Introduction & Background
When approaching any type of research, there is a final goal that the researcher(s) wants to achieve, whether there is a hypothesis to test or exploratory data to gather and analyze. With my research, I wanted to relate to my current position at work and future promotion opportunities. In my current position as a Project Engineer, I have responsibilities of managing a project from start to finish while working with a cross functional team. Many times while working on a project, there are items that need to be assigned and/or completed and I can have a difficult time doing this because I do not have any direct reports. Through creating and maintaining good relationships, I am able to have some employees do things I ask them to, but there are always a few that will wait till there supervisor assigns them the task. As defined by Dr. Paul Mullen, motivation is the inner drive that causes one to act (Mullen, 1993). With this history, I wanted to focus on how I can motivate employees to do their best work_ what drives employees to yield a high work performance.
Research Design
When I first outlined my research project, I wanted to use my current employer as my population. This would allow me to get a very large population with an assortment of variables that I could evaluate to see if there are any trends between motivational factors and the selected variables. These variables would include which plant the employee works at; which would include a geographical variable since my employer has plants in three different states; which department the employee works in, which shift the employee works, which gender the employee is, and what age range the employee falls into. I presented this proposal to my ...
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...ons for future research starting with a better defined population sample. A better defined population sample would include a larger population sample for better statistical analysis and to find trends. Plus, by defining the population, the research can be focused for a company or a region, like a city or state. If the population is focused on a region, the population sample should be compared to the demographics of the region similar to how I compared my research to Wisconsin's demographics of gender and age. This would provide a confidence level to the research based off of the demographics.
References
Mullen, P. (1993). EMPLOYEE MONETARY SYSTEMS: THE PAST OR FUTURE IN EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION. Industrial Management,35(6), 6.
U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). American Fact Finder. Retrieved March 12, 2014, from http://eadiv.state.wy.us/demog_data/pop2010/Profile/WI.pdf
The very first step to the “Nine Step Stairway to Effective Evaluation” is to define the research population. Population can mean anybody. So, it is needs to be clear as to who we are focusing on. The specification of the focused population is defined by the evaluation researcher. This can include, age, gender, race, culture, or socio-economic status just to name a few (DiClemente et al., 2013).
When employees were asked, what factors could be changed at USAA to help maintain employee motivation levels, a couple of them answered with, “higher wages” and “more money”. This response corroborates other studies regarding pay which state surveys will more likely under emphasize the importance of pay relative to other motivational factors. (Rynes, Gerhart & Minette, 2004). “Financial incentives had by far the largest effect on productivity of all interventions. For example, pay was four times more effective than interventions designed to make work more interesting.” (Rynes, 2004). One reason for this phenomenon is social desirable responding. It should be noted, that although pay may be under reported, the results indicate other factors are also important for employee
The basic skill of leadership is the ability to motivate others to completes a task or goal. Whether it be going to school or carrying out the tasks of a job, every effort requires motivation. The type of motivation can often be the determining factor of whether or not the effort is successful. According to Warrick (2016) motivation is defined as the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort in obtaining a goal (in this case, a work-related goal). Employers can thereby gain insight into what motivates an employee by first
Motivation comes in many forms such as money, benefits, or simple recognition within. Motivation also leads to higher productivity and profit and that is what we are all looking for in business. The key to unlocking peak performance from your work force is the concept of human motivation. In addition, the key to motivation revolves around one fundamental principle: "What's in it for me?" (WIIFM). We have all been socialized to believe that only "selfish" people consider "What's in store for me." When in reality all people are motivated first by self-interest. The word selfish is used as a negative label for someone's perceived behavior. Understanding the concept of self-interest is perhaps the only way we will understand our need to achieve.
A number of motivational theories explain how rewards affect the behavior of individuals and teams. Performance related pay can have a motivational effect. Employees are motivated to increase prod...
...r investigate what sort of rewards or fringes would their employee’s desire compared to the old method of monetary incentives for the beneficial for the company”.
Nitin N., Boris G. and Linda-Eling L. (2008, July 01). Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model. Harvard Business Review.
It is my intention in this essay to explore some issues around motivation and cite work based experiences to illustrate and substantiate any arguments or points of view.
The key to understanding what employees’ motivations are, and how managers can support them in their aims and objectives, is to understand that different people are motivated by different things. Managers should make a conscience effort to stay in touch with the interest, skills and abilities that their employees possess. Given the opportunity, it is possible that employees can provide valuable information about how to motivate each other to do a better job.
Management spends a huge amount of time to design incentive systems and schemes to motivate their workers and to ensure they work in their best possible manner. Motivating workers by giving them decent pay helps in winning employees heart to make the work done efficiently, significantly and effectively. The most effective way to motivate people to work productively is through individual incentive compensation (Pfeffer, 1998). An attraction of getting more is a powerful incentive to people for high performance. While most people agree that money plays a major role in motivating people, in organizations there is a widespread belief that money may also have some undesirable effects on morale.
Steers, R. M., Porter, L. W., & Bigley, G. A. (1996). Motivation and leadership at work. (6th ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.
...sis, which could make all results invalid. With any research projects, limitations will be present. It is important to attempt to eliminate some of these causes in order to complete a thorough, accurate study. In future projects, this study could go about researching the issue in different ways. Perhaps using a larger sample size would be conducive for accurate results. A larger sample size helps reduce and even out any possible errors caused by those who do not answer truthfully. Also, keeping the surveys mainly anonymous would help to receive more truthful and accurate responses from participants. Participants may be fearful of judgments on open interviews or phone interviews, which could affect responses. In order to obtain as accurate results as possible, a future study would need to find ways to survey participants in a confidential way that feels comfortable.
Employee motivation has always been a central problem in the workplace, and, as an individual in a supervisory position, it becomes one’s duty to understand and institute systems that ensure the proper motivation of your subordinates. Proper motivation of employees can ensure high productivity and successful workflow, while low worker motivation can result in absenteeism, decreased productivity rates, and turnover. A large body of research has been produced regarding motivation, and much of this research is applicable to the workplace. Due to the nature of man, motivation varies from individual to individual, and, because of this, there is no one system that is the best for ensuring worker motivation in every organizational situation, and, as a product, many theories have been created to outline what drives people to satisfactorily complete their work tasks. Throughout the course of this document, the three main types of these motivational theories will be outlined and examples of each, as well as how these theories can be used to further strengthen and sustain worker motivation....
Motivation is the force that transforms and uplifts people to be productive and perform in their jobs. Maximizing employee’s motivation is a necessary and vital to successfully accomplish the organization’s targets and objectives. However, this is a considerable challenge to any organizations managers, due to the complexity of motivation and the fact that, there is no ready made solution or an answer to what motivates people to work well (Mullins,2002).
An important part of the retention of staff, reducing staff turnover and minimising absenteeism at work is ensuring that staff are properly motivated. This is not as easy as it sounds. At first glance, you might be tempted to think that merely increasing wages is the way to motivate! Not so. Most thinkers on the subject would argue that motivation is a far more complex issue than merely 'money'.