These two expressions are not synonymous or interchangeable. But the fact remains that a motivated group of workers generally has a high degree of morale. Morale is a composite attitude of various individuals employed by a company. It is generated by the group and may be considered as a by-product of the group. It is not an average of individual attitudes.Morale has been defined in a number of ways. It can be seen as “an attitude of satisfaction,with a desire to continue in, and willingness to strive for, the goals of a particular group or organisation”. It has also been defined as “the possession of feeling of being accepted by and the belonging to a group of employees through adherence to a common goal and confidence in the desirability of these goals”. Put simply, morale is a group concept,while motivation is largely an individual concept. Morale is the summation of feeling of employees as a group towards various aspects of their work job, the company, working conditions, fellow workers, supervisors and so on. If the attitude of employees towards all these aspects is more positive than negative, the morale of the group can be said to be high, otherwise it is low.Studies in India show that high morale among workers may not be an indication of high productivity. Higher morale of union members may enable them to continue to strike and fight out the issue.
Important components and determinants of morale are (a) a feeling of togetherness, (b) need for a clear goal or objective to be achieved, (c) expectation of success towards the attainment of the goal, (d) feeling of each member within the group that s/he has a meaningful task to perform for achieving the goal and that s/he also matters whatever may be the job assigned to her/him, and (e) supportive and stimulative leadership. All these determinants of morale are equivalent to that of job satisfaction which is a precursor of morale. However, the two differ as the term job satisfaction is used for individual and morale for groups.
An enlightened management should be conscious of the need for assessing the morale of its employees by opinion polls or attitude surveys from time to time. Low morale can be caused by factors beyond the control of the organisation. However, workers’ morale can be boosted up by (a) better methods of working in which workers or their representatives may have a bigger say, (b) utilization of incentive schemes with the widest possible coverage, and (c) consultative and participative style of management.
What Demotivates or Demoralises the Employees?
There are some management practices which affect the morale and motivation or willingness of employees to give their best or work in the desired manner. Some of these practices are:
a) Under assignment: If a skilled man is assigned an unskilled or routine job, it may cause frustration or job dissatisfaction and thus demotivation.
b) Over assignment: If a good worker is overloaded to the point where Skills and s/he Motivation feels that s/he being exploited, this may make her/him lose interest in work. In big organisations, it is a rather common practice to overload good workers as others cannot be trusted or depended upon.
c) Buckmastership: Superiors or leaders avoiding hard work themselves and passing on the same to their subordinates, and then finding fault with them may erode employee motivation.
d) Coercive types of control or supervision which may give a worker a feeling that s/he is not being trusted may also demotivate her/him or erode her/his interest in the work. Some control no doubt is essential but if it is too coercive resulting in frequent warnings or punishments, or withdrawal of facilities to chasten the employee, morale and motivation of the employee are bound to go down.
e) Manipulative behaviour of the management which may take the form of divide and rule policy or tactics, making promises which are not fulfilled, encouraging groupism and appealing to the patriotic sense in times of national crisis, may also have a demotivating effect. When employees perceive such behaviour, they lose interest in work.
Important components and determinants of morale are (a) a feeling of togetherness, (b) need for a clear goal or objective to be achieved, (c) expectation of success towards the attainment of the goal, (d) feeling of each member within the group that s/he has a meaningful task to perform for achieving the goal and that s/he also matters whatever may be the job assigned to her/him, and (e) supportive and stimulative leadership. All these determinants of morale are equivalent to that of job satisfaction which is a precursor of morale. However, the two differ as the term job satisfaction is used for individual and morale for groups.
An enlightened management should be conscious of the need for assessing the morale of its employees by opinion polls or attitude surveys from time to time. Low morale can be caused by factors beyond the control of the organisation. However, workers’ morale can be boosted up by (a) better methods of working in which workers or their representatives may have a bigger say, (b) utilization of incentive schemes with the widest possible coverage, and (c) consultative and participative style of management.
What Demotivates or Demoralises the Employees?
There are some management practices which affect the morale and motivation or willingness of employees to give their best or work in the desired manner. Some of these practices are:
a) Under assignment: If a skilled man is assigned an unskilled or routine job, it may cause frustration or job dissatisfaction and thus demotivation.
b) Over assignment: If a good worker is overloaded to the point where Skills and s/he Motivation feels that s/he being exploited, this may make her/him lose interest in work. In big organisations, it is a rather common practice to overload good workers as others cannot be trusted or depended upon.
c) Buckmastership: Superiors or leaders avoiding hard work themselves and passing on the same to their subordinates, and then finding fault with them may erode employee motivation.
d) Coercive types of control or supervision which may give a worker a feeling that s/he is not being trusted may also demotivate her/him or erode her/his interest in the work. Some control no doubt is essential but if it is too coercive resulting in frequent warnings or punishments, or withdrawal of facilities to chasten the employee, morale and motivation of the employee are bound to go down.
e) Manipulative behaviour of the management which may take the form of divide and rule policy or tactics, making promises which are not fulfilled, encouraging groupism and appealing to the patriotic sense in times of national crisis, may also have a demotivating effect. When employees perceive such behaviour, they lose interest in work.
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