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IV. WHAT CURRENT MOTIVATION ISSUES DO MANAGERS FACE?
A. How Can Managers Motivate Employees When the Economy Stinks?
1. Tough economic times leave companies with tight budgets, minimal or no pay
raises, benefit cuts, no bonuses, long hours doing the work of those who had been
laid off. As conditions worsen, employee confidence, optimism, and job
engagement plummet as well.
2. During these times, managers have to be creative in keeping their employees’
efforts energized, directed, and sustained toward achieving goals.
3. Suggestions that involve little (or no money) include:
a) Holding meetings with employees to keep the lines of communication open
and to get their input on issues.
b) Establishing a common goal, such as maintaining excellent customer service,
to keep everyone focused.
c) Creating a community feel so employees could see that managers cared about
them and their work.
d) Giving employees opportunities to continue to learn and grow.
e) Encouraging words.
B. How Does Country Culture Affect Motivation Efforts?
1. In today’s global business environment, managers can’t automatically assume that
motivational programs that work in one geographic location are going to work in
others.
a) Most contemporary motivation theories were developed in the United States by
Americans and about Americans – strong emphasis on individualism and
achievement.
2. Maslow’s Hierarchy
a) Maslow’s need hierarchy argues that people start at the physiological level and
then move progressively up the hierarchy in order. This hierarchy aligns with
American culture.
b) In more collectivist nations—such as Japan, Greece, and Mexico—security
needs would be on top of the needs hierarchy.
c) Countries that score high on nurturing characteristics (Denmark and Sweden)
would have social needs on top.
3. The need-for-achievement concept also has a U.S. bias.
a) It presupposes the existence of two cultural characteristics: a willingness to
accept a moderate degree of risk and a concern with performance.
b) These characteristics would exclude countries with high uncertainty avoidance
scores and high quality-of-life ratings.
4. Several recent studies among employees in other countries indicate that some
aspects of motivation theory are transferable.
a) The desire for interesting works seems important to almost all workers.
b) Growth, achievement, and responsibility are also important across cultures.
C. How Can Managers Motivate Unique Groups of Workers?
1. Motivating a diverse workforce:
a) Flexibility is the key to maximizing motivation among today’s diversified work
force.
b) Studies show that men place considerably more importance on autonomy in
their jobs than women do.
c) The opportunity to learn, convenient work hours, and good interpersonal
relations are more important to women than to men.
d) What motivates a single mother with two dependent children working full-time
may be very different from the needs of a young, single, part-time worker, or
the older employee.
e) Employees have different personal needs and goals they’re hoping to satisfy
through their jobs.
2. Motivating Professionals:
a) Professionals are typically different from nonprofessionals.
(1) They have a strong and long-term commitment to their field of expertise.
(2) Their commitment to their profession means they rarely define their
workweek in terms of nine-to-five or five days a week.
b) Money and promotions into management typically are low on their priority list.
c) Job challenge tends to be ranked high.
(1) They like to tackle problems and find solutions.
(2) Their chief reward in their job is the work itself.
(3) They value support.
(4) They want others to think that what they are working on is important.
3. Motivating Contingent Workers:
a) Contingent workers are part-time, contract, and other forms of temporary
workers due to organizations eliminating workers, downsizing, and
restructuring.
b) They can be motivated:
(1) with the opportunity of permanent employment
(2) training opportunities
Technology and the Manager's Job – Individualized Rewards
Organizations have historically assumed that “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to allocating
rewards. Managers typically assumed that everyone wants more money and more vacation time.
But as organizations become less bureaucratic and more capable of differentiating rewards,
managers will be encouraged to differentiate rewards among employees as well as for individual
employees over time.
Organizations control a vast number of potential rewards that employees might find appealing.
A partial list would include increased pay, bonuses, shortened workweeks, extended vacations,
and so on. The latest twist in employee rewards comes through the use of social networking,
mobile accessibility, and gamification—applying typical aspects of game playing to other areas
of activity especially in a work setting—giving employees the opportunity to earn ongoing
“badges” or “honors.” These types of reward programs have the potential to engage and inspire
employees. In the future, most organizations will structure individual reward packages in ways
that will maximize employee motivation.
Discuss This:
What are the positive aspects of having individualized rewards? (Think in terms of employees
and managers.)
What are the negative aspects of having individualized rewards? (Again think in terms of
employees and managers.)
D. How Can Managers Design Appropriate Rewards Programs?
1. Employee rewards programs play a powerful role in motivating appropriate
employee behavior.
2. How Can Open-Book Management Programs Motivate Employees?
a) Open-book management is a motivational approach in which an
organization’s financial statements (the “books”) are shared with all
employees.
b) Organizations share information so that employees will be motivated to make
better decisions about their work and better able to understand the implications
of what they do, how they do it, and the ultimate impact on the bottom line.
3. How Can Managers Use Employee Recognition?
a) Employee recognition programs consist of personal attention and expressions
of interest, approval, and appreciation for a job well done.
b) A survey found that 84 percent of organizations had some type of program to
recognize worker achievements.
c) Consistent with reinforcement theory, rewarding a behavior with recognition
immediately following that behavior is likely to encourage its repetition.
4. How Can Managers Use Pay-For-Performance to Motivate Employees?
a) Forty percent of employees see no clear link between performance and pay.
b) Pay for-performance programs pay employees on the basis of some
performance measures such as piece-rate plans, gain sharing, wage incentive
plans, profit sharing, and lump-sum bonuses.
c) Performance-based compensation is probably most compatible with
expectancy theory.
d) Pay-for-performance programs are gaining in popularity in organizations.
Some 80 percent of large U.S. companies have some form of variable pay plan.
e) Making some or all of a worker’s pay conditional on performance measures
focuses his or her attention and effort on that measure, then reinforces the
continuation of that effort with rewards. However, if the employee, team, or the
organization’s performance declines, so too does the reward.
f) Employees must clearly understand how performance translates into dollars on
their paychecks.
5. Final Note on Employee Rewards Programs.
a) During times of economic and financial uncertainty, managers’ abilities to
recognize and reward employees are often severely constrained.
b) Managers can maintain and even increase employee motivation by:
(1) Clarifying each person's role in the organization.
(2) Keeping open lines of communication and two-way exchanges between
top-level managers and employees.
