Employee Motivation in Public Organizations Essay

Introduction

In modern organizations, human behavior plays a crucial role in productivity and organization performance. However, it is always found truly that individuals may perform differently in an organization because of different reasons behind, some are willing to work long hours at difficult tasks in order to achieve the organization goals, some do not share the commitment with those work as managers do (Armstrong, 2003). There is no phenomenon to explain..it is just an introductory paragraph.

When talk about the performance of employees, how to motivate employees is a key. People who are motivated consistently, creatively, and energetically work toward the achievement of organization goals. On the base of public and nonprofit organizations, they represent a unique environment influenced by the state laws and regulations, social and moral values and principles. Some scholars emphasize that motivation is particularly important in public sector, because the aims to fulfill the responsibilities to the citizens and communities they serve (Denhardt, Denhardt, & Aristigueta, 2002).

As a staff working in a public sector, I am going to review on the context of motivation, and objective is to find out how to effectively motivate employees in public organization. In examine, I will use the case in my organization, Occupational Safety & Health Council (OSHC), whereas I investigate some problem on employees’ motivation. And I try to use Herzberg’s motivation Theory (Two-factor Theory) and incorporate with some research findings to find out the factors and give recommendations for implements in related.

Literature Review

The current literature can be divided into two broad categories: theoretical works on motivation and research studies. Before discussion on the issues, reviewing the different perspectives is necessary.

Theories of Motivation

The core of literature on motivation tries to define the concept of motivation and singles out the man in principles of motivation. A sketch map of individual needs — which is useful for managers when considering individuals — can be drawn from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954), but it must be borne in mind that his theory does not fully appreciate individual differences or that each person has a unique set of needs and values. Maslow identified five motivating factors in his hierarchy of needs and indicated that as each need is satisfied, others then emerge. In 1960 in the book ‘The Human Side of Enterprise’, McGregor demonstrated that the way in which managers manage depends on the assumptions made about human behavior. He grouped these assumptions into Theory X and Theory Y. McGregor drew on Maslow for much of Theory Y and put forward the cluster of features as an unproven hypothesis and further research was needed (Herzberg) to seek to prove it correct. In terms of management in practice Theory Y does reveal that in any individual within an organization there are untapped resources of goodwill, energy, creativity and intelligence. The Herzberg’s Motivation-hygiene theory that I am going to have deeper discussion, is done by Herzberg’s research (published in his 1959 book ‘The Motivation to Work’), fourteen factors were identified to be the sources of good or bad feelings. The hygiene factors are those where people seek to avoid particular situations, whereas the motivating factors are matched with people’s needs to achieve self-actualization or self-realization. Herzberg’s two-factor theory and Maslow’s need hierarchy theory were prominent. A shortcoming of many content theories is their neglect of a basic concept of psychology: individual differences. Many content theories specified that all people possess the same motives; they are motivated in the same way; or they follow the same developmental hierarchy.

Research Studies

Many scholars have been pay a lot of effort to investigate the cogitative side related to the motivation and performance, which does provide some idea or framework for management to consider how to enhance the work motivation in their organization. Smith (1987), Byrne (2006), Heckhausen (1991) underline that cost a point of constant discussion and debate, was to become secondary to objectives such as rejuvenating the development skills of the civil service workforce. All researchers agree that the main personality-and motivation-related expectations to be met are: appreciation for perseverance and self-motivated hard work; scope for curiosity and inquisitiveness; bearing with lack of certainty; guarding operational freedom and independence of judgment; support for risk taking; and furthering of intrinsic motivation. Many of the demands of creative work arise from two well-understood facts about it: it is a very complex activity, and it represents the cutting edge of the field(s) it is anchored in. But there are two other equally important and interrelated facts about creative work (Deci and Ryan 1985).

Case Illustration

After a review on the theoretical view and research studies in related to motivation, here I try to apply in my organization and have a deeper illustration.

Background of OSHC and Problem Clarification

Occupational Safety & Health Council is established under the Occupational Safety Health Council Ordinance in 1988, the Council is a statutory body for promoting safety and health at work and sustaining the valuable workforce of Hong Kong. It is not a government department but originally saying, the structure, they policy, the pay system are more or less close to the government, but just act as a public sector. That mean salary of all full time staffs are follow with the pay scale as government, they can earn salary increment every year within the salary range points relate to their position. In addition, OSHC front-line staff can earn allowance to compensate their overtime work. On the other hand, the organization structure of OSHC is in a bureaucratic sense, that the promotion is base on seniority, in which educational background of the staffs bear as a quite important considerable criterion, and the chance of promotion is quite rare.

In cooperate with the above background situation. The main problem that I investigate in OSHC is – lack of motivation among front-line staff. In OSHC, There are about 60 full-time staffs, about 1/3 of the staffs are front-line staff. Most of them have worked for more than 6-7 years; some are even over 10 years, and they are on the same position without promotion or career development progress. In their positions, most of them have already reached the maximum point in the pay scale within their position. While on the other hand, some “young blood” has been employed in OSHC for recent years, they are also fall in the same pay scale, but just from the starting point. In contrast, it is easy and clear to find that the so called “old blood” and “young blood” are performing differently in daily work. The former always just work what is tell, leave sharply out of office hour, not willing to do more than their responsibility, even though let say they can earn overtime allowance, the latter are more motivated, they are more willing to work overtime, put more effort to finish the job, and more willing to help others.

For the outsiders, it seems that OSHC provide good pay system. However problem of work motivation can be found. What are the factors behind can be explained the above problem? In the following part, I will try to use Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory to examine.

Herzberg’s Motivation Theory (Two-Factor Theory)

Herzberg (1966) states that salary still remains part of the maintenance package, one of those factors that needs to be ‘kept clean’ along with working conditions, policies and administration if the real motivators are to function properly. Exactly what these motivations are for professional people is a fascinating study in itself and one that regularly appears on the agenda of most education management courses (Byrne, 2006). Despite being conducted over thirty years ago, Herzberg’s conclusions about staff being ‘switched on’ by what their job involves and how they are recognized within their organization remains remarkably similar today. Responsibilities and prospects, including the degree of security, all appear to play a part in the motivation package. Nevertheless, even if dissatisfaction itself is reduced, this alone will not motivate workers and Herzberg states:

Five factors stand out as strong determiners of job satisfaction—achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility and advancement—the last three being of greater importance for a lasting change of attitudes. These five factors appeared very infrequently when the respondents described events that paralleled job dissatisfaction feelings. A further word on recognition: when it appeared in a ‘high’ sequence of events, it referred to recognition for achievement rather than recognition as a human-relations tool divorced from any accomplishment. The latter type of recognition does not serve as a ‘satisfier’ (Herzberg et al 1993, p. 65).

Achievement, job interest and recognition regularly score highly while status and responsibility and salary naturally remain important (Deci and Ryan 1985). The challenge for any leader is to enrich the job, and maintain the satisfaction both through feedback and the use of varied projects which can maintain that will to want to continue to do something well. In sum, work dissatisfaction and satisfaction are caused by different factors and independent from one another (Frank and Lewis, 2004).

Analyzing Factors Causing Work Dissatisfaction and Satisfaction of Front-line Staff in OSHC

Dissatisfaction Factors

The main factors which lead to dissatisfaction are organization policy, work conditions and supervision. Most of the duties performed by the staff are routine, so many employees are deprived a chance to be creative. For instance, the duties of the front-line staff in Training Department are to process the enrolment, answer enquiry, prepare course statistics and etc. Front-line staffs who are working with the Publicity Department are responsible to organize promotional events and committee meetings; however they are responsible for the logistic part only. Also these front-line staffs no matter which department they are belong to, they have to perform the duty roster on checking course attendance, manning the reception after official office hour.

In terms of Herzberg’s theory, for these groups of employees dissatisfaction was not caused by pay scale, not by money, but by lack of career opportunities and lack of personal progress. The model can be expanded to include the outcomes of the adjustment process: (1) to stay with high commitment; and (2) to stay but with lowered commitment (Smith, 1987). Some expectations may be unlikely to be met because of the bureaucratic dysfunctions of the particular office. However, the expectations may not be inappropriate or naive. It takes tremendous inner strength to resist the temptation to compromise one’s cherished values in order to adjust (Robbins, 2005). It is ease to see that, even through the front-line staff may shift their working department after working for about 3 years; the work rotation cannot see any motivation effect on them, because position, duties are still daily routine, not very skilled task. No specific and clear working opportunities are really provided, but the “old blood’ still there but just work with lack of motivation.

