Organisational assumption
Motivation is simply what drives people and organizations towards achieving certain goals (Hansen, Smith & Hansen, 2002; Hong et al., 1995). Motivating employees is the role of human resource managers, as well as other organizational leaders.
Giving employees the right motivation increases their productivity and eventually the performance of the organization (Poole & Jenkins, 2005; Creaby-Attwood, 2010). Managers at Foodco apply theory X in managing employees. According to this theory, employees are considered to be lazy and do not like work.
As a result, workers must be forced to work and cannot be trusted with responsibility. Employees seem not to be adequately motivated by the HR department. The employees are said to have a limited involvement in the organizational work technology.
This indicates that the managers do not encourage the employees to make contributions or to involve themselves in work technology activities. One way through which an employee can be motivated is involving them in the organizational activities.
Employees also need to be given good positions in the organization. They need to be recognized for their duties. The case suggests that the employees’ position in Foodco is weaker compared to that of the management. This does not help in motivating employees.
As a result, productivity at Foodco is likely to be below par (Beadle & Knight, 2012). This will have a negative impact on the general performance of the organization (Taylor & Earnshaw, 1995).
Employee motivation requires a well experienced and knowledgeable human resource officer. The HR officer currently at Foodco does not have the qualifications. This means that the HR department does not function as it should be; thus there is failure on the side of human resource productivity.
There is no qualified person who can carry out proper employee appraisal. In addition, employees who need to be directed do not have someone they can go to. Their morale is likely to be affected if they cannot be directed when they need directions.
This further proves the assumption that employee motivation in this organization is low. The failure in organizational competitiveness may have also contributed to the loss of employees’ morale.
When employees are working in an organization that is showing the urge to be competitive, they also feel that they are responsible for any failure that might result. This motivates employees to work harder. In addition, a competitive organization tries to motivate its employees so that they can be more productive.
The assumption on the nature of people is that women are not able to perform the craft duties satisfactorily. For this reason, the craft duties are given to men. In addition, most women are employed on a temporary basis and are paid on an hourly basis.
This leads to the assumption that women are not given chances in the organization for reasons that are not clear from the case. It is possible that women are discriminated on the basis of their sex. There is a great deal of inequality in this organization (Weick, 1966).
Further, white collar employees seem to be more respected than the craft workers. The assumption here is that craft workers are people who cannot make significant contributions to the organization, especially when it comes to decision making.
Women are capable of doing whatever men can do. Therefore, it is not to the best interest of the organization for women to be denied equal chances with men. This is an issue that might negatively affect the performance of the organization since there is no motivation for women, and their productivity is affected.
Non-financial rewards
One of the ways that an organization can motivate its employees is through rewarding them (Bloom & Milkovich, 1995; Brown, 2008).
It is important for an organization to establish a reward system that is effective and one that gives motivation to the employees since this is a sure way of increasing productivity (Singh, 2002; Milkovich, 1987).
A reward system can either be financial or non- financial. The two can be applied together or separately. It is said that money is not enough; therefore, it is not the only way that managers can make employees become productive (Arrowsmith & Marginson, 2010).
A non-financial reward system can be highly effective compared to the financial reward system. Non-financial rewards can be defined as the benefits that employees are given when they perform well or when they are seen to be loyal to the organization (Nurse, 2005; Dunfee, 2011).
Examples of non- financial incentives include holidays or reduced working hours, team events, and training sessions that are not related to work among others.
The best way to select a non- financial reward system depends on the employees’ response to various rewards (Creaby-Attwood, 2010). Some employees will respond positively to a certain reward, while some will be negative to the same reward.
At Foodco, non- financial rewards are not embraced. Employees are always rewarded in form of cash. However, this has not been effective since the performance and productivity of the workers has not improved. The organization is said to be making loses despite the fact that it has been increasing wages every week.
However, Foodco seems to be changing its culture of pay rise and financial rewards as the only way of rewarding its employees. The finance director says that they had been negotiating pay rise and extra weeks’ holidays as a method of reward.
The employees seemed not to appreciate these forms of reward, and the finance director indicates this by saying it is as if they were talking to deaf ears. The organization is composed of mostly old people. The group of people who are usually excited by holidays is that of young employees.
Therefore, the management should come up with a different system of rewarding employees using non-financial means. Since the financial position of the organization is not very good owing to poor performance, it might be difficult to increase the employee wages annually.
The organization should, therefore, come up with a non- financial reward system that will motivate employees (Bryson & Forth, 2005; Kerr, 1975).
In order to come up with an effective non- financial reward system, it is important for the management to consult with the employees so that they can discuss on the best rewards. That way, the employees feel as part of the organization since they are consulted in decision making.
This gives them motivation and in turn they work hard to get the reward that they highly appreciate since it is the reward of their choice. It is important to note that different employees within the same organization might prefer different non- financial rewards.
The organization should, therefore, make arrangements to ensure that each employee is satisfied with the reward system by providing different rewards to individual employees based on their preferences.
References
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