence
• Relatedness
• Growth
• ERG theory suggests a person can skip levels, removing a problem with Maslow's hierarchy.
• ERG theory explains why higher-level needs sometimes don't become more important when a lower-level need has been satisfied.
• Advancement to the next level may not be possible due to company policy or job nature.

Two-Factor Theory

• Two-factor theory: Job-related factors are divided into two categories, hygiene factors and motivators.
• Hygiene factors are elements that result from a job but don't involve the job itself.
  • Pay and benefits are consequences, not intrinsic to the job.
  • Friendships made at work are not directly involved with tasks.
• Motivators are job elements concerning tasks and duties:
  • Level of responsibility
  • Amount of job control
  • Interest the employee has in the work
• Hygiene factors are necessary for job satisfaction and motivation.
  • A low hygiene factor results in dissatisfaction and less motivation.
  • Adequate hygiene factors result in neutral employee satisfaction and motivation.
• Satisfaction and motivation occurs in the presence of both motivators and hygiene factors.

Employee Goals

• Goal setting should be used to increase motivation by giving each employee a goal, such as increasing attendance.
• Truck drivers were given specific weight goals to increase each delivery’s load.
• Goals should possess qualities represented in the acronym SMART:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Self-Regulation Theory

• Concept of self-regulation is an extension for goal setting and feedback.
• Employees monitor their progress toward attaining goals and then self-regulate.
• For example, an employee counts how many pages they should write a day to complete a 200 page report in two weeks.

Effective Incentive Programs

• Six factors to determine the effectiveness of incentive programs:
• Timing of the incentive
• Contingency of the consequences
• Type of incentive used
• Use of individual-based vs. group-based incentives
• Use of positive vs. negative incentives
• Fairness of the reward system (equity)

Expectancy Theory

• Expectancy theory: a worker motivation theory proposed by Vroom and modified by others, including Porter and Lawler.
• Expectancy (E): The perceived relationship between the amount of effort an employee puts in and the resulting outcome.
• Instrumentality (I): The extent to which the outcome of a worker's performance, if noticed, results in a particular consequence.
• Valence (V): The extent to which an employee values a particular consequence.

Rewards and Punishment

• Employee performance can be changed by punishing undesired behaviors.
• Rewards are adviseable instead of punishmnent
• Punishment can cause resentment and only changes behaviour in a short term.

Equitable Rewards and Resources

• Equity theory states motivation and job satisfaction depends a lot on the fairness in the workplace.
• There are three components involved in employee perception of fairness.
• inputs
• outputs – input/output ratio
• Inputs are personal elements such as time, effort, education, and experience.
• Outputs are elements employees receive, such as pay, benefits, challenge, and responsibility.
• Employees compute an input/output ratio and compare with those from other employees or previous experiences.