Motivating Employees in Actual Practice

We now know that motivation has something to do with our way of life and thinking. Since there is a wide spectrum of human nature, there is no single magic wand to motivate employees as their needs and priorities of satisfaction differ. What may motivate one may not necessarily motivate the other. However, the employer should find out the right way that could make workers more productive. Since an employee has a lot of untapped energy, s/he would be ready to work and contribute the most if trained properly and treated fairly. In managing an organisation, some of the important factors which could improve motivation and morale of its employees are as follows:

i) Devising a well-defined humanistic personnel policy, wherein the workforce is regarded as the valuable asset of the organisation, and sufficient care is taken to maintain and develop it, not only to attain organisational objectives but also to satisfy the normal aspirations of employees.

ii) A long-term employment policy projecting image of fairness in recruitment and selection, placement of the right person to the right job, sound and fair promotion and transfer policies, well-planned need-based training and development programmes for grooming employees for higher job or building their career in the organisation, and suitable workforce planning.

iii) Fair wages and salary administration ensuring equitable wage structure free from internal and external inequalities.

iv) Rewarding good performance adequately at the earliest and also ssuespects

v)A constructive and objective system of performance appraisal and merit rating of employees aimed at servicing and improving them and not punishing them.

vi) Prompt handling of workers’ grievances by having a short time-bound procedure well-known to employees. In handling grievances, the attitude of persons managing grievances should be cooperative and positive and not negative, and the worker should have the feeling that s/he will be properly heard and justice will be done.

vii) In handling disciplinary cases, the management should not only be fair but also seem to be fair. Disciplinary procedure should conform to the principles of natural justice. A corrective and not punitive approach in this respect may be more motivating.

viii) Participative and consultative style of management and supervision and increasing autonomy in work may create necessary conditions for motivating workers to give their best.

ix) Job enrichment and enlargement, or making the job more challenging are also essential for motivating the workers to give their best, as these will not only reduce job boredom and frustration, but also increase job satisfaction, and satisfy the esteem or ego and self-actualisation needs of employees, which are perpetual motivators.

x) Self-motivation by top management, senior and middle managers and supervisors is essential if the persons working under them are to be motivated. The dictum“before you motivate others, you must first motivate yourself” should not be lost sight of. Seniors are expected to provide their juniors effective leadership and set an example of dedication and superior skill.

Specific Actions to Motivate Others

Managerial action, in general, can take four forms:

• Provide more of the valued rewards to the person.

• Change the values of the person towards the rewards, which are available.

• Improve the person’s perception of the behaviour-reward linkage.

• Improve the reality of the behaviour-reward linkage.

The first two of these deal with actions which affect the goals which people value as outcome for their work; the latter two deal with their expectation of whether the paths available to them will lead to those rewards. Let us see how each of the three forms of influence may be used to achieve one or more of these four forms of action.

With respect to individual motivation, and in the context of the path-goal theory, managerial action which constitutes indirect influence is aimed at Motivation arranging the appropriate strategies, structures and policies to encourage and support motivated people to achieve organisational goals. This includes, for example,establishing incentive and reward system which will be valued by employees. Indirect influence also includes selecting and employing people who have necessary skills andwho value the kinds of rewards available in the organisation. Finally, indirectinfluence includes developing in oneself and others the managerial skills, particularly,the management style of pattern of behaviour in dealing with subordinates, which will have the effect of creating higher motivation.

You may recall that semi-direct influence is exercised when a manager acts to affect an individual through his or her social relationships at work. The emergent group has a strong effect on what its members value and what their expectations are with respect to the outcomes from behaviour. The group reward may serve as a highly visible symbol of the need for intra-company cooperation as well.Direct influence on the individual involves communication and the personal, face-to- face relationship. A manager who attempts to increase the level of motivation through direct influence is typically trying to do the second and third actions mentioned above with respect to that person’s value and expectations. Thus, the manager may work overtime to convince an employee to value more highly the rewards already existing and available in the organisation. This may be particularly difficult in times of major social change.

The other form of action for direct influence is to improve the employee’s perception of the linkage between behaviour and reward. This might involve, for example,personal conversations about what can result from certain levels of performance, suchas promotion, bonus, or greater responsibility.As important as what to do to motivate others is the question of how to do it. We turn now to a closer look at a manager’s behaviour required to motivate others. To do this, we discuss management style and leadership.

Management Style and Leadership
In working relationships with others, and particularly in direct influence in motivating others, a manager exhibits one or more characteristic styles of behaviour. We may define management style as the pattern of a manager’s behaviour in working relationships with others over time. This definition is relatively loose being more a concept than a precise variable. In order to be more precise, we need to set up one or more categories of behaviour characteristics where employees for one reason or another see their work only as a means of economic rewards. A second style is a supportive, people-oriented, humanistic style, which may be appropriate for employees who value social rewards. A third is a participative, mutual goal-setting style in which the manager works with subordinates who value autonomy and are rewarded by self-fulfillment.

In a way, then, we say that a manager who holds one of the three basic sets of assumptions about what motivates others should exhibit a style which is consistent with those assumptions in order to provide the appropriate means to exercise direct influence. In other words, managers need to understand what rewards subordinates value, and behave in a pattern which will fit with that understanding as one part of providing a consistent environment for the employee.The manager who believes, as a part of his or her perspective, that people are complex,is going above and beyond the three operational sets of assumptions about valued rewards. The “complex person” assumptions imply that a manager will have no fixed beliefs about what motivates people in general or what style to employ in all situations.Rather, the manager will attempt to understand the particular subordinates, the particular situation, and ideally, select a style to fit the situation. Thus, they recognize that people are complex and that a diagnosis with a goal as a path-goal theory must be performed before employing a style. The manager cannot have one particular style for all situations. Rather, the manager must be able to choose an appropriate style for a situation and then change that style, if necessary. One may call this approach a“contingent” management style, but it is important to note that it refers to the process of diagnosis and choice of managerial behaviour rather than to the pattern of behaviour itself.