While one employee may complain about getting a low salary, another would prefer more recognition from his boss. Employees come with a number of demands that are often left unfulfilled. It is therefore, the duty of the managers to deal with it by meeting the needs of the employees as they are the biggest asset of every organization.
Employees have a number of motivational needs that directly affect their performance and level of retention at an organization. Since every worker has a different need based upon their life, motivation that comes from the inside of an employee plays an essential role in the progress of the company. Workers can be motivated via financial as well as non-financial means where each plays an equally important role in the success of the organization. A very old study shows that about 86% of the organizations greatly struggled in attracting new employees and out of these organizations, 58% met the challenge of retaining their workers. These figures still exist today reflecting the difficulty attached with retaining employees. Consequently, having 10 employees exit a company, the organization has to deal with a loss of over one million dollars. Not only this, the company also faces the loss of experience and expertise that is attached with their assets. As a matter of fact, this loss can easily be avoided by motivating employees. As a result, these employees will show greater organizational commitment because of their fulfilled needs. In this way, they will continue to perform better which will automatically help the company grow and excel. Thus, employees should be motivated to achieve their own personal goals as well as the organizational goals.
Since workers often feel like leaving the company or meet a dead end in their career, there is a dire need to look at the ways in which they can be motivated to work and perform better. Motivation refers to a task or motive that will make person act. In terms of a workplace environment, motivation is more directed to the inner driving force that makes individuals accomplish their personal as well as organizational goals. Scientists and scholars have studied the topic of motivation since long. When applied to a workplace environment, Abraham Maslow (1954) presents his theory of motivation by presenting a hierarchy of needs in the form of a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, are the basic and most important needs that are supposed to be met initially. Once the physiological need is met, individuals move up to the next level where security becomes more important for them. For instance, an individual without a secure job would not consider being valued at the workplace as more important. Instead, his willing desire to achieve security in form of insurance or retirement package will impact his performance at work. Managers must therefore, recognize and differentiate as to where does each and every employee stand on the hierarchy (Maslow, 1954). In this way, the accurate needs of the employees could be fulfilled. In contrast, Herzberg (1987) has presented his two-factor theory in which he talks about motivators that are the factors related to work, growth, achievement and recognition as compared to the hygiene factors that are dissatisfiers; salary, security, personal life, organizational policies and several other such facets. In other words, Herzberg’s (1987) theory of motivation distinguishes between the factors that cause job satisfaction and those that cause dissatisfaction. In other words, the presence of some factors dissatisfies the employees. These variables however, do not demotivate the workers. In addition, Herzberg (1987) proposed that in order to be motivated, an employee must have a completely enriched job, having an opportunity for growth, advancement and recognition. An employee can only be motivated if he personally feels responsible from the outcome of the job. In this manner, his personal as well as organizational goals would be met. To achieve motivation, managers must implement changes at the workplace by removing job controls from the work environment and giving employees more freedom and authority over their task. Employees can also be motivated when managers introduce difficult tasks and help them become experts in various fields.
Motivation is often characterized as intrinsic and extrinsic where both of them play a substantial role in motivating and retaining employees. While extrinsic motivation is linked to external factors related to the environment (such as pay), intrinsic motivators are more personal (such as career goals or to feed the family). For this reason, intrinsic motivation is based on personal satisfaction, achievement and pride. Therefore, in order to motivate an employee, the manager should aim at balancing between the extrinsic as well as intrinsic motivation. Since intrinsic motivation is connected to the psychological needs of self-worth and competency, it should be closely analyzed by the managers as different employees have different needs. Therefore, salary might act as an extrinsic motivator as compared to the recognition in terms of praise and medals that will be an example of intrinsic motivation. For this reason, they both go hand in hand (Gaziel, 1986).
Thus, since employees are the most important asset of a company who are directly associated the progress of the organization, retaining them becomes an important task. In order to achieve this, it is the duty of the manager to motivate the workers by meeting their financial and non-financial needs for the greater interest of the company.
REFERENCES
Gaziel, H. (1986). Correlates of job satisfaction: A study of the two factor theory in an
educational setting. The Journal of Psychology, 120(6), 613-626.
Herzberg, F. (1987). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review, 65(5), 109-120.
Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper
