Motivation.

Motivation.

Motivation looks at the specific needs or expectations of an individual resulting in a behaviour or action to achieve their desired goal, as a result of this achievement they feel fulfilled.

There are a number of content theories looking at motivation including Abraham Maslow, which I believe I can most easily relate to.

Maslow published his hierarchy of needs in 1954 which identifies five levels of needs.  

“A satisfied need is not a motivator. The most powerful employee need is the one that has not been satisfied.”  Beardwell J & Claydon T (2007)

Physiological Needs – These are basic human needs, which include food, water and shelter. An organisation meets this basic needs using financial reward, i.e. PAY.

Safety Needs – This looks at how secure you feel in your job, your contract and job satisfaction.

Social Needs – This level is about you making friends at work, and having a sense of belonging.

Esteem needs - This level is about the individual feeling confident in their decisions, achievement, status and responsibility.

Self-Actualisation – This is when you have reached the top, you have achieved personal growth and fulfilment.

I can relate to this theory as I believe I have travelled up through the layers of the hierarchy whilst working, however I have never reached the top level and this is something I still need and want to achieve.

I decided to take a year out to work, with no intention of starting a degree, however during this year I learnt that to achieve my personal growth I needed to take the step of starting and fulfilling my potential by doing a degree. As a result, this is what will keep me motivated to attain high grades over the next 3 years and will help me meet the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I believe my needs as a student to stay motivated are intrinsic, this means that they are from within, therefore by having a sense of achievement, having learned something and the challenge of doing a degree is what will keep me motivated rather than extrinsic needs which I will meet using my part time job whilst studying.

I am currently living at home for the period of my degree so my physiological needs are met easily, I am happy with the contract of three years for my degree and feel secure and I’m currently on the social needs level as I have made some good friends already and am starting to feel like I belong. I understand as time goes on I will progress further and at the end of the 3 years I should have fulfilled my self-actualisation.

Unfortunately as good as it is to feel motivated; there is a time when I was working when I was highly de-motivated for different reasons. I will use different theories to try and help you understand why I felt this way, the first theory being Herzberg’s two factor theory.

Hygiene Factors	Motivators
Company policy & Admin	Interest in the work itself
Supervision	Recognition for achievement
Working Conditions	Personal growth
Salary	Achievement
Status	Responsibility
Relationships	Advancement

“I found that what made people unhappy was related to their job environment, what I called hygiene factors... what makes people happy is what they do or the way they’re used.” Frederick Herzberg (1971) Interview in management review.

Another reason that I wanted to start university was because I was very de-motivated in my previous job, working for Barclays as a Cashier. One of the things making me unhappy was my working conditions, there was something wrong with each of the tills, making each person’s job just a little bit more difficult. Although I knew my salary wasn’t very good when I started, I was contracted to be doing 9-5 each day, although I wasn’t leaving until six o’clock most days and was expected to always arrive before eight thirty. This was most frustrating as I had been forced to move branches, which was already further away, and they refused to pay me overtime or give my time back, even though in my contract it states they have to, and I was receiving toil in previous branches. It was like fighting a losing battle against the management. In the 3 months I worked in the Aylesbury branch I received no recognition for being the only cashier without a till error in July, let alone the whole 3 months I was there, and after having working there a year I started to find the job tedious and lose interest in the work itself. 

All of these different factors lead me to be deeply unhappy and de-motivated, however without them I wouldn’t have the motivation to be at university and achieving what I know I am capable of, therefore in the end it has worked out well for me and the experience of working for a year has taught me so many things and been very valuable. As you can see, my place of work wasn’t meeting either side of Herzberg’s two factor theory and you can see how it led me to be de-motivated.

David McClelland is the last motivation theorist I am going to talk about. McClelland’s acquired needs theory looks at three different needs. These include Achievement, Affiliation and Power.

High need for achievement – These individuals like to succeed and either prefer to do it alone or with other high achievers. They need regular feedback in order to monitor their progress, although money is not an important motivator it is an effective form of feedback.

High need for Affiliation – These individuals perform best when they are in a cooperative environment. They enjoy strong relationships with other colleagues and need to feel accepted by others. They thrive when working in customer service and client interaction situations.

High need for Power – A person’s need for power can be of two types – personal or institutional. Personal power is the want to direct others. Institutional power is the want to organise others to achieve the goals of the organisation.

In my previous jobs I have found that I personally have a high need for institutional power. I thrive when I have the challenge of organising other people and feel highly motivated when we achieve our objectives together. For example when I was waitress and I was in charge of the team I enjoyed making sure everyone came together so we ran smoothly throughout the day, there were no complaints and customers were happy. As a result of this we all made good tips which was extra money in our pockets for everyone and my boss would be impressed with the way I had managed the team.

In conclusion, you can see how important it is that individuals feel motivated. Looking at the different theories you can understand how and why it is that you are motivated yourself and what helps push you to achieve better. Staff are invaluable and it is highly important that organisations understand what works for each one of their employees in order to run effectively. 

References.

Mullins, J. (2010) Management & organisational behaviour. 9^th ed. Essex: Financial Times Pitman Publishing.

Net MBA. (2002) McClelland’s theory of needs [online] Available from http://www.netmba.com [Accessed 11^th October 2010]

Tutor2U. Motivation in theory [online]. Available from http://www.tutor2u.net [Accessed 11 October 2010]