a) Discourses in the Text What Really Motivates Employees
Motivation helps in ensuring smooth working in the organization. When employees are motivated properly, the company becomes capable of adopting the change and ensuring innovation. Motivation of right employee helps in doing work in right manner. In the text various methods of motivating employees are described. It is explained that in order to motivate employees there should be recruiting minimums such as working conditions, security of job, and pay, they are necessary for improving the performance of the employees. Without these, the expected performance of the employees cannot be achieved. The organizations should not motivate employees by making them conscious and inducing fear in them regarding losing the job. The employees who work with the fear of losing job are less motivated, and show poor performance. The organizations should try to enhance the creativity of the employees because they are motivated when they feel that their creative aspects are utilized in the work (Sundheim, 2013).
Considering the creativity of employees is a significant and stronger driver for motivation of employees. The employees are not much motivated by the monetary rewards because monetary rewards just play their role in suppressing the creativity and unique approach of employees. Monetary gains just play their role in taking the important element out of the job. The employees are also motivated when they are allowed to search for the challenges so that they can utilize their skills and capabilities, and these challenges are also useful as they help the employees to learn more and explore the facts.
The organization should avoid imposition of a lot of laws, regulations, formal processes, and rules if they want to motivate employees in an effectual manner. This is because imposition of several rules, regulations, and laws hinder the capability of the organization to motivate the employees; the employees should be given some autonomy so that they can accomplish the work in an effectual manner.
The text also indicates that the organizations should avoid low compensation because it hinders the performance as well as motivation, and paves the way to the creation of the revengeful employees. When the employees consider and feel that they are not paid sufficiently, they will shift their concentration to the situation in which injustice was done. The external incentives do not play significant role in motivating employees, rather it is the self-esteem that helps in the motivation of employees. The employees feeling a sense of self-esteem while doing the job are more motivated. Punishment and reward also play an important role in motivating employees.
The organizations should not focus too much on paying high as reward for good performance because paying more leads to low performance of employees. The employees should be paid fairly so that they are motivated effectively and generate more output. The text has also made it clear that the employees who give importance to the passion instead of power, money, and status are the one that can help an organization for maintaining competitive advantage in future.
b) Alternative Options
There are many alternative options for motivating the employees. The monetary incentives do not play significant role in motivation of the employees. The employees can be motivated by communicating with them. The leaders should communicate with the employees so that the employees consider that they are valued, and their leaders have genuine and real interest in them, which will ultimately pave the way to improved performance of the employees. Open communication should be encouraged in the organization. The employees should be given promotion when they meet their goals that are specified to them. Promotion plays a significant role in motivating employees. They should be allowed to work in the form of teams because this will help them to develop associations, and they are motivated to work more effectively. They should be provided feedback for their accomplishment, and it should be tried that positive feedback is given to them so that they are motivated to improve their performance and accomplish their assigned task.
Further, they should be given training so that they can develop necessary skills that will help them to perform their duty in more effectual manner. Provision of training and development opportunity plays an important role because the employees considers that the employer have a care and affection for them. This consideration motivates the employee, and he work hard in order to meet the strategic objective of the organization. Further, in order to motivate employees flexibility should be ensured in the organizations. The employees should be facilitated with the flexible working hours. The provision of the flexible hours of working helps in the creation of positive image in the eyes of employees which is effective for motivating the employees. The management of an organization needs to acknowledge the work of employees.
The acknowledgement of work plays a significant role in motivating the employees, and in improving the job performance of the employees. The encouragement of health of employees also paves the way to the motivation of employees. The organization should give importance to the health of employee, and should give them discounts if they wish to join gym and go to quality food cafe. The organization should try to create a learning and creative environment for the employees where they can freely use their skills in order to produce an innovative product. They should be given such as environment where they feel that the environment is in accordance with their personalities and skills, and is best suited for them.
Furthermore, the organization should try to align the business goals of the organization with the personal goals of employees so that employees are motivated in an effectual manner via the organizational change (Finney, 2008). The employees who properly understand the goals of the business work harder in order to achieve those goals. So, organizations should reduce their focus on the monetary incentives and should try to provide and encouraging environment and ensure proper communication with the employees in order to obtain maximum output from employees that helps in improving the performance of the organization.
c) Considering the above mentioned facts, it might be considered that there is no significant role of monetary incentives and benefits for the motivation of employees in the organization. The employees do not need any kind of monetary benefits from employer because they are not motivated by such incentives. It might be considered from the above mentioned facts that the employees want to get respect from their leaders, they want to get appreciation for their work, because they are motivated by the appreciation and respect. They consider that the work acknowledgment is essential because it helps in realizing that their leaders like their work, and in this way they are further motivated to achieve their targets. The lack of communication between higher management and employees is indicative of the fact that higher management does not give value to the employees and they do not want to involve them in decision making process, which paves the way to the discouragement of the employees.
But, it is also a fact that there are many employees in organizations who work hard for getting increment in their salaries because they have to serve their families. So, monetary benefits and incentives are also significant for the employees, and they also play their role in motivating employees. The provision of the monetary incentives helps the employees in excelling in their field and achieving growth at individual level. Provision of monetary incentives also motivates employees because employee needs money for fulfilling their needs (Mukherjee, 2005). Provision of the monetary bonuses and increment in salary is also effective because it helps in improving the productivity of employees. It is also essential to keep employees happy in addition to motivate them. So, the monetary benefits help in making employees happy. The secret of good performance of an organization lies in keeping employees happy. So, monetary incentives play significant role in this regard. It is very difficult to motivate an unhappy employee, so in order to motivate employees and keep them happy monetary incentives are also important in an organization.
Succinctly, acknowledgement of employees, focus on training, and provision of workplace amenities, training, positive feedback, recognition and acknowledgment of employees all play very important role in organization for motivating employees. Because, these factors make employees think positively that their employer acknowledge them and their work, so they feel motivated, and try their level best to further improve their performance and work for the benefit of the organization.
References
Finney, M.I. (2008). Building High-Performance People and Organizations. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group
Mukherjee, S. (2005). Organisation & Management and Business Communication. Bangalore: New Age Internationa
Sundheim, K. (2013). What Really Motivates Employees? Forbes. Available Online
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensundheim/2013/11/26/what-really-motivates-employees/ [Accessed: 29th June 2015]
