Introduction to Employee Motivation

 

Introduction to employee motivation

Organizations are more oriented on increasing their profits and overall customer satisfaction through skillful human capital in the entity subjecting them to continuous development through awareness programs, training sessions and seminars (Jasmi, 2012). Further, Armstrong(2006) has stated that the organizations have placed the concern on achieving and sustaining high performance from its employees. In order to achieve the goal of high performance, the employees are required to be highly motivated in the contexts of remuneration, reward packages, leadership and the organizational environment where they work supporting the ideology introduced by Jasmi(2012). Further, employee motivation not only affects organizational performance, but it affects a wider scope of whole business productivity upon which the sustainability of business lies on (Jasmi, 2012). Hence, retaining employees within the organization is a significant factor as the faithful and competent employees are the source of effectiveness of the entity which require the entities to retain key employees motivated (Jain, et al., 2019). The intention of employee motivation is to develop a working environment which motivates employees towards to high performance to the level of management (Armstrong, 2006). The hard work of employees will only earn the performance of the entity where the employees needed to be motivated to work harder for the entity. The motivational procedures will persuade and get the employees like to work harder. The employees are motivated in different ways. It is important that the employees are aware of the activities they are currently engaged in for the employee motivation (Shahzadi, et al., 2014). the value creation of employees should exceed the cost of the employee motivation through discretionary efforts. Several factors may affect the degree of employee motivation of the entity. Communication factors inside the organization is a main determinant od workplace motivation where the level of motivation and job satisfaction is static among various age levels and tenures as stated by Brooks(2007).

As define by Shahzadi, et al.(2014) employee motivation is the level of energy, commitment and strengths that the employee put into the job in executing the functions of the job. The job role of a manager is to get the things done by the lower-level employees in an appropriate manner to which the employee motivation is required. The application of motivational theories in practice would not be easy as the persons are different in nature and the application of motivational theories require enormous basic and applied research of human behavior (Shahzadi, et al., 2014). Further, employee motivation is concerned with the special reasons of personnel to behave in specific way which is affected by the behavior of the employee. (Armstrong, 2006). Arnold, et al., (1991) further States that employee motivation consists of three factors that influence to employee motivation in an organization mentioned as below.

  1.  Direction – What are the things that are currently tried by employees
  2.  Effort- to which extent that employee is trying
  3.  Persistence – How long the employee keeps trying

Unilever Sri Lanka, a prestige brand holder in FMCG industry in Sri Lanka and throughout the world is one of best care taker of their employees through the activities of employee motivation. Unilever is a company that concerns employees’ health and wellbeing, life purpose of employees and positive working environment through the wellbeing of employees in physical, mental and emotional aspects (Unilever, 2021). Unilever allowed the employees to find the personal purpose and allowed the employees to share the personal purpose with the company which is mainly used for the development and career of employees within the organization which can be concerned as a non-monetary motivation towards employees in order to retain them in the business (Unilever, 2021). Even through the beginning stage of the pandemic situation, Unilever Sri Lanka’s action to pay full remuneration to employees in the middle of lockdowns has act as motivational aspect meanwhile other companies have cut the benefits of employees during the lockdowns stating various reasons (Unilever, 2021). High financial incentives such as travelling allowances, fuel allowances and the fringe benefits for the top-level management such as company cars, private health care and the insurance coverage for the operational level employees are sources of employee motivation in Unilever Sri Lanka (Unilever, 2021).

According to Varma (2017) Importance of Employee Motivation

  •   Employee motivation provides a unified direction to all the employees in personal level who are   the members of teams and department groups who are currently employed in the organization.
  •   Employee motivation is a source of high effectiveness and higher efficiency as it results to a   better worker engagement in the working environment.
  •  Whole organization is subject to an elevation in the concerns of commitment to the   organizational goals due to high employee engagement.
  • Employee motivation helps to take the optimum use from the human capital and other resources of the company.
  • Employee motivation gains the support of employees to meet the organizational goals as well as to face some unpredicted business challenges specially under the crisis situation in Sri Lanka
  • It retains the employees within the business and attracts more employees to the business which ultimately provides a continuous manpower supply to firm.

 Employee motivation means a decisive function in context of an organization as it decides the direction that entity drives and decides to which degree the entity achieve its pre-determined goals for a certain period. Employee motivation is the level of commitment, energy and enthusiasm given to the business by employees. The structure of organizational communication within the entity is a major determinant of employee motivation meanwhile employee motivation and employee satisfaction are antecedents. Identifying the needs, purposes, and behavior of employees is the key to the employee satisfaction and motivation which drives to the success of the organization.

References

Armstrong, A., 2006. A hand book of Human Resource Management Practice. 10th Edition ed. London, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Arnold, J., Robertson, I. & Cooper, L., 1991. Work Psychology. London ed. s.l.:Pitman.

Brooks, M., 2007. Factors That Influence Employee Motivation In Organizations. University of Tennessee, Knoxville .

Jain, A., Gupta, B. & Bindal, M., 2019. A Study of Employee Motivation in Organization. International Journal of Engineering and Management Research, 9(6), pp. 65-68.

Jasmi, S., 2012. A Study on Employees Work Motivation and its Effect on their Performance and Business Productivity.

Shahzadi, I. et al., 2014. Impact of Employee Motivation on Employee Performance. European Journal of Business and Management .

Unilever, 2021. Unilever Annual Report, s.l.: Unilever.

Varma, C., 2017. Importance of employee motivation & job satisfaction for organizational performance. International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research, 6((2)), pp. 10-20.

 

 

Comments

  1. Lakshan WickramasingheMay 6, 2022 at 8:58 AM

    Hello Shashith, This is an excellent description about Employee Motivation. According to (Govindarajo, Kumar, & Ramulu, 2014), one of the motivating factors which that influence employee stays back in any organization include the benefits that an organization extent to the employee. The benefits which are available at the organization develop attachment and detachment feeling among the workers at work. Therefore increasing these benefits will develop employee motivation inside an organization.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shashith AthaudaMay 13, 2022 at 9:03 AM

      Hi Lakshan, thank you for your value addition to my post. Further, the structure of organizational communication within the entity is a major determinant of employee motivation meanwhile employee motivation and employee satisfaction are antecedents (Jasmi,2012)

      Delete
  2. UdanaMay 6, 2022 at 9:06 AM

    Hello Shashity. A very good description about motivation. I would like to add some insight aswell. According to Ganta (2014), motivation levels within the workplace have a direct impact on employee productivity. Workers who are motivated and excited about their jobs carry out their responsibilities to the best of their ability and production numbers increase as a result.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shashith AthaudaMay 13, 2022 at 8:59 AM

      Thank you for your reply Udana, I agree with your idea totally. Robust pay, promotion, recognition, conducive working environment, equity and fairness and other aspects of human resource management systems are important for enhancing motivation, job satisfaction and higher productivity (Emen,2017)

      Delete

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