Chapter 8: Motivation: From Concepts to Applications

• This chapter discusses approaches to encouraging, and harnessing manager and employee motivation

Motivating by Job Design: The Job Characteristics Model (JCM)

• The structure of work impacts an individual's motivation

• Job design suggests that the way elements in a job are organized can influence employee efforts

• JCM describes jobs using five dimensions:

• Skill variety

• Job requires a variety of activities using different skills or talents

• Task identity

• Job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work

• Task significance

• Job affects the lives or work of other people

• Autonomy

• Job provides worker freedom, independence, and discretion

• Feedback

• Carrying out work activities generates direct and clear information about performance

• Skill variety, task identity, and task significance combine to create meaningfulness for the work

• High autonomy gives feeling of responsibility for wok outcomes

• Feedback shows them how effectively they are performing

• The more these three psychological states are present, the greater will be the employees' motivation

• high growth need are more likely to experience the critical psychological states when their jobs include these elements

• JCM indicates relationships between job characteristics

• Jobs are becoming more autonomous, interdependent, and requiring more skills

• The relationships with job satisfaction have not changed since the 1970s

• Support for the JCM: Personality and context differences exist

• Findings show the link between job characteristics and satisfaction are highest when workers have positive moods

Motivating Potential Score (MPS)

• MPS combines core dimensions of the JCM into a predictive index:
• (skill variety + task identity + task significance) / 3 × autonomy × feedback
• High motivating potential requires jobs to be high on at least one of the three factors leading to experienced meaningfulness
• Motivation, performance, and satisfaction will improve, and absences and turnover will be reduced if jobs score high on motivating potential

Job Redesign

• Redesigning jobs has practical implications, and can reduce turnover and increase job satisfaction
• There is a focus on redesign as a way to improve inclusiveness within organizations

Several ways jobs can be redesigned to motivate employees:

• Job Rotation

  • Periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another
  • A survey suggests job rotation is important to millennials
  • Manufacturers use it to respond more flexibly and increase motivation
  • Can increase safety and reduce repetitive-based work injuries
  • Drawbacks: Training costs, reduces productivity, creates disruptions, and increases time spent answering new employee questions

• Job Enrichment

• High-level responsibilities are added to the job to increase purpose

• Can reduce turnover

• Enriching jobs relates to an organizations financial health and productivity through job satisfaction

• Managers who are high on openness and autonomous are likely to design enriching jobs

• Managers should fight the urge to micromanage

• Relational Job Design

• Can managers design work to motivate the well-being of the beneficiaries

• Shifts spotlight to those affected by worker performance

• Also motivates higher performance and job satisfaction, especially when coupled with designing jobs for autonomy

• Employees see effect on a real person and have tangible consequences

• Customers/clients become memorable and emotional, leading employees to consider the effects of their work

Alternative Work Arrangements

• Alternative work arrangements are important for a diverse workforce

• Dual-earner couples

• Single parents

• Employees caring for a sick family

• Includes flextime, job sharing, and telecommuting

• Flextime

• Helps make life easy, and gives a sense of when/where to work

• Allows for natural energy cycles

• May extend hours of operation and reduce commuting challenges

• Is linked to positive work outcomes but effects are much weaker from a review of over 40 studies

• There are smaller reductions in absenteeism, greater improvements in productivity and schedule satisfaction

• Is weakly effective in reducing extent work interferes with family

• Job Sharing

• Allows 2+ individuals to split a full-time job

• Allows to draw talent from 1+ individual for the job

• Opens opportunity to acquire skilled workers otherwise unavailable on a full-time basis

• From an employee perspective, job sharing can increase motivation

• An employer’s decision for job sharing is based on policy and financial

• The part-time employees could be less expensive, but training and coordination costs are still high

• Telecommuting

• Working at home or anywhere employee chooses outside the physical workplace

• Can increase performance and job satisfaction

• Reduces role stress and turnover intentions

• Can reduce work-family conflict

• Telecommuting may lead to employees shirking responsibility

• May lead to social loafing and lack of guidance provided

• Can isolate employees and reduce job satisfaction and connection

• Employees needs to set goals, reward themselves, and thrive with autonomy

• Framework involves assessing telecommuting needs and supporting practices

Employee involvement

• Motivates employees to work harder, improve productivity, and create job satisfaction

• Engagement creates autonomy and control over their work life

• Employee Involvement Programs (EIP) are participative management and representative participation

• Participative Managment

• Subordinates share decision-making power with immediate supervisors

• Can enhance motivation through trust

• Should be a way to enhance motivation through trust and commitment

• Leaders should avoid coercive techniques

• Stress the organization consequence and review process

• Institutions may realize higher stock returns

• Lower turnover rates

• Higher labor productivity

• Effects aren't typically large

• Representative participation

• Redistributes power and equalizes labor interests with management stockholders

• Formed to allow employee representatives to discuss issues outside Union groups

• Workers participate organization decision making through a small group of representative employees

• The most common representative forms are works councils and board representatives

• Need to feel their interests are represented

• To be successful, EIP programs should be localized to national norms

• Important to modify practices and reflect cultures

Motivation With Extrinsic Rewards

• An estimation of 47% stated job retention was due to pay, and 62% seeking to leave due to pay

• Establishing Pay Structure

• Internal equity

• The worth of employment to an organization

• External equality

• Competitiveness relative to the labor market

• Can’t pay the market rate, or they are bearing the market for high rates or turnover

• A large amount of impressive gains have been made by holding down employee wages

• High morale results from a high qualified and highly motivated work force

• Employee retention and productivity are all effected

• Variable-Pay Programs: Rewarding Employees

• Pay programs based on measurements of individual successes

• Piece-Rate pay is a means of compensation for production workers or any job where the outputs can me evaluated by quantity

• Known for higher productivity

• Downside is financial risk

• Bonus’ are a component for job compensation and once reserved for upper management bonuses can be given at any level

• Bonuses reward a performance that is better than others and a performance that is recent not historical as bonus reward higher from base-point pay

• Profit-Sharing Plan is used on some formula around profitability of compensation

• Share profit among compensation

• Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) benefits in which employers acquire sock for lower prices as well as the performance of employees

• Ethical choice for workers cooperative is aimed at creating sustainable jobs for it’s members in order to generate wealth for the local economy and benefit from a higher value for jobs

Using Benefits to Motivate Employees

• Both are beneficial in a few ways
• Benefits can lead to a better workforce
• Employee retention
• Improved Job Satisfaction
• May need to choose for the organizations
• Flexible benefits
• Gives employees flexibility
• Allows for different employee needs
• Marriage Status/ Age
• Dependent Status
• Individual needs

Using Intrinsic Rewards to Motivate Employees

• Non-Financial
• Employee Recognition Programs use intrinsic motivation
• Can create motivation by formally appreciating employees contributions