Intrinsic And Extrinsic Motivation

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Extrinsic and Intrinsic Rewards
The link between employee motivation and the rewards they receive from their employers are vital to maintaining a loyal, reliable and steady workforce. The two categories of rewards, also referred to as motivators, are intrinsic and extrinsic. “The primary difference between the two types of motivators are extrinsic factors arise from outside the body of the employee, where as intrinsic elements arise from within the employee.” (Cherry, About.com) Extrinsic motivators for example would consist of working to earn money, job security, and rewards like extra time off, earned vacation days, a pay raise etc. Intrinsic motivators involve the personal motivating factors within an employee that keep them satisfied while
2) How often should an extrinsic reward be used as a source of motivation?
These two questions take in to account two important variables about rewards, what and how. “Extrinsic rewards can be used to motivate employees to acquire new skills or knowledge about the job. Once the knowledge and skills are acquired, the employees will feel intrinsically motivated to complete a given task.” –Kendra Cherry (about.com) It is important to note that timing and choosing appropriate work actions that warrant an extrinsic reward, very much affect the value of the reward over time. Rewarding an employee with a pay raise months after it was earned by a specific action, give that reward less value to the employee. Another example would be rewarding employees to often, again devaluing the reward itself decreasing its overall effectiveness as a motivator (Di Ruzza,5). Having the appropriate proportions of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators present in the workplace will help TGIW retain and maintain a strong employee base, and improve the relationship between employee and employer. Proper timing and intrinsic and extrinsic reward execution will help lower TGIW employee turnover

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