Introduction
An effective organization must offer individuals a chance to derive satisfaction and feel challenged by the nature of the job because all employees have an innate need to be valued by the organization. Sometimes external rewards are not enough and actually serve to undermine efforts at improving production. At my workplace, employees accessed two types of motivators although more emphasis was given to external rather than internal ones and this may have come at a price to the organization.
Description of the workplace
The workplace under consideration is a Civilian contractor placed in charge of the management of property units of the Army. This group mostly focuses on those materials deployed to US missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has a series of divisions required for effective completion of tasks and these include customer service, quality control, technical support, shipping, reception of goods, payroll, administration, clerical work and property maintenance. I offered my services in the property maintenance and signing department. My workplace may be understood as a place with a hierarchical structure. The Board is heavily involved in decision making as they determine which individuals get promoted and which ones do not. These decisions are made four times in a year thus ensuring that employees always keep the issue in mind. Work processes are quite simple – most workers come to work, carry out their day’s activities and then head back home. Supervisors are in charge of all functions being carried out by their subordinates in each department.
2 motivational strategies that were implemented at my workplace
The first motivational strategy is the use of promotions; a type of extrinsic motivation. Employees are expected to attend meetings with the company’s board where they vie for positions that they are interested in. Those who are found to be most qualified are the ones who are offered the job. Extrinsic motivations are understood as environmentally based incentives. This type of motivation highlights the consequences that can emanate from actions. At my workplace, employees were motivated to become more productive by focusing on the need to gain positions upon meeting with the board. Some members of staff feel that it is an undesirable consequence to miss out on a position while it is quite attractive to be promoted. This incentive is what pushes individuals to work so as to enjoy the advantages that come with them. All extrinsic motivations are three pronged i.e. they possess a situational cue, a consequence and a behavioral response. In this organization, the situational cue is reporting to work; once people get into the company building within working hours they are instantly aware that it is their cue to commence work or meet their responsibilities. Behavioral response in this case comprises of actually working hard or carrying out one’s work tasks as efficiently and as well as possible. Every department has its own behavioral responses but all these are related to work and yielding of work outcomes. Consequences of these behavioral responses are promotions in the organization. At face value, it can be easily assumed that incentives yield responses as desired. However, responses to these incentives often differ dramatically depending on other factors (Reeve, 2009). The company has two options of criticizing employees for non performance or giving them positions within the firm. The second incentive appears to offer more visible results than the latter because of quality issues. Most people can easily get used to criticisms or the organization will be creating a negative atmosphere by resulting to criticisms as a method of causing employees to do as expected. Additionally, the time of implementing these promotions is also another critical point. The board offered positions four times in a year. This was just adequate enough for the concerned individuals since it offered them enough time to prepare them for the next meeting. However, it was not too long either; most employees would simply wait for the end of the year to improve if promotions were annual. The fit between the person carrying out reinforcement and the person to receive it are also considerable determinant of success of that strategy. It can be argued that this company did not fully take into consideration the latter factor since little effort was given to find out what employees actually think of the incentive. Currently, many employees feel that this is not a very strong motivator since some issues of unfairness have been reported. Claims have been made of positions being offered mostly to the people with connections to the board rather than to truly legitimate persons. Members have responded poorly to this strategy because they have realized that not everyone is sincerely eligible for these actions. Others however think of the strategy positively but these individuals represent a minority of the group. Studies indicate that for extrinsic motivations to work well then employers must realize that all their employees will not respond unanimously to their initiatives and the motivator should only be used once it has been found that most of the group will be content with the arrangement. Since this is not the case, then perhaps the organization would have been better off using another strategy (Reeve, 2009).
The second motivator used at my workplace was offering members a challenging job. This qualifies as an intrinsic motivator because of the benefits that employees enjoy such as creativity, persistence and understanding. A new person who gets into the organization may not be aware of all the tasks to be carried out in the firm. However through continual persistence, such a person can learn the tasks and thus be motivated to get better at it. This motivator normally works well for those who are new to the organization. Creativity is also encouraged in the company during fulfillment of tasks by top level employees who get challenged by certain aspects of the job and have to look for creative responses to time. Lastly, the nature of the job at my workplace offers certain employees (supervisors) opportunity to engage in flexible decision making which promotes conceptual understanding and therefore contributes to a greater sense of motivation. Most intrinsic motivations in this organization are only aimed at a selected number of individuals i.e. those in managerial positions and beginners who have just entered the organization. Majority of the employees do not find an interest in their work as they simply report to work in the morning, carry out their duties and then leave at the end of the work. Things are quite habitual for most members and management is yet to exploit the full benefit of intrinsic motivations in their organization.
Explanation of efforts to improve performance and management philosophy and practice of motivation
Research has shown that when persons are engaging in an intrinsically motivating activity and an extrinsic reward is included then that person’s motivation will actually go down. The character of work in this organization is such that it can motivate workers to aim for continual improvement and higher learning. However, frequent focus on the promotions keeps individuals’ attention from their actual roles and responsibilities and diverts it to the prospect of promotion. Most of them are willing to do whatever it takes to get the extrinsic reward (including forging connections with members of the board). This takes time and effort away from their real jobs and has therefore reduced productivity within the company. The focus of most staff members is on short term gains through the extrinsic motivators rather than long term intrinsic gains of continually challenging themselves and getting better at their job. (Arzola, 2000)
Conclusion
This organization is yet to tap into the full resources available to them through workplace motivation. Current efforts are still basic in nature with too much emphasis given to extrinsic rewards. This incentive (of promotions) has not even been used properly as not all workers are responding positively to it. Furthermore, it has distracted members from performance since undue attention is given to potential routes of getting those incentives even through unethical means. Management philosophy in this company should therefore be re-oriented towards more intrinsic motivation rather than its current strategy.
References
- Reeve, J. (2009). Understanding motivation and emotion. (5th ed.). New York: Wiley.
- Arzola, Gil. (2000). Making a good team great, Across the board, 44-46