Evaluation Of Two Early Theories Of Motivation And Their Applicability In Today`S Management

Introduction

In this era of globalization and liberalization, employees are becoming the competitive advantage for business. A business may manage with mediocre employees but competent employees can propel an average business to greater heights. Likewise, bad employees can cause flourishing business empires to collapse. In a tight labour market, keeping good employees and developing employee loyalty becomes increasingly important and a continuing challenge. Nowadays it is quite challenging to get the right people for the job is very hard.

Motivation

Motivation is a way of creating high level of enthusiasm to reach organizational goals, and this situation is accommodated by satisfying some individual need. Basically, motivation refers to achieving organizational main goals by satisfying individual employee’s needs or demands.

Theories of motivation

Motivational theory is tasked with discovering what drives individuals to work towards goal or outcome. Businesses are interested in motivational theory because motivated individuals are more productive, leading to more economic use of resource.

To manage is to forecast, plan, organize, compound, coordinate and control. (Henry Foyol). According to Harold Koonz, he defined management as the art of getting things done through and within a formal organization. Management is also defined as the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the efforts of organizational members and of using all other organizational resources to achieve stated organizational goals. Hence management may be viewed as what managers does in a formal organization to achieve the objectives.

Early motivational theories, combine both the economic and human side of production. Motivation entails the forces internal or external to an individual that arouse interest and commitment to purse a certain course of action.

1. Maslow Hierarchy of needs

Maslow Hierarchy of needs is one of the best known motivation theories in the world. He is the good starting point to start examining the different motivational theories. Maslow starts with the idea that people always tend to want something and what they want depend on what they already have. He proposed that there are five different levels of needs people have to seek for satisfaction of their basic needs

Maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid:

• Self Actualisation
• Ego/ self esteem
• Social Needs
• Security/ safety
• Physiological needs.

Physiological Needs

These are the basic needs for survival which includes, clothing, air, food, shelter, water and sex. When clothing are fulfilled a person does not have any other needs, when people do not feel hunger, thirst of cold, their needs will go to the next or second level on the Hierarchy.

• Application of physiological needs in today`s management

Managers of organizations should provide employees with, enough time to eat. At every organization there should be time for breakfast and lunch where employees will go out and refresh whilst having having more time to eat and interact with others.

Also managers need to make sure that there is proper shelter for their employees, and also to ensure that there are well ventilated offices/workshops, in order to provide a conducive environment for the employees Clean water and subsidized food. This is one of the most important physiological needs. Clean water of running water must be adequate in an organization, this is because helps the managers to prevent some of the contaminated diseases in an organization where there are many people of different kind, and their good healthy is of greater importance in that organization, as it helps to avoid unnecessary disruptions which may decrease the productivity of an organization.

More so, managers must help their employees to have access to basic commodities. Lack of these basic commodities to one of the employees may affect the whole of the organization because, some might come to without eating anything and he or she is required to carry out duties which will be requiring lots of energy, here we can see that the worker will not perform to the expectations, the reason being that he have not eat anything to provide him with strength, hence performance and productivity might be reduced.

Security/ safety needs.

Safety or security needs refers to the needs that make an individual feel secure in an environment that he or she works in. At this level a person needs to feel secure in his or her family and in the society, and also feel protected against violence. The need for safety is manifested with job security, savings and or insurance of health, mental health, old age disability. Application to motivate employees through safety needs, managers should ensure the following in their employees.

• Contract signing

Contract signing binds the employer and the employee, by so doing it then strengthens the relationship between these two parties. Employees feels a sense of belonging to the organization, since managers cannot just wake up n retrench people but to give them for example a tree months’ notice before retrenched. If managers temper or breach the contract employees will have the right to go and report them to labour authorities.

• Training and retraining of workers

When people are trained they feel that they are more like assets to the company. This gives them motivation because they feel also a sense of belonging as the company cannot dare or just loose them like that. Training and retraining of workers is also of greater important because as company keep on investing in them in the form of imparting them with knowledge and the necessary skills related to their work, as a result people will be eager to perform as expected.

• Provision of protective clothing

At a work place where employees are given protective clothing, they make them feels happy they can tell that managers do really care about their overall health. A happy employee always performs better. For example at CUT workers are given protective clothing, meaning that they will work at their maximum best as they know that there are less chances to get hurt as they are protected. Another example is of Lafarge cement company, they also offer they employees with protective clothing, and due to the fact that cement production produces many or too much toxins which harm health, it will not be of much impact to these people as they are protected from inhaling those toxins hence they work will go well.

• Medical Aid provision

These are health facilities that employees are given by the organisation to go to the hospitals or surgery for diagnosis whenever they feel like or when they feel that they are not well. It act as a motivation to employees as they families might also be covered on the same medical aid facility.

Social needs

Love and belonging needs is the third level of Maslow`s hierarchy. Social needs states that managers ought to understand the society. As a result of doing that they need to understand individual employees` socialization. This mean that, after feeling secure, people need to feel that they receive and given love, they are appreciated and they have good friendships.

• Encourage members to join social clubs

Social clubs helps employees to refresh and think other things not about work only, as life is not about work but also about other things. Mingle with different people gives a better mind as people will be sharing lots of things and their different experiences. Also the management should provide transport for sporting activities Encourage employees to go on annual leave.

Employees social life will be increased due to these leave, since people will have more time to spend with their family and friends and will help to increase their social life.

• Allow lunch time prayers

Human beings are not animal, they need their private time with God, so as a manager should give people that room to have their private and personal life with their Maker whilst they are at work place.

Esteem/ Ego needs

Esteem needs refers to an individual assessment in terms of value. A person feels inspired to work when he or she is valued more than others in a group. Esteem boosters may include promotions, awards and innovations.

It also refers to the need t be unique with self-respect and enjoy esteem from other individuals. People mostly wants to evaluate themselves highly and based on the their achievement receive appreciation from other people. Lack of these needs may cause inferiority, helplessness and weakness.

• Improve working environment with modern facilities

Work place should always be an enjoyable place, where people can even favour to go to work than spending the whole day at their homes.

• Provide institutional housing and loans to buy assets

Companies should provide housing, for employees and loans to buy assert gives employees that they are trusted and that the not feel insure whilst among others.

• Provide holiday packages

Annual holidays are good to people in the organization as their esteem is boosted when they are payed to go out with their loved ones to refresh whilst outside the work.

Self-Actualization

This is a situation whereby one feels that he or she has done the best, has reached the climax of all his needs. The development of this need is based on the satisfaction at the other four lower levels. Thus, it refers to the need of self-fulfillment and to the tendency to become actualized in what he has potential. The core of this theory lies in that, when one need is fulfilled, its strength diminishes and the strength of the next level increases. Maslow does not note that one level f needs does not have to be totally fulfilled before a person moves to the level.

• Promote the promotable
• Fund and encourage innovative employees
• Put in place career development plans for personal and academic growth to enable employees reach their full potential.

Criticism

Maslow`s Hierarchy is criticized since it states that peoples` need follows the hierarchy, of which this is not always the case with everyone, also it states that one stage at a time of which its difficulty to measure say this we have completed one stage and now we are going to the next stage. The hierarchy is not the same to everyone as it assumes, different people have different destinations. More over to say Self-actualization in everything is questionable. Humans needs and wants can never be satisfied.

2. Fredrick Herzberg Two factor theory

Herzberg two factor theory is also known as motivation/ hygiene theory. It was proposed by psychologist Fredrick Herzberg when he invested the question “what do people want for their job”?. He asked people to describe in detail situation which explains good or bad about their job. The basis of Herzberg’s work is in the Maslow`s Hierarchy of Needs. He started with the idea that what causes the job satisfaction are the opposite of those things that cause job dissatisfaction. He conducted a survey where he asked participants to identify those things that made them feel positive with their job and those that made them feel negative. These responses were tabulated and categorised into two that is, intrinsic seem to be related to job satisfies and extrinsic factors which are dissatisfies.

As a result Herzberg found out that what makes people happy is what they do or the way they’re utilized and what makes people unhappy is the way they’re treated. Things that make people satisfied at work are different from those that cause dissatisfaction, so those two feelings can’t be opposite. Removing dissatisfaction characteristics from a job does not make it satisfying.

Job satisfaction factors are separate and distinct from job dissatisfying factors, hence managers who eliminate job dissatisfaction factors may not necessarily bring about motivation. Based on these findings Herzberg created his theory of Motivators and Hygiene factors. Both factors can motivate workers but they work for different reasons. Hygiene factors tend to cause only short-term satisfaction to the workers while motivators most probably cause longer-term job satisfaction.

Motivators

Motivators, or satisfiers, are those factors that cause feelings of satisfaction at work. These factors motivate by changing the nature of the work. They challenge a person to develop their talents and fulfill their potential. For example adding responsibility to work and providing learning opportunities to a person to work at a higher level can lead to a positive performance growth in every task a person is expected to do if the possible poor results are related to boredom of the task they are supposed to accomplish. Motivators are those that come from intrinsic feelings. In addition to responsibility and learning opportunities also recognition, achievement, advancement and growth are motivation factors. These factors don’t dissatisfy if they are not present but by giving value to these, satisfaction level of the employees is most probably going to grow.

Hygiene Factors

Hygiene factors, or dissatisfiers, are those that the employee expects to be in good condition. As motivators are those that at present cause satisfaction, hygiene factors are those that don’t cause satisfaction but if they are lacking, it causes job dissatisfaction. Salaries or wages must be equivalent to those salaries that other people in the same industry or geographical area get. The status of the person must be recognized and maintained. Employees must feel that their job is as secured as it is possible in the current economic situation. The working conditions should be clean, sufficiently lit and safe in other way. Sufficient amount of fringe benefits like health, pension and child care must be provided and compensation in general equivalent to the amount of work done. Policies and administrative practices such as flex hours, dress code, vacation schedules and other scheduling affect workers and should be run efficiently. These factors relate to the content of the work and if they are in proper form, it tends to eliminate job dissatisfaction. The main finding of Herzberg is that the opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction but no satisfaction.

Criticism of the theory

The procedure used by Herzberg is limited by its methodology. The reliability of Herzberg theory methodology is questionable. No overall measure of satisfaction was utilized. Herzeberg assumed a relationship between satisfaction and productivity but the research methodology used focused only on satisfaction and not productivity.

Conclusion

Although Herzberg's paradigm of hygiene and motivating factors and Maslow's hierarchy of needs may still have broad applicability in the business world, at least one aspect of each, salary as a hygiene factor (Herzberg) and esteem as a lower order need than self-actualization (Maslow), does not seem to hold in the case of elementary and secondary schoolteachers. These findings may begin to explain why good teachers are being lost to other, higher paying positions and to help administrators focus more closely on the esteem needs of teachers, individually and collectively.