Satisfaction Factors

In contrast to “old blood”, new and young employees were motivated because of possible opportunities they expected to have in recent future. The work experiences are highly individual and clearly vary for each individual. It is the work factors that seem to be important in the decision to stay or leave (Reed 2001). Clearly, these sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not within the control of the employees themselves. Nor is the lack of creativity or challenge that some employees have experienced in their jobs (Petri and Govern 2004).

Some researchers as Peters (1960), Mook (1987), Petri and Govern (2004) underline that in motivation social or positive power, that is, influencing others for the sake of social, group, or organizational goal accomplishment, has been found to be a characteristic of effective managers and leaders. Young employees are motivated because they are interested in the work they perform. This creates the tendency for managers to be “doers” rather than true managers since they often are (and are expected to be) the technical gurus of their areas. They may spend so much time actually doing a job that they have little time to manage. Managers who are too hands-on greatly reduce the motivation of their subordinates to achieve their own goals and to be creative (Robbins 2005; Wright 2001; Reed 2001). With the time concern, yes, the “young blood” seems get job satisfaction on the new and fresh environment.

Recommendations

Improving Payment System

In many theories, it is no doubt that money has some motivated effect to people. However, it does not work in some situation, which like in OSHC. Therefore, I suggest that the new payment system should be introduced in OSHC in order to motivate employees. Compensation programs will have differing motivational impacts on employees. Likewise, different kinds of incentive plans will have different effects on employee performance (Mele 1997). One of the most common forms of incentive compensation is a merit pay plan. Under such plans, employees receive a performance appraisal from their manager about their individual performance. The rating received then drives the amount of additional, “merit” reward granted to the employee.

Here it is necessary to state that although OSHC has the appraisal system, it just looks like a routine operation and so far merit increment is provided to all staffs normally. “To the extent that an organization wishes to use its compensation plan to motivate or encourage employee performance, there are a number of design issues involved” (Peters 1958, p. 54). Therefore, the draws together various goals and issues involved into an integrated system for paying for employee performance can be a method. It is expected that “public organization will have distinctive goals and conditions that require a compensation plan best suited for that organization” (Armstrong 2003, p. 28). Employee benefits can represent a significant cost to the employer and provide important yet often intangible values to the employee. As part of the overall compensation provided employees, benefits can enter into the competitive struggle to attract, retain, and motivate employees (Bateman and Snell 2008).

Improving Organizational Performance

Change is a constant for organizations. The recommendation for OSHC is to involve all employees in creative work and allow them to apply their skills and knowledge to different spheres. Rather than opposing it, human resources managers may need to be the champions of change, showing how to most effectively bring about the transformations needed for long-term organizational success. The issues and techniques of change management go beyond training to include all the different policies and practices that can shape employee job performance. The human resources professional must be skilled in creating a plan that produces the changes desired in the most cost-effective manner possible (Moynihan and Pandey 2007). Satisfaction factors used for further growth are the factors that encourage adjustment weighed against one’s actual experiences, which have varying degrees of importance. In terms of Herzberg’s theory, the level of responsibility, the actual job assignment, the people one works for and with, the extent to which one’s needs for influence, challenge, growth, creativity, and control are met are weighed against the negative aspects of the job and work environment (Armstrong 2002, p. 54).

Conclusions

The case study shows that motivation is caused by different factors involving personal interests of employees and pay. Thus, the Herzberg’s theory underlines that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not interrelated: an employee can receive high pay but still be low motivated because of poor career initiatives or personal growth opportunities. Beyond grounding pay rates in competitive market conditions, compensation plans should be properly structured and designed to support organizational goals. Benefits plans and designs are important in their own way, especially in public organizations, which is not profit base, but the goal is to keep commitment to serve the public.

In order to motivate and inspire employees, two factors of the Herzberg’s theory was taken into account. Therefore we could answer the question from begin “How to Effectively Motivate Employees in Public Organization?” The main task is to reduce factors which influence dissatisfaction and increase those issues which have a positive impact on employees (increase satisfaction).

References

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