Foundations of Employee Motivation

McGraw-Hill/IrwinMcShane/Von Glinow OB 5e Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Motivation Defined

The forces within a person that affect the direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary behavior

Exerting particular effort level (intensity), for a certain amount of time (persistence), toward a particular goal (direction).

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Employee Engagement

Emotional and cognitive motivation, self-efficacy to perform the job, a clear understanding of one’s role in the organization’s vision and a belief that one has the resources to perform the job

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Drives and Needs

Drives (aka-primary needs, fundamental needs, innate motives)• Neural states that energize individuals to correct deficiencies

or maintain an internal equilibrium• Prime movers of behavior by activating emotions

Self-concept, social norms,and past experience

Drives(primary needs)

Needs Decisions and Behavior

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Drives and Needs

Needs• Goal-directed forces that people experience. • Drive-generated emotions directed toward goals• Goals formed by self-concept, social norms, and experience

Self-concept, social norms,and past experience

Drives(primary needs)

Needs Decisions and Behavior

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Self-Self-actual-actual-izationization

PhysiologicalPhysiological

SafetySafety

BelongingnessBelongingness

EsteemEsteem

Seven categories capture most needs

Five categories placed in a hierarchy

Need toNeed toknowknow

Need for Need for beautybeauty

Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory

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Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory

Lowest unmet need has strongest effect

When lower need is satisfied, next higher need becomes the primary motivator

Self-actualization -- a growth need because people desire more rather than less of it when satisfied

Self-Self-actual-actual-izationization

PhysiologicalPhysiological

SafetySafety

BelongingnessBelongingness

EsteemEsteem

Need toNeed toknowknow

Need for Need for beautybeauty

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Evaluating Maslow’s Theory

Lack of support for theory

People have different hierarchies – don’t progress through needs in the same order

Needs change more rapidly than Maslow stated

Self-Self-actual-actual-izationization

PhysiologicalPhysiological

SafetySafety

BelongingnessBelongingness

EsteemEsteem

Need toNeed toknowknow

Need for Need for beautybeauty

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What Maslow Contributed to Motivation Theory

More holistic• Integrative view of needs

More humanistic• Influence of social

dynamics, not just instinct

More positivistic• Pay attention to strengths,

not just deficiencies

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What’s Wrong with Needs Hierarchy Models?

Wrongly assume that everyone has the same needs hierarchy (i.e. universal)

Instead, likely that each person has a unique needs hierarchy• Shaped by our self-concept --

values and social identity

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Learned Needs Theory

Needs are amplified or suppressed through self-concept, social norms, and past experience

Therefore, needs can be “learned” (i.e. strengthened or weakened through training)

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Three Learned Needs

Need for achievement• Need to reach goals, take responsibility • Want reasonably challenging goals

Need for affiliation• Desire to seek approval, conform to others wishes,

avoid conflict• Effective executives have lower need for social approval

Need for power• Desire to control one’s environment• Personalized versus socialized power

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Four-Drive Theory

Drive to BondDrive to Bond

Drive to LearnDrive to Learn

• Drive to form relationships and social commitments• Basis of social identity

• Drive to satisfy curiosity and resolve conflicting information

Drive to DefendDrive to Defend• Need to protect ourselves• Reactive (not proactive) drive• Basis of fight or flight

Drive to AcquireDrive to Acquire• Drive to take/keep objects and experiences• Basis of hierarchy and status

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Features of Four Drives

Innate and hardwired• everyone has them

Independent of each other• no hierarchy of drives

Complete set• no drives are excluded from the model

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How Four Drives Af fect Motivation

1. Four drives determine which emotions are automatically tagged to incoming information

2. Drives generate independent and often competing emotions that demand our attention

3. Mental skill set relies on social norms, personal values, and experience to transform drive-based emotions into goal-directed choice and effort

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Four Drive Theory of Motivation

Social norms, personal values, and experience transform drive-based emotions into goal-directed choice and effort

Drive to Acquire

Social norms

Drive to Bond

Drive to Learn

Drive to Defend

Personal values

Past experience

Mental skill set resolves competing drive demandsMental skill set resolves

competing drive demandsGoal-directed

choice and effortGoal-directed

choice and effort

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Implications of Four Drive Theory

Provide a balanced opportunity for employees to fulfil all four drives

• employees continually seek fulfilment of drives• avoid having conditions support one drive more

than others

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E-to-PExpectancy

P-to-OExpectancy

Outcomes& Valences

Outcome 1Outcome 1+ or -+ or -

EffortEffort PerformancePerformance

Outcome 3Outcome 3+ or -+ or -

Outcome 2Outcome 2+ or -+ or -

Expectancy Theory of Motivation

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Increasing E-to-P and P-to-O Expectancies

Increasing E-to-P Expectancies• Assuring employees they have competencies• Person-job matching • Provide role clarification and sufficient resources• Behavioral modeling

Increasing P-to-O Expectancies• Measure performance accurately• More rewards for good performance• Explain how rewards are linked to performance

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Increasing Outcome Valences

Ensure that rewards are valued

Individualize rewards

Minimize countervalent outcomes

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Making Every Day Count in NYC

New York City mayor Michael

Bloomberg has challenging goals

to accomplish, and he doesn’t

want any of his remaining tenure

wasted. Bloomberg had special

clocks installed in a dozen city

government offices that count

down how many days remain in

his mayoral term.

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Goal Setting

The process of motivating

employees and clarifying their role

perceptions by establishing

performance objectives

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Effective Goal Setting CharacteristicsSpecific -- measureable change within a time frame

Relevant – within employee’s control and responsibilities

Challenging – raise level of effort

Accepted (commitment) – motivated to accomplish the goal

Participative (sometimes) – improves acceptance and goal quality

Feedback – information available about progress toward goal

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Characteristics of Ef fective Feedback

1. Specific – connected to goal details

2. Relevant – Relates to person’s behavior

3. Timely – to improve link from behavior to outcomes

4. Sufficiently frequent• Employee’s knowledge/experience• task cycle

1. Credible – trustworthy source

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Feedback Through Strengths-Based Coaching

Maximizing the person’s potential by focusing on their strengths rather than weaknesses

Motivational because:• people inherently seek feedback about their

strengths, not their flaws• person’s interests, preferences, and competencies

stabilize over time

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Multisource (360-Degree) Feedback

Received from a full circle of people around the employee

Provides more complete and accurate information

Several challenges

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Evaluating Goal Setting and Feedback Goal setting has high validity and

usefulness Goal setting/feedback limitations:

• Focuses employees on measurable performance

• Motivates employees to set easy goals (when tied to pay)

• Goal setting interferes with learning process in new, complex jobs

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Keeping Pay Equitable at Costco

Costco Wholesale CEO Jim Sinegal

(shown in this photo) thinks the large

wage gap between many executives

and employees is blatantly unfair.

“Having an individual who is making

100 or 200 or 300 times more than

the average person working on the

floor is wrong,” says Sinegal, whose

salary and bonus are a much smaller

multiple of what his staff earn.

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Organizational Justice

Distributive justice• Perceived fairness in

outcomes we receive relative to our contributions and the outcomes and contributions of others

Procedural justice• Perceived fairness of the

procedures used to decide the distribution of resources

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• • EmotionsEmotions

• • AttitudesAttitudes

• • BehaviorsBehaviors

DistributionPrinciples Distributive Distributive

JusticeJusticePerceptionsPerceptions

Procedural Procedural JusticeJustice

PerceptionsPerceptions

StructuralRules

SocialRules

Organizational Justice Components

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Equity Theory

A theory explaining how people develop perceptions of fairness in the distribution and exchange of resources.

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Elements of Equity Theory

Outcome/input ratio • inputs -- what employee contributes (e.g., skill)• outcomes -- what employee receives (e.g., pay)

Comparison other• person/people against whom we compare our ratio• not easily identifiable

Equity evaluation• compare outcome/input ratio with the comparison

other

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Correcting Inequity Feelings

Reduce our inputs Less organizational citizenship

Increase our outcomes Ask for pay increase

Increase other’s inputs Ask coworker to work harder

Reduce other’s outputs Ask boss to stop giving other preferred treatment

Change our perceptions Start thinking that other’s perks aren’t really so valuable

Change comparison other Compare self to someone closer to your situation

Leave the field Quit job

Actions to correct inequity Example

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Equity Sensitivity

Outcome/input preferences and reaction to various outcome/input ratios

Benevolents• tolerant of being underrewarded

Equity Sensitives• want ratio to be equal to the comparison other

Entitleds• prefer proportionately more than others

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Evaluating Equity Theory

Good at predicting situations unfair distribution of pay/rewards

Difficult to put into practice• doesn’t identify comparison other• doesn’t indicate relevant inputs or outcomes

Equity theory explains only some feelings of fairness • procedural justice is as important as distributive

justice

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Procedural Justice

Perceived fairness of procedures used to decide the distribution of resources

Higher procedural fairness with:• Voice• Unbiased decision maker • Decision based on all information• Existing policies consistently• Decision maker listened to all sides• Those who complain are treated respectfully • Those who complain are given full explanation

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