In the given case study, my small manufacturing company is essentially attempting to increase the quality of our products in order to ensure faster delivery and streamline costs; at the same time, our sales are high. In order to achieve the goals that I must reach, an organization motivation plan must be created that ensures all workers have high job satisfaction, productivity and high-quality work, while also lessening turnover. Examining the situation, it is clear that the sales department itself does not necessarily need any changes in motivation, while the assembly, technology and administration departments do require an increase in motivation.
This motivation plan depends on creating an incentive program that will attract talented, efficient individuals into our administrative, assembly and technology departments, and to motivate people to work harder to achieve better outcomes in their work. In order to address the needs of the customer, we must address the needs of the departments in question; to that end, it is hoped that we would organize a sit-down meeting with all department heads to address the specific problems in product quality and shipping delays, as well as increased costs, to gather insight from the department as to their specific problems. The goal is to listen intently to our department heads and take their specific requests seriously, to make sure their needs are being met. Following that, we would craft an eight-week plan with actionable goals and rewards each week. If the assembly department meets its productivity goal for the week, it will be rewarded with active recognition for its efforts, in the form of small bonuses, public press recognition of our improved efforts, etc.
In order to fully actualize this motivation plan, all departments would have to be involved. As it stands, the major issues are assembly and technology; these departments would have to be extremely motivated to create higher quality products that are assembled more effectively. These departments’ goals would include paid bonuses and possibly recognition in press-related announcements regarding increases in productivity. Listening to them and doing what we could to provide them with the equipment, expertise, and outside help required to make these improved outcomes would be paramount. The sales department would also be included in the motivation plan; while they are meeting their goals, the idea is to treat them equally to others so as not to foster inter-department resentment and maintain the strong sales numbers we are receiving.
Smaller, incremental increases in sales goals will be given as goals to achieve, motivated by similar bonuses or other material and emotional reinforcement. With the help of this basic framework of a motivation plan, it is hoped to address the customer’s problems with our products and become a more productive company.
There are two methods I can use to provide motivation for all employees in the organization. The first (and most important) intended method is total quality management, or TQM, which is "driven by the constant attainment of customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational process" (Robbins 2001, p. 17). In essence, in order to accommodate the needs of the customers, it is necessary to streamline everyone’s role in the selling, creating and assembling of our widgets. By making our approach as comprehensive and continuous as possible, we can continue to improve to meet the needs of our customers. This can be done through the aforementioned department-wide and company-wide meetings, allowing all departments to know each others’ specific goals, to solidify the impression that all members are working together to achieve greater results rather than one department feeling they are being exploited or picked on.
Secondly, another method that can be used to offer motivation for everyone involved is the use of high-performance work practices (HPWS) (Evans and Davis, 2005). Here, a number of HR practices are used to increase the performance and efficiency of employees, including offering more training and compensation for all employees involved in the company. Foremost among HPWS are incentive-based initiatives that will make employees feel more involved in the company; employees may be trained or familiarized with how all aspects and departments of the company work, which gives them greater commitment to the success and goals of the organization.
In my organization, I have many minimum wage service workers who require motivation in order to achieve these goals and ensure high productivity. In order to do so, I must use the equity motivation theory to develop three ways to motivate them to provide the high-quality work we desire from our employees. When I have many workers working at different levels of income and compensation, it can be easy for them to become discouraged and stratified. However, with the use of equity motivation, we can successfully make these minimum wage servers feel like an equal part of the company.
In order to employ equity theory for this subset of workers, the minimum wage workers will be given the same level of bonuses during this period of change management for meeting their goals as those workers in other departments or higher pay grades (Spector, 2008). For example, if the meeting of organizational goals in a certain week leads to a 5% bonus, this will apply to everyone on all levels. In this way, no upper-level management will be taking a bigger percentage of the bonus than the lower-level workers, which further unites them in purpose. Everyone has to work together equally in order to receive the equal 5% bonus, or whatever incentive is created for a given week.
In today’s organizations, the individual worker could not be more important. Organizations are becoming more streamlined and smaller, with technology and automation requiring fewer people to handle as many tasks as possible. The rise of small companies is also making it necessary for individual workers to take on multiple tasks, thus making the welfare and needs of these individuals even more vital than ever. When keeping this in mind, it is crucial to remember the individual differences in wants and needs that our employees have; some people are motivated by money, others wish for recognition and clout within the company, and still others wish for a combination of the two (or just various other motivations not easily categorized).
Individual stresses and concerns can halt or severely effect production or productivity in many more ways today, given individuals’ greater responsibilities and sense of autonomy. The added proliferation of electronic workplaces and work-from-home situations also require a greater sense of immediate communication, which can be more immediately avoided when a worker does not have a physical presence in a workplace. To that end, it is doubly important to check in and meet individual workers’ needs in order to motivate them to do their jobs and perform well.
References
Evans WR & Davis WD (2005). High-performance work systems and organizational
performance: The mediating role of internal social structure. Journal of Management, 31(5), 758-775.
Robbins, S. P. (2001). Organizational Behavior [University of Phoenix Custom Edition]. New
Jersey: Pearson Custom Publishing.
Spector, P.E. (2008). Industrial and Organizational Behavior (5th ed.). Wiley: Hoboken, NJ.
