- Use goals and feedback.Employees should have hard, specific goals, as well as
feedback on how well they are faring in pursuit of those goals. - Allow employees to participate in decisions that affect them.Employees can con-
tribute to a number of decisions that affect them: setting work goals, choosing
their own benefits packages, solving productivity and quality problems, and
the like. This can increase employee productivity, commitment to work goals,
motivation, and job satisfaction. - When giving rewards, be sure that they are clearly related to the performance
desired.It is important that employees perceive a clear link between rewards
and the type of performance expected. How closely rewards are actuallycor-
related to performance criteria is less important than the perceptionof this
relationship. If individuals perceive that there is little relation between the
performance desired and the rewards they receive, the results will be low
performance, a decrease in job satisfaction, and an increase in turnover and
absenteeism. - Check the system for equity.Employees should be able to perceive rewards as
matching the inputs they bring to the job. At a simplistic level, this means that
experience, skills, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs should explain dif-
ferences in performance and, hence, pay, job assignments, and other obvious
rewards.
SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS
1 What is motivation?Motivation is the process that accounts for an individual’s
intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward reaching a goal. Intensityis
concerned with how hard a person tries. This is the element most of us focus on
when we talk about motivation. However, high intensity is unlikely to lead to
good job performance unless the effort is channelled in a useful direction.Finally,
the effort requires persistence.
2 How do needs motivate people? All needs theories of motivation, including
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Alderfer’s ERG theory, McClelland’s theory of needs,
and Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory (sometimes called the two-factor the-
ory) propose a similar idea: Individuals have needs that will result in motivation.
Needs theories suggest that motivation will be high to the degree that the rewards
individuals receive for high performance satisfy their dominant needs.
3 Are there other ways to motivate people? Process theories focus on the
broader picture of how someone can set about motivating another individual.
Process theories include expectancy theory and goal-setting theory. Expectancy the-
ory says that an employee will be motivated to exert a high level of effort when
he or she believes (1) that the effort will lead to good performance; (2) that
good performance will lead to organizational rewards, such as a bonus, a salary
increase, or a promotion; and (3) that the rewards will satisfy his or her per-
sonal goals.
Goal-setting theory suggests that intentions to work toward a goal are a major
source of work motivation. That is, goals tell an employee what needs to be done
and how much effort will need to be expended. Specific goals increase perform-
ance; difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher performance than do easy
goals; and feedback leads to higher performance than does nonfeedback.Chapter 4Motivating Self and Others 139SNAPSHOT SUMMARY1 Defining Motivation
2 Needs Theories of
Motivation
Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs Theory
ERG Theory
McClelland’s Theory of
Needs
Motivation-Hygiene Theory
Summarizing Needs
Theories
Needs Theories in the
Workplace
3 Process Theories of
Motivation
Expectancy Theory
Goal-Setting Theory
4 Responses to the
Reward System
Equity Theory
Fair Process and Treatment
Cognitive Evaluation Theory
Increasing Intrinsic
Motivation