Introduction
Motivation is an internal drive that inspires a person to work towards achieving certain goals or to take a certain course of action. Employees need to be motivated so that they can focus their efforts towards achieving the organizational goals, as well as their personal goals. It is the duty of organizational leaders to motivate employees.
Motivation is crucial because it helps get work done by the employees with a little effort applied (Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman, 2005). There are various ways that can be used to motivate employees. Theories have been developed to explain the aspect employee motivation. Money and rewards are said to be the key employee motivators. However, there are other methods that can be used to motivate employees. This paper focuses on social life as an employee motivator.
Social life as a form of motivation
While money is said to be the main employee motivator, there are other factors that motivate employees. Employees need to work other benefits other than money. Employees need to satisfy their social life issues so that they can be motivated. It is the duty of managers to create a working environment that favors employees. Money alone is not an effective motivator. It needs to be combined with other non financial reinforcements.
Social factors help to fulfill the psychological needs of employees (Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman, 2005). Human beings are said to be social animals, and creating a social environments encourages people to work towards achieving the set goals. As a result, social life is extremely essential to every person. Social life is hugely influential in motivating one’s mind as well as providing mental health.
If a person does not have a positive relation with others, then the mind and body are likely to fail to coordinate. Employees in such a situation cannot concentrate when at work and their performance is below par. Therefore, social life motivators can also be referred to as psychological motivators because they help people to be psychologically fit.
Social life fulfills the needs of people in the society. A person can be motivated by intrinsic factors as well as extrinsic elements. The intrinsic factors are the internal drives that people have towards achieving something. Intrinsic factors are not influenced by external factors. On the other hand, there are the extrinsic factors which motivate the employees. These are factors which surround the employees.
They can be explained in theories such as the Maslow’s theory, which describes the hierarchy of needs. According to this theory, motivation is based on factors starting from the lowest in the hierarchy and changes towards the higher needs as they achieve the needs at the lower level.
The lowest needs in the pyramid are the physiological needs (Rakowski, 2011). A person needs the most basic things such as food, water, sleep and sex among others. Once they achieve these needs, they crave for the next level of needs in the pyramid, which are the safety needs. People have the feeling that they want to be safe. They need to have a family, they want to be healthy, and they want secure employment. After accomplishing the security needs, they want to have a feeling of belonging (Rakowski, 2011). They need to have a family and friends.
In the public administration of Canada, the leaders need to address the social goals of employees. The policies that the government develops should address the social life of people. For instance, if an employee is threatened by a fellow employee at the work place, the employee might not concentrate at work. The employees who experience such scenarios are likely to give low output. The administration should ensure that all employees work in safe conditions (Inwood, 2012).
Compliance motivation is another issue that helps to motivate employees (Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2012). Regulators, who are the administrators in this case, should create conditions that encourage compliance among workers.
Some of these conditions include: The fear of inspection, consumer pressures, as well as peer reputation and attitudes of the government among others. If employees have a negative attitude towards the government, they are likely to have low performance. Similarly, pressure from customers is likely to affect the performance of employees.
People work best when they are not pressured by external issues. Furthermore, if employees fear inspection they are likely to mess with the systems in an organization because morale is low. Therefore, the government should work to eliminate such fears from workers. The private sector in Canada has a significant impact on how the public sector performs. On the other hand, public policies have an effect on the employees’ motivation and performance (Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2012).
Conclusion
Motivation influences the manner in which employees work, as well as the level of performance. Employees are not only motivated by money and rewards but they are also motivated when their social needs are fulfilled. They need more than just money for them to be motivated. They need to have a satisfactory social life so that they can perform. The Canadian administration should adopt social motivators on top of the monetary rewards.
References
Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. B. (2005). The motivation to work. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Institute of Public Administration of Canada, (2012), Meta-Regulation, retrieved from web.
Inwood, G. J. (2012). Understanding Canadian public administration: An introduction to theory and practice. Toronto: Pearson Canada.
Rakowski, N. (2011). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model – the difference of the Chinese and the Western pyramid on the example of purchasing luxurious products. München: GRIN Verlag GmbH